Narrative Essays

What Is a Narrative Essay?

A narrative essay is a nonfictional account of an experience. Narrative essays could describe a trip that
you took or a particular memory from your childhood. A narrative essay might tell a story about your
family or explain how a certain event influenced your development into the person you now are.
Through narrative essays, writers state events that happened to them to explain the ways in which
they perceive the world.

How Is a Narrative Essay Organized?

Narrative essays contain an introduction, supporting body paragraphs, and a conclusion

• Setting: the location of the narrative. Where does the story take place

• main characters: the people described in the narrative essay. Who are the essential actors in the
story?

• Plot: the action and events of the narrative essay. What happened to the main characters?

• Climax: the most interesting or exciting point of the plot. What is the narrative essay's single
most dramatic, tense, or engaging moment?

• Ending: the resolution of the story, also called the denouncement. How were the issues in the
plot resolved?

Just like other types of essays, an effective narrative essay also includes these elements:

• a thesis that sets up the action in the introduction

• transition sentences that connect events and help the reader follow the story

• a conclusion that ends the story action and provides a moral, prediction, or revelation

The introduction

The introduction of a narrative essay is the paragraph that begins your story. In the introduction, you
describe the setting, introduce the characters, and prepare your audience for the action to come. Of
course, the introduction should have a hook and a thesis.

The Narrative Hook

Hooks are especially important in narrative essays because they help set the stage for the story. The
hook makes readers start guessing about what will happen next.

I had never been more anxious in my life. I had just spent the last three endless hours trying to get to
the airport so that I could travel home.

Does this hook make you want to know what happened to the narrator? The hook should make the
reader ask wh- questions about the essay. You may have thought of questions like these when you read
the preceding hook:

• Who is the narrator and why is he or she anxious?

• What made the trip to the airport seem endless?

• Why is this person going home?

identifying Hooks

Read the sentences below. Which three sentences would not be good hooks for a narrative essay?

Put a ✓ next to these sentences. Be ready to explain why you think these sentences do not work well as
hooks for narrative essays

The Thesis

In most types of essays, the thesis states the main idea of the essay and tells what the organization of
the information will be. However, in a narrative essay, the thesis introduces the action that begins in the
first paragraph of the essay. Look at these example thesis statements:

Now, as I watched the bus driver set my luggage on the airport sidewalk, I realized that my frustration
had only just begun.

I wanted my mother to watch me race down the steep hill, so I called out her name and then nudged my
bike forward.

Because his pride would not allow him to apologize, Ken now had to fight the bully, and he was pretty
sure that he would not win.

These thesis statements do not tell the reader what happens. They only introduce the action that will
follow. The paragraphs in the body will develop the story
The Body

The body of your narrative essay contains most of the plot—the supporting information. The action in
the plot can be organized in many different ways. One way is chronological or time order. In this
method, each paragraph gives more information about the story as it proceeds in time—the first
paragraph usually describes the first event, the second paragraph describes the second event, and so
on.

Transitional Sentences

In an essay with chronological organization, each paragraph ends with a transitional sentence.
Transitional sentences have two purposes:

(1) to signal the end of the action in one paragraph,

(2) to provide a link to the action of the next paragraph.

Storytelling Tip

If you describe the sights, smells, and sounds of the story, you will bring the story alive for the reader.
Try to include a few adjectives in your sentences. The more descriptive the information, the more the
reader will connect with the story you are telling. Make readers feel that they are there with you as you
experience what you are describing.

In the following example, the writer uses adjectives (underlined) to add depth to the story by giving
additional information.

I walked into the noisy classroom and looked for a place to sit down. In the back of the well-lit room, I
saw an old wooden desk and walked toward it. After a few moments, the anxious students quieted
down when they observed the prim English teacher enter the room.

The Conclusion

Like academic essays, narrative essays need to have concluding ideas. In the conclusion, you finish
describing the action in the essay. The final sentence can have two functions:

1. It can deliver the moral of the story by telling the reader what the character(s) learned from the
experience.

2. It can make a prediction or a revelation (disclosure of something that was not known before)
about future actions that will happen as a result of the events in the story.

Look at these examples:

Moral The little boy had finally learned that telling the truth was the most important thing to do

Prediction I can only hope that one day I will be able to do the same for another traveler who is
suffering through a terrible journey

Revelation Every New Year's Eve, my wife and I return to that magical spot and remember the selfless
act that saved our lives.

Studying a Narrative Essay

1. Have you ever had trouble getting from one place to another while traveling? Where were you
going? What happened that made this travel difficult?

2. Can everyday people be considered heroes? What do you consider to be a heroic act?
 1. What is the narrative hook?

2. Where is the setting of this story?

3. What is the theme, or the basic idea, of “Frustration at the Airport”?

4. Read the final sentences in Paragraphs 2, 3, 4, and 5. How does each one prepare the reader for
the action to come?

5. What do you think the mood of the story is? What feeling or atmosphere does the writer
create?

6. List the characters in this essay.

7. What verb tense is used in “Frustration at the Airport”? Write five verbs that the writer uses

8. This essay is arranged in chronological order. In a few words, describe what happens first,
second, third, and so on.

9. Underline the transitional sentences.

10. Does the story end with a moral, prediction, or revelation?

Outlining Practice

Below is an outline for “Frustration at the Airport.” Some of the information is missing. Reread the essay
beginning on page 43 and complete the outline
Grammar for Writing

Connectors and Time Relationship Words

The most common way to organize events in a narrative essay is in chronological order. The event that
occurs first is in the introduction, and the events that follow are in the next paragraphs (the body) and
continue to the end (the conclusion).

To make sure that readers understand time relationships, effective writers use connecting words and
phrases to show how events progress. Look at the time words in the chart below. These are connectors
that you can use in narrative writing
When time clauses occur at the beginning of a sentence, they MUST be followed by a comma.

Sentence Variety with Prepositions of Time Plus Key Nouns for Better Cohesion

Here are two ways to add variety with time words.

1. Follow the time word after with a noun.

Change Marta studied engineering at the University of Charleston. She graduated in 2013. Then she got
a job with Johnson and Rowe, a local engineering firm.

to Marta studied engineering at the University of Charleston. After her graduation in 2013, she got a job
with Johnson and Rowe, a local engineering firm.

2. Follow after, before, while, and when with a gerund (an -ing verb form used as a noun)

Change A rare golden Sitka spruce was cut down by vandals. It had been growing for more than three
hundred years.

to After growing for more than three hundred years, a rare golden Sitka spruce was cut down by
vandals.

Adding Connectors

Read the essay. Fill in the blanks with an appropriate connector or time relationship word or phrase
Grammar for Writing

Adjective Clauses

Adjective clauses are one of the most powerful ways to combine two ideas (simple sentences) into one
complex sentence. Study the following rules and examples:

1. Adjective clauses must contain a subject and a verb.

If the information in the adjective clause is necessary to clarify the person or thing you are writing about,
do not use a comma to separate the ideas. However, if the information in the adjective clause is not
necessary to understand the meaning of the sentence, use a comma, or pair of commas, to separate the
adjective clause from the rest of the sentence. In other words, commas indicate the information is extra.
Study the examples below

Read the following narrative essay. Find and underline the nine adjective clauses in the essay. Hint:
Adjective clauses tend to begin with who, that, or which.
Using Collocations

Fill in each blank with the word or phrase on the left that most naturally completes the phrase on the
right. If necessary, use a dictionary to check the meaning of words you do not know.
Developing a Narrative Essay

When writing a narrative essay there are a few strategies that can help you. These are choosing a topic,
brainstorming, and making an outline.

Choosing a Topic

When you write a narrative essay, choose a topic that is important to you—your essay will be easier to
write and more interesting to read if you do. Also remember that smaller is better. The smaller the
action or event you choose, the easier it will be to keep your readers’ interest and describe the action
fully. Choose a topic that you can write about in approximately five or six paragraphs. You could choose
one event that made a difference in your life, such as your first job or a special award, and write an
essay about that. At the same time, be careful that the topic you choose is not too small. For example, a
story about how your little brother called you a name one day would not be a good topic for a narrative
essay. There needs to be enough action to make a story of five or six paragraphs

Ask Yourself Questions

To help you think of some possible topics for narrative essays, ask yourself questions. Use the following
questions as a guide:

• When was an important time in my life? Remember, the experience can be a very short one,
such as “July 13, 2013," in which the writer describes a five-minute segment of her life

• What has happened in my experience that I would enjoy writing about?

• Is there an event in my life that other people (readers) would enjoy hearing about?

• How did I feel about a particular experience?

• Who was involved?

• Why do I remember this event so strongly? What effect did it have on me?
• Did anything change because of this experience?

• What interesting experiences do I know of that happened to other people?