HOW TO WRITE A NARRATIVE ESSAY: BEGINNERS GUIDE WITH EXAMPLES

There are several kinds of essays that you have to complete in your college. If you have to write a narrative essay, you can show your storytelling skills and show your understanding and knowledge of the subject. Many students find essays more exciting compared to written works. For a narrative essay, select a topic familiar to you and have a lot of passion and interest in that topic.

What is a narrative essay?

In narrative essays, writers say stories about their real-life experiences. All enjoy a wonderful story, mainly if it captures the imagination. Narrative essays go beyond and writers place their personal experiences along with the context of the lesson learned. Writing a narrative essay is not an undemanding job. Presentation of an event with utter clarity and details is the primary requirement. Narrative essays get a lot of attention from their readers as all like stories. This is the reason the structure of these essays should be good and the story should be a compelling one. Students should use some common guidelines for essay writing help to secure the highest grades. Know the requirements and keep them in your mind when you write a narrative essay.

Steps to writing narrative essays

  • Prewriting
    The prewriting part is important in narrative essays. When you plan to write an essay, give a thought about your experiences in life. Consider that a minor incident will make a good essay if it is important for you. After selecting a topic, spend some time to recall details such as the season, people, setting, and objects. Think of the events sequentially and every detail is big. Create an outline.
  • Drafting an essay
    When you prepare the initial draft, focus on the story so that it comes alive and uses the following techniques:
    • The narrative essays are written using “I” because they can engage the readers immediately.
    • While you tell a story, do not give a lot of details. Readers do not have prior knowledge and if a single is left out accidentally, it can skew their understanding.
    • Give vivid descriptions so that it involves readers. For example, say that “Losing the match made me cry” rather than “I felt disappointed once we lost the match.”
    • Narrative essays are nonfictional, and thus you should ignore fictional stories. Non-fiction stories benefit writers.
    It depends on the writers when they want to reveal their experience. Some reveal it in the starting para while some reveal it at the end. However, saving it to the end leaves readers to think about it more.
  • Clear writing
    Use language and simple words. When readers understand your intelligible words, they will provide better feedback. Even some clear sentences might sound ambiguous to the readers, so check the text properly.
  • Describe the events chronologically
    Create narrative essays chronologically to avoid confusion and enable others who read them to understand the author’s thoughts with interest and easily.
  • Editing
    In this writing, writers edit and proofread grammatical and other errors. They edit the writing to improve its clarity and style. You can make your friend or family members read the essay to express their opinion and understanding out of it.  It helps you to understand how the writers at large would perceive it.
Use a proper formatting style and double-check the university guidelines. Use proper references. Narrative essays are like novels; however, they have specific rules. The rules differ, but to score good grades, you must follow some universal standards. Look out for plagiarism and use a proper structure.