How to write

NARRATIVE
ESSAY?
 Prepared by:

Mangompia,
Sittie Ashnifah
S.
 Narrative Essay
• The narrative essay tells a story. It can also be called a "short story."
- Conversational in style
- Tells of a personal experience

• is told from a particular point of view

• makes and supports a point
• is filled with precise detail
• uses vivid verbs and modifiers
• uses conflict and sequence as does any story
• may use dialogue
 Well Written Narrative Essay
• A well-written critical essay is one where the writer has made a
clear argument in flawless language.

- Logic
- sound reasoning, and
- an investigative attitude

are always seen by examiners as good foundations for a

well-organized discussion about a set text.
 How to Write a Narrative Essay?

• is type of essay 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
Step 1
Decide on a plot. You should
never start writing your
narrative essay before you
come up with the plot for it.
Step 2
Do a sketch of events you
plan to depict in
chronological order.
Step 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.
 Steps for Writing a Narrative Essay
Step 4 Step 5
As you go into the main Write the main body
body paragraphs,
paragraphs in
narrate the story. Try to
develop the plot
accordance with the
gradually, starting from structure you chose
smaller events or when making an
incidents that lead to the outline
main scene.
 Steps for Writing a Narrative Essay
Step 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.
Step 7
End your story. Here you
can appeal to the senses,
moods and feelings of
your characters,
describing the
consequences of the
narrated events.
Steps for Writing a Narrative Essay

Step 8

Lay your work aside for

some time and then do a
thorough proofreading.
Topic Selection
• There are endless topic variations you can choose from for your story.
• With narrative being a very creative type of writing, you have a unique
opportunity to choose the ideal topic to narrate about.
• It should be something that you yourself find interesting, otherwise it will be
hard to make it interesting for your readers.
• Your story can be true or fiction.
• It can be narrated in the first or the third person.
• Your narrative essay can be based on your own experience, be completely
imaginary, or describe the experience of somebody you know.
• It can be realistic or completely made up.
• only basic requirement for a good narrative essay topic is that it should
sound interesting to appeal to the reader, starting from the very first words.
 Key Points to consider
• Genre of your writing: 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.

• With a narrative essay being a rather informal type of essay writing, one thing
you should keep in mind is that even though you are telling a story to your
readers, you are not exactly doing it the way you would say it in person.

• When a narrative essay is too conversational and simplistic, it can hardly be

considered a successful one.

• You need to find a balance between telling a story in an interesting informal

manner while keeping your writing stylistically beautiful.
 Key Points to consider
• 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.

• 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”.

• 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.
 Do’s Don’ts
• Do use dialogues to make your writing • Don’t be afraid to be creative –
more vivid and life-like. sometimes a story that sounds
• Do use author’s lines in between the unrealistic is nevertheless benefitting
replicates your characters to add action from all the imaginary happenings.
and help create a fuller picture of your
characters’ personalities, reactions and
• As long as you do not lose yourself to
behaviors.
the surrealism of the described events
• Do give information in chronological order.
Use time words: and keep your reader interested, the
1. “first” essay will be a success.
2. “before”
3. “then” • Don’t switch from past tense to present
4.“after that” and vice versa; stick to one tense for the
5.“later” entire story.
6. “during”
7. “while” etc to help link the events.
 Do’s
• Do use senses and emotions to set the
scene for your story.
• Do enhance your writing with colorful
stylistic literary techniques, like:
1.Metaphors
2.Epithets
3.Distinguished comparisons
4.Bright Allegories and the like.
• Do include detailed descriptions of the
places, people and buildings that are
part of the story. You should try to make
it easier for your readers to picture
everything you describe in their mind.
Don’ts
• Don’t start writing your narrative essay
before you decide on the ending for
your story. It is absolutely necessary to
plan the entire story prior to developing
the plot in detail.
• Don’t change the sequence of events –
this will make it much harder for the
reader to follow the plot.
• Don’t be afraid to include elements of
descriptive writing in your narrative
essay. Your work will only benefit from
bright details and specific descriptions.
 Common Mistakes

• 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.

• Author’s 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.
 End….

Thank you