Narrative Essay

Narrative essays, simply put, are papers that tell a story. The writer basically chooses an event from the past or develops a story to narrate to the readers. Narrative essays ideally have the following features incorporated in to them:

• A plot

• Characters and setting
• An ending and/or a climax.

The first step to writing such an assignment is to think of an interesting event or story to tell. If you are having trouble writing, it’s important to note that the process is just like narrating an incident while in conversation with another person. The difference here being that the words are being transferred onto paper and a more concrete structure is being given to it. Being original is an added bonus that adds quality to the essays.

Most of these papers are told in first person although the third person narrative voice is also used often. However, consistency is the key. If you choose to write in first person continue with it for the entire assignment to maintain clarity.

Also, successful narrative essays have a point to make. This can be done by illustrating events as well as characters as descriptively as possible. Choose characters that readers can relate to in some way or another. Remember that there is no such thing as a ‘perfect’ character. The most memorable characters are those with flaws. These flaws make the character more human and easy to understand. Think of people from your own life and the human weaknesses present in them to get an idea.

There is another big point to keep in mind and that is plagiarism. This diminishes your originality. Plagiarising characters, plots and story lines from other resources will only reduce the quality of your essay. The sincerity of the paper is reflected best in an original piece of writing. So, do not undermine your creativity and originality while writing. Create your own ideas or look for events in your life to draw from.

There are no restraints on the size of a narrative essay. In fact, a narrative essay can be fused in to other types or writings as well.

Academic writing is an area of expertise that makes use of the narrative style extensively. It’s essential to be able to effectively narrate incidents in sequence, describe an experiment or give an overview of the topic. In academic writing the narrative style is impersonal.

Reviews are a good example of where narratives are used. Reviewing movies, public events and other situations involves describing the particular event or situation. Reviewing movies requires skill so as to not reveal the entire plot of the movie in the review even before the reader has watched the movie!

It would be a good idea to get your narrative organized before beginning to write it. Organize especially the chronology of events and if you are including flashbacks use them in appropriate places.

Finally, do not forget to be as original as possible to bring forth the best quality narrative essay!