How to Write a Narrative Essay

A narrative essay is a form of academic writing that is built around a narration of a certain event or
situation. Basically, a narrative essay is a concise form of a narrative novel. Its main objective is to tell a
story, so that it is both engaging and interesting for the reader. A narrative essay, more than any other type
of essay, allows you to be creative as a writer. Nevertheless, there are certain rules to follow and mistakes
to avoid when writing a narrative essay.
Steps for Writing a Narrative Essay
1. Decide on a plot. You should never start writing your narrative essay before you come up with
the plot for it.
2. Do a sketch of events you plan to depict in chronological order.
3. When starting on your introduction, begin by setting the scene for the situation you will
narrate about. Here, it is best to go into details and make the imagery as vivid and colorful as
possible, so that the readers will be able to clearly picture the setting in their mind.
4. As you go into the main body paragraphs, narrate the story. Try to develop the plot gradually,
starting from smaller events or incidents that lead to the main scene.
5. Write the main body paragraphs in accordance with the structure you chose when making an
outline either block or point-by-point arrangement.
6. Narrate the main scene of your story. Use as many details and emotional descriptions as you
can to portray the story in full. Draw the reader into the events by evoking feelings and
describing reactions of the characters of your story.
7. End your story. Here you can appeal to the senses, moods and feelings of your characters,
describing the consequences of the narrated events. _ Moral overture
Key Points to Consider
1. Start your essay by deciding upon the genre of your writing. Only after you make up your mind
about how realistic your story should be (depending on whether you want, for instance, to write a
fantastic science fiction essay, or a realistic life chronicle), you can move on to develop the actual
plot.
2. If you find it hard to start your essay, or cannot seem to come up with the story you will convey,
try to approach the process of writing with a Question-and-answer method. Start asking
yourself basic questions about the future story and slowly move on to more detailed specific
questions as you develop the plot. For example, start with Where did the event happen? and
Who was involved in the situation? moving on to What were the consequences of this
event? and What were the reactions of people involved?
3. Evidence can be supported by hypothesis. You, as an author, can give an alternative description of
events the way they could have happened, if some characters acted differently. This will add a

philosophical flavor to your essay, leave your readers thinking about the story, analyzing how
certain actions affect ones life and possibly adopting and displaying some of the characters
actions in their own behavior.
4. To experiment with your writing style and make your narrative essay more unique, you can use a
literary technique called flashback narration. You can start your story from a particular point
in time (usually something extraordinary and exciting), and then move back to the events that
lead to the described situation.
5. Try to express yourself more creatively and figuratively. Like, instead of just saying a very old
man slowly entered the room, you could say a grey-haired man with a thick beard opened the
door, his hands slightly trembling from age, and heavily stepped inside.
6. With the narrative essay giving you certain freedom to experiment with words, you can use
interesting and unusual word combinations to make your writing more creative. A good example
would be using action verbs with inanimate objects, or ascribing animals, plants or natural
phenomena certain human qualities.

Dos and Donts

Dos

Do use dialogues to make your writing more vivid and life-like. Direct speech is also helpful when you need to sho

Do give information in chronological order. Use time words (first, before, then, after that, later, du

Do use senses and emotions to set the scene for your story.

Do enhance your writing with colorful stylistic literary techniques, like metaphors, epithets, distinguished com

Do include detailed descriptions of the places, people and buildings that are part of the story. You should try to m

Common Mistakes When Writing a Narrative Essay

- Switching from first person to the third as you narrate. You should stick with just one way of
narration (either that of a detached narrator, or one of the characters of your story). Only skillful and
experienced fiction writers can combine these techniques, and, for example, narrate the same story from
different characters perspectives in rotation without confusing the reader.
- Using slang words is an acceptable stylistic technique when you integrate it into the words of your
characters (in case it goes in line with the picture you want to create), but it is never a good idea for the
indirect speech. Authors words need to be literary correct and neutral.
- Overloading your sentences with verbs, so that you focus too much on the action and fail to construct
the full picture. Always try to combine moderate usage of verbs with bright adjectives and adverbs to
balance your writing.