narrative essay format

narrative essay format

The Art of Crafting a Compelling Narrative Essay

1. Introduction to Narrative Essays

Today we will begin a narrative essay. Mr. Nittle or Mr. Lincicome will be happy to answer any questions you have. So be sure to ask us about syntax, grammar, punctuation, or content. A narrative essay tells a story. Short stories, novels, biographies, and movies are all narrative forms. There are no hard and fast boundaries around a literature or language-based narrative essay, but wording informs us that narrative essays are at least one of the following: progression of events presented in some form, a story, typical fables and arguments. Unlike a descriptive essay, a narrative is an effective and moving tool used to create a vivid language-saturated story. This writing style essentially blends the basic elements of a description with those of a persuasive or argumentative essay. Are you ready? Well, let’s get started then.

2. Structural Elements of a Narrative Essay

Introduction: Start the introduction where the story begins and engage the reader personally and directly. This will cause the reader to anticipate the story. Offer a way of looking at the narrative or central characters as though one had never existed, remove the first sentence or paragraph. The moment one of the characters reacts is where the story begins, and the details for some insight as to what precipitates them. One way to conclude the “setup” is to propel the reader to the story literally had to start at its climax. When you reach the moment of the climax at the end of the narrative, refer, even if indirectly, to the initial sentence or the opening statement. Relating perhaps a single line of dialogue, usually the character’s reaction, would make this relationship more explicitly apparent. Please, however, be sparing with dialogue; too much can become intrusive and even irritating.

Every narrative essay needs a structure. If you get the structure right, the essay will be enjoyable to read – if the story is compelling. If your narrative seems to be dragging and people are losing interest, that is usually because too much has been left out. Explaining a little more about the events or complications allows your reader to understand the complexities represented and create personal connections to the characters portrayed. The immediacy of the dialogue is engaging; recreating dialogue from memory is more challenging and captivating for your audience.

3. Techniques to Enhance Narrative Writing

Finding the Story in the Experience Handling time can be one of the greatest burdens of personal narrative essay writing. Many students’ first efforts in the genre are confined by point of view or by a moment so narrowly focused that there is no real plot development. Whether the concern is about the impact of world events or later concerns or about combining work and school, the overriding concern for many students is whether these experiences with adversity enhance their character. Of course, the experiences do contribute to the formation of character and are frequently used by students as essay topics. But is it possible to show how separating the components of these experiences is the first step in developing a personal narrative which can contribute to the student’s goals for the essay? Without that vital connection and the interest that the reader takes in the concerns shared by the writer, the reader may not be moved by or care about the conclusions drawn by the author. Without some narrative interest, the details become just fragments, albeit highly personal ones. Would Boone’s exploits tell us anything about him or about the times in which he lived if they did not convey an image of action taking place through time? Since Boone’s life seems to be little more than a string of heroic acts, how can readers come to understand a character whom they discover in the items of daily life?

The story of the famous American frontier figure Daniel Boone is much like the story of many other similar pioneers. Such figures were hunters and builders and spent long periods of time traveling. Boone himself was a surveyor and land speculator. It can be said of Boone as has been said of others, including pioneers who were similar to him in their relationships to the land: “When you think of these frontiersmen with humor and ruefulness and admiration, with the impact of their presence and the remainder of their blood and bones, it is not the picture of their strength or endurance, as impressive as these may have been, which presents itself to the eye. What one responds to, at the most sincere, can least be borrowed from the actors of Westerns and the authors of best-selling semi-historical yarns: their lives were narratives, and they were characters contained in them.”

4. The Importance of Revision and Editing in Narrative Essays

Revise to get your essay into good shape. A narrative essay tends to be long. Pattison has suggested that the length of paragraphs and passages is a function of the duration of the events that it takes to relate those events—and novels may take a lifetime to relate! So you may need to spend many an hour in revising and recasting your essay. The goal for revision should be a well-structured, effectively presented, and interesting essay that is suitable for submitting to a magazine to share with members of a general audience. In making his suggestions for the challenge of revising and restructuring narrative essays, Pattison reflects almost universally held beliefs about the art of storytelling which are particularly suited to advances in the development of our endeavors when we step into the classroom.

It is now time to undertake that most important task, which is revising and editing your narrative essay. These are two distinct tasks and must be addressed as separate matters. When we write, we work with words. We are endeavoring, in essence, to transform ideas and concepts into space and time, and to do this, we work with the marks available to us in the alphabet. But we also work with punctuation and paragraphing to structure our thoughts and to clarify our expression. Spelling and grammar are the most technical of the technicalities that are involved in the task of writing. One of the great pieces of advice any teacher can give a student who is doing a writing course is to learn to see revision as a thoroughly positive process.

5. Examples and Analysis of Effective Narrative Essays

By this definition, we want the words to illumine meaning; we want the narrative events presented with some authenticity. Whether something is possible might not be the question; what matters more is if it is plausible. It is the job of the writer to precisely depict what is possible by providing complex language, gestures, and actions, and motives. We want the details of a fabricated story connected so closely with emotions, logic, and behavior that they contribute to the construction of a dramatic illusion of being lived. Anything that costs the story to become unbelievable in some fashion will tarnish the shine and make the story feel more like a lecture.

The characters are who the story is about. It is the characters that move the action, or storyline. They all fulfill a role within the piece and can be distinguished by what they reveal. Although we may be generating compelling characters, the reader’s intake of the story will not reach full satisfaction until she becomes the character herself. Once the writer has succeeded in this, her piece stands as a harmonious organism, with point of view so intertwined that it is fluid and dynamic. The reader may catch her own inner reflections in any of the characters, and the reader and the characters can feel their position next to each other. The importance of shared values, desires, and experiences is revealed and everything is in motion. The writer who recognizes this is understanding storytelling as the art of weaving, the art of rebirth. In truth, the importance lies in the communication itself. As a writer, it is not so much in perfecting the “art” as it is the art of connecting.