Tasked with writing a narrative essay for a school or college assignment? Here are some of the best tips to format and improve your creative essays.
Narrative essays can seem daunting when they are handed out as projects or homework to complete in school or university. But once you fully understand them you might even enjoy the process of churning one out.
We’re going to cover what a narrative essay is and the best way to approach writing one, to achieve that high grade you’re looking for.
What is a narrative essay?
The best way of approaching a narrative essay is to simply think of it as a story you have lived through. This story should be told from the first-person point of view of the person writing it. The use of strong dialogue, tension, and figurative language will also help you to demonstrate an understanding of the task.
Narrative essays are usually assigned with a specific topic in mind. These topics can range from a certain theme, a day in your life, or even an abstract statement for you to interpret. The goal is to find moments from your own life that are relevant and reveal how they impacted your view on a certain theme or topic.
Your teacher will generally want to see how well you can tell a story. A good command of pacing and being able to convey a tale in an intriguing but clear manner is what you need. Great stories, like the Harry Potter series, will be paced well and have strong descriptions of the characters and environment.
How to format a narrative essay
Formatting a narrative essay is fairly straightforward, you simply have to deal with it in a step-by-step approach.
Let’s break it down into its typical components. Here are each of the characteristics (in order) that would be expected from a narrative paper.
- Intro paragraph – Start by introducing reflective background information (any preconceived notions you might have had about a certain topic) and other elements of the story.
- Then you will introduce what the theme of your essay will be and how this certain story might have influenced your perspective on said theme.
- Descriptive paragraph – What your mindset would have been at the time in the story, what you were thinking and what your surroundings consist of.
- Character introductions – Who else was there with you and how are they relevant to your story?
- Development – Play out the events of the story through your writing and highlight the actions of those around you. Explain what type of role each of these characters played in shaping your view on a certain theme.
- Conclusion – Follow up with your current understanding of the theme following this story and any valuable learnings that you, or anyone reading, can take from the narrative essay.
Typically the amount of body paragraphs will be dependent on your topic and assignment length. Feel free to adjust this format according to what you might require.
Tips to improve your narrative essay
While the format will do most of the heavy lifting in terms of shaping your essay, there are some tricks and general tips that can bolster it just a little bit further.
3 easy tricks to improve narrative writing
- Don’t include unnecessary detail – While it might be easy to get carried away with excess, keeping the essay as relevant to the theme is always a good bet and it should help you prioritize good pacing as well.
- Inform, don’t preach or argue – As the story is written from a non-fiction first-person point of view, the ideal approach is to clearly display any learnings you have around a certain topic in narrative form. If you plan to include any sort of counter-view, this should only be done in your intro paragraph to highlight how your understanding of a theme might have shifted following the events of your story.
- Chronological Order – Flashbacks and time jumps are quite normal in other forms of narrative writing but with this kind of essay, it is best to keep all events in a clear chronological order. Not only will your story be easier to digest but it will also demonstrate a strong grasp of the format that your teacher will be looking for.