6: Narration
- Page ID
- 223011
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In this chapter, you will learn how to:
- Brainstorm and plan a Narrative paper with purpose
- Structure and write a meaningful Narrative paper
Being able to find the right words and phrases to convey feeling, emotion, empathy, and connection when sharing experiences in a narrative passage or essay elevates your writing and moves it to the level of genuine drama. When you learn to generate narrative tension through the use of the rhetorical modes (even if it is in terms of reflection and retrospection), you will have the ability to draw your reader into the essay and bring them along with you as they read. At times, a work you are writing will be completely and appropriately narration. In this situation you will want to show, rather than tell. At other times, you will want to capture your readers’ attention, draw them in and hook them with your narrative voice at the beginning of an essay prior to moving towards a more formal tone. Either way, mastering the techniques of the narrative voice is a crucial skill that will serve you well.
One of the most common examples of narratives are personal statements of intention that are used to capture the attention of scholarship committee review boards or committees as they decide who to accept (or reject) to universities. The most profound (and heart-wrenching) personal narratives I have ever read was one by a young man who was speaking at his father’s funeral. It was moving, beautiful, funny, sad beyond words, and evocative as he told simple stories of a life well lived that ended way too soon. The best narrative essays have the reader hooked at the title and do not let the reader go until long after the last word is read; that is what this essay did. Think about what you have just read; you are imagining what you would write, what you would say if you had to write the same tribute to your own father. That is what you want to leave a reader with after reading a narrative essay. “What if I were writing my own narrative story? How or what would I say to tell this story?”