Narrative essay is a term, which most people know as a “story”. College students are often required to write narratives as the course paper. Sometimes, it is necessary to write a narrative story to get a job position, requiring creativity application. It doesn’t matter what the purpose of the narrative essay is, you have to know basic rules how to write it effectively. Below you will find general tips for correct structure of the narrative essay.
The Introduction
The main rule for the introduction is to get the reader’s interest. That is why you should start your paper with the “hook”. A “hook” is a short statement about your story that will catch reader’s attention. It can be a relevant quotation, appropriate question, fact or definition, related to the topic of your narrative essay.
- Then you should set the description of the scene. It is necessary to provide the information that will help the reader to understand your story.
- Give a short description of major characters.
- Write about the time and the place your story took place.
- Let the reader know whether the story happened to you or it is a fiction.
- If it is a real story, clarify your role in it.
- State if you were just a witness or were directly involved into it.
- One more aspect, which should be obligatory to any essay introduction, is the thesis statement. The role of thesis statement in the narrative essay is a bit different from the other essay styles.
The Thesis Statement
- begins with writing about the story events;
- presents a learned lesson or a moral;
- identifies a theme, which serves as a link to the overall experience.
The Essay Body Paragraphs
The body paragraph should show, using a lot of descriptions. A well-written story always includes a lot of details that will help the reader to understand writer’s experience. Try to use all five sentences while writing your story. Describe scenes, smells, sounds and feelings. Add as many details as possible. Here is an example “My heart jumped when the dark shape of the brown bear headed towards me from the forest”.
- This is a good example how to provide maximum information about what the writer felt at the moment described in the story. It is definitely more informative and picturesque than the phrase “When I was hiking, I suddenly saw a bear”.
- You should keep in mind that a narrative story is a personal type of experience. It serves as an evidence to support your thesis statement. The events showed in the story should demonstrate the lesson that you have learnt, or significance of the described event for you.
- Don’t forget to use chronological description of the events. Your story should be told from the starting moment until the last one. Do not make your story too complicated. Use the most clear and common way to tell it. Use transition words that will clearly indicate which event happened fist, next and the last. The most widespread transitional words include: next, after, before, during, finally, when, later, etc.
- Break your narrative essays into the paragraphs. It will show the change of actions in the story or move the reader from action to the reflection and vice versa. Keep the connection between paragraphs. For example, one paragraph can end with the words “I decided to run away from the bear, hoping that it hadn’t noticed me”. The sentence “There are many strategies that can be useful how to get away from a bear and running away is one of them” can start the next paragraph. The word repetition connects both paragraphs.
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The Conclusion
Conclusion is also important. When you write a narrative essay, it functions to present the moral of the story. The narrative essay conclusion usually consists of the final action of the event with detailed analysis of information presented in the essay or your reflection of the significance of the described event. If you succeed in answering the following questions, you can consider your essay to be a successful writing.
Conclusion Features
- What lesson have you learned?
- How do you evaluate your experience?
- How has the event described in the essay affected your life?
