How To Write A Narrative Essay

A robust variety of essay types that students get assigned in college can be nothing but confusing. It might sometimes be challenging to fully comprehend all the essay format requirements and accurately distinguish between different essay types. However, essay writing is not always associated with a burden and a ton of confusion. Namely, essay writing can be a lot of fun, especially if it is a Narrative Essay. We prepared this article for you to learn how to write a narrative essay that will boost your grade and leave your reader utterly impressed. 

What is a Narrative Essay?

Writing A narrative essay is considered to be one of the most exciting learning activities. Most students don’t feel anxious about narrative essay format because of its simple structure and precision. One can trace the point on a narrative essay in the narrative essay definition. According to the latter, such an essay requires the writer to interpret a particular topic the way they see it while referring to examples from the author’s life. Unlike an argumentative essay, writing a narrative essay does not challenge the writer with seeking statistical data and scientific facts. The essence of a narrative essay is simply in storytelling. 

The author’s viewpoint and the perception of a particular issue are the fundamentals of a personal narrative essay. So, the focus is shifted from argumentation and facts to the narrative elements that contribute to the author’s story. 

Difference Between a Narrative Essay and a Short Story 

Although storytelling is the main component in a Narrative Essay, the latter is different from a short Story. First, a story describes a particular occasion and approaches to depict the sequence of events. Besides, a story does not stick to a format and may be relatively short. 

A narrative essay has a motif and requires appropriate formatting. You tell a story because you have a motive, and not just because you want to talk about one day in your life. Such a story is a means of communicating your idea and delivering your critical point to the reader. 

How to Choose a Topic for a Narrative Essay? 

Choosing a topic for the pending narrative essay assignment can put anyone into writer’s block. A good topic that you can cover with substantial, interesting information should be relatable and experience-based for you. At the same time, it should offer a solid basis for informative grounding that narrative essays may also include.

The first step in choosing the topic is to understand whether your prompt is specific or open-ended. Specific essay questions urge students to talk about a specific subject and explore it in the predetermined direction, while open-ended prompts welcome you to choose the subject, though it should stay within the delineated broad area. Let’s take a look at several examples to illustrate what we mean by this distinction. 

Specific essay prompt examples look as follows: 

1. When and why did you have to make a difficult decision last time? What was at stake, and what were the repercussions of that decision? 
2. Share a story about the unfortunate turn of your relationship with a friend. 
3. Describe an achievement that you considered impossible but still overcame the hardships. 
4. What family tradition do you cherish the most? 
5. Did you ever experience unexpected turns during a journey? What did you do to get the vacation back on track? 
6. How did you learn empathy? What practical experience do you have in this regard? 
7. How did you go through a failure? What learning experience could you derive from it? 

Here are a couple of open-ended prompt examples that invite you to examine your experience and choose a more concrete topic for narration:  

1. What life event from the past do you think has shaped your personality the most? How did it affect you and your character? 
2. What life experience has taught you resilience? 
3. What small life event had surprisingly long-lasting repercussions on your life? 
4. What place do you associate with your spiritual strength and energy? 
5. What is your attitude to risk? How did risk-taking affect the outcomes of some of your efforts? 
6. What is the most cherished memory from your childhood? What learning lessons do you derive from it? 
7. Who is the role model that shaped your life’s attitudes? 

Elements of a Narrative Essay

As a rule, a narrative essay contains the following elements: character, motif, and dialogue.

• Character. When telling a story, you can use as many characters as you want – just make sure they all fit into it. Characters live their own lives and act in their way, draw readers’ attention, and so they largely contribute to a story. Also, they are roughly the reason you are writing a narrative essay.
• Motif. The motif is a critical element of a narrative essay that isn’t typical of another essay type. The motif should convey your idea and explain the importance of your story. Figuratively, a motif is a transition from your goal to the story. 
• Dialogue. Dialogues are means of fitting your characters into a story. Such an important component ensures that all of the characters have their role. Besides, dialogues add some liveliness to your narrative essay. 

Narrative Essay Outline

Writing an outline helps you get control over the structure of your paper and save some time. Here is what you should include in an outline.

Introduction

Since the introduction is usually the most challenging part of any essay, knowing how to start a narrative essay is fundamental. First of all, try to provide the reader with an insight: provide a tiny hint on what you will talk about in the essay. Then, introduce yourself – this is a good thing to do in a narrative essay. Finally, do not forget to mention a thesis statement – this will offer the reader an overview of your idea. 

Main Body

Unlike it is with other essays, you should not necessarily write at least three body paragraphs. The main reason for writing a narrative essay is telling a story and sharing your thoughts with the reader. So, you may adapt body paragraphs the way you want. You can either keep main body shorts or write a few paragraphs – it depends on your goal and your paper’s organization. 

Conclusion

A conclusion should logically end your story and provide the reader with some key takeaways. How did your story finish, and what are the possible implications? Most importantly, restate your thesis and specify its link to your motif. Finally, check whether you haven’t accidentally added an extra piece of information – this may confuse the reader. 

Narrative Essay Writing Tips

Keep narrative essay elements in mind

Now that you are familiar with a narrative essay structure, you need to learn how to use characters and dialogues in an essay. First of all, come up with a scenario for your story and determine the necessary elements for your story to sound organic. Missing these components might make your paper lose the narrative part.

Narrow down your focus

When choosing a topic, you should try to select the narrowest topic possible. Discussing extensive issues can be tedious and time-consuming. Moreover, you may get lost halfway. Additionally, broad topics are just not really interesting: neither are they intriguing for a reader, nor they provide grounds for the writer’s creativity.

Read examples

Referring to some sound examples can leave a comprehensive impression about the structure of a narrative essay. It can tell you what an author usually aims at with his or her story. Besides, an example provides you with an overview of the author’s techniques to connect motif and narrative. Overall, if you don’t know where to start  – take a look at a couple of examples. 

Avoid unnecessary details 

Details are critical: they enhance a story and make it sound exciting and memorable. However, don’t include these elements just for the sake of quantity. If you do so, you may end up in severe confusion. Unnecessary details do nothing but distract the reader and make him ignore your essay’s main idea. All in all, make sure that you include only those elements which are critical for comprehending your idea.

Proofread

Proofreading is a key to successful writing. Under no circumstances should one ignore proofreading unless they are indifferent about their grades. You can ask your friends or family to assist you in this final step, or you may also use online proofreading tools. Besides, you may always approach a essay writing service if you demand some high-quality proofreading.

Get Inspired by an Example of Narrative Essay 

You can also effectively learn by example, as narrative essays may be hard to grasp from theory only. Here is an essay sample prepared by our experts to guide you on the way to narrative writing excellence. 

Turning a Failure into a Learning Experience 

There is hardly a person who welcomes failure in their lives. Everyone thinks of failures as dreadful mistakes or unfortunate circumstances that ruin their expectations and do not let them achieve their initially set goals. However, one will also hardly argue the fact that failures are largely unavoidable. They shape a unique learning dimension of our lives and teach us resilience, perseverance, and wisdom. An effort to avoid failures, by all means, is blindness to learning experiences, and everyone who accepts failure becomes a wiser person accepting all kinds of knowledge in their lives. This is what happened to me when I stopped fighting failures and opened my mind and soul to embrace the experience they gave me. 

The turning point in my attitude to failure was the inability to enroll in college three times after graduating from high school. I was so confident in my solid academic background and high GPA that I applied to several top-tier colleges in hopes of being accepted right away. With no extracurricular activities in my portfolio and a full lack of volunteering experience, I was still sure that I would be accepted. Yet, the list of contenders was impressive, with students from my neighborhood with a long list of achievements in all spheres of non-study life competing for the college spot by my side. Naturally, the colleges I wanted to join preferred other candidates – those who already had a well-established social contribution to the community, had sports regalia and were generally much more prepared for the college degree. 

My first reaction was fury and bitterness of rejection. I was seeking whom to blame and definitely found dozens of reasons for thinking that the college committees were corrupt and blind to my achievements. The inability to join my dream college frustrated me and paralyzed my logical reasoning entirely. It took me time to reconsider that experience and make the right conclusions from college rejection. Instead of lowering my bar and applying to other educational establishments, I have decided to dedicate the gap year to community work, volunteering, and sports. These activities turned out surprisingly involving, and I built a solid foundation for further studies with these practical engagements, as well as an impressive portfolio of community achievements. Next year, I got the dream spot in college and entered the course as a completely different individual. Thanks to the gap year I did not want to take but was urged to, I have grown as a conscious citizen, a community contributor, and a college student able to contribute to their college life meaningfully. 

Write My Narrative Essay for Me, Please! 

Essay writing should bring joy and a sense of fulfillment instead of fear and disappointment. Therefore, our essay service is always at your disposal if you feel like you need assistance. And if you find yourself suffering from an enormous workload – we will gladly take care of your narrative essay! We will support you at any time – just provide us with instructions and inform us about the deadline. Afterward, you may take your time and do your favorite things while we’re preparing a paper for you.