6.1: Establishing Purpose for a Narration Essay

Narration means the art of storytelling, and the purpose of narrative writing is to tell stories. Any time you tell a story to a friend or family member about an event or incident in your day, you engage in a form of narration. Consider the stories you tell and why you tell them. You might tell a funny story to cheer up a friend or a ghost story to pass the time around the camp fire, but people often tell stories for more complex, deliberate reasons. We might relate the story of a horrible traffic accident to warn others about drunk driving, or we could tell an intimate personal story to communicate (or even discover) some aspect of ourselves. Even a “simple” ghost story could be a warning not to repeat the mistakes of the past. Whatever the occasion you choose to tell them, most stories have a specific point to communicate.

Narratives may be fact or fiction. A factual story is one that is based on, and tries to be faithful to, actual events as they unfolded in real life. A fictional story is a made-up, or imagined, story; when writing a fictional story, we can create characters and events to best fit our story. Because the line between fact and fiction can often blur, it is helpful to understand what your purpose is from the beginning. Is it important that you recount history, either your own or someone else’s? Or does your interest lie in reshaping the world in your own image—either how you would like to see it or how you imagine it could be? Your answers will go a long way in shaping the stories you tell.

Be it fact or fiction, a good story can transport us to another place and time, let us live another life, make mistakes and learn from them, all without experiencing those events ourselves. Stories build empathy. We might never know what it’s like to be a young black boy in the American South in the 1930s, struggling to deal with complex ideas like poverty and shame, but we can read about him and live those experiences through him. Stories communicate the human experience. We can’t know what it’s like to be a fledgling wizard starting his first semester at Hogwarts, the weight of his family’s legacy looming over him, but we can understand what it’s like to be the outcast or the pressure of living up to expectations. Philosophy professors often use a kind of narrative called “thought experiments”—basically, “What if . . . ?” hypotheticals—to help their audiences understand the possible consequences of philosophical propositions.

Try to keep these ideas in mind as you consider your own narrative essay: What is your purpose in writing a story? Do you want to write fact or fiction? What human experience are you trying to convey? Even our “small” stories can achieve this: a short narrative about passing a test or winning the big game might be a story whose theme is perseverance.

Elements of a Narrative Essay

• Tells a Vivid Story
• Typically, from One Person’s Point of View
• Has a Strong Thesis Statement—a Purpose
• Uses All a Story’s Elements—a Beginning, a Middle, and an Ending—typically told in chronological order
• A Plot, Character, Setting, Climax, and Theme
• Often Uses Dialogue
• Employs Strong Sensory Details and Imagery

Application of Narration

Purposeful storytelling remains a valuable skill beyond the narrative essay and even outside the classroom. A short personal narrative inserted into the middle of a longer essay can engage your reader while focusing attention on key points. For example, in an essay arguing for increased funding for cancer research, a strong personal narrative from a child with leukemia adds a human element to cold statistics. A job interview is often framed as a series of stories—“When did you encounter a situation like . . ?” “How did you respond when . . ?” Even training a colleague often involves storytelling: “There was this one time when everything fell apart.” A good story packs a lot of information into a relatable package, and attention to detailed, concise storytelling can be an essential workplace skill.