Having to write a narrative essay is a common occurrence that pops up during your academic study, either in high school or college. You cannot escape essays, especially the narrative type.
However, you should know that understanding how to communicate your thoughts properly is the primary test of delivering a narrative essay. So, no need to fret. It can be challenging to write an excellent article, but with the proper guidance and practice, you can.
In this article, we will define a narrative essay, how to write an excellent one with explained examples, the purpose of a narrative essay, and the format of a narrative essay to help you grasp the concept well and pull it off on your own.
What is a narrative essay?
A narrative essay is a form of academic essay that tries to tell a story from the speaker or writer’s perspective. It is an essay type that allows you to be creative and personal while focusing on yourself and your experience.
It requires you to inform your audience or reader about an event in your life or explain your thoughts about a specific topic. This is the point where your storytelling expertise is required, and you become a storyteller in a bid to achieve an excellent delivery of a narrative essay.
It is very easy to ace a narrative essay if you know how to go about it. This is because this kind of essay gives you the power to impress the reader with your use of words and mental prowess.
Purpose of Narrative essays
Narrative essays are different from other types of essays in purpose. As argumentative essays aim to convince the reader to accept a point of view and descriptive essays aim to describe an object or event to the reader, so do narrative essays have their purpose.
A narrative essay aims to present an idea or describe a scenario to others without arguing, selling an idea or criticizing an object. It means writing just to walk your audience through the story and leave them to make their conclusion.
College applications and Personal essays make use of the concept of narrative essays. You just have to present the idea in a relatable format and let your reader or audience see that your idea or story matters.
Most Significant 4 Steps to Write a Narrative Essay
Writing a narrative essay should be easy for students, but writing can be challenging for everyone, and academic writing has specific formats. Hence, these three guidelines to help you out.
1. Choose your topic
There are diverse topics that suit a narrative essay, depending on the direction you wish your essay to take. You must first brainstorm and search for a befitting topic that serves your essay’s purpose and audience.
The issues that would suit you the most are those you are passionate about. Ideas or memories you cherish and long to share with an audience that can understand. With this in mind, researching and formulating strong points to present the concept or lesson to your audience would not be a hassle.
For example, if you are passionate about finance and personal tax, you can quickly tell your story with your father’s company or a brand you like their service. This approach would give you a stronger edge, and you must be aware of any question your teacher or audience would have concerning the topic.
Knowing your audience is a significant part of a narrative essay. Inasmuch as you are passionate about the topic you have at hand, you have to be sure that your audience is interested in it too.
Look at the example on “Tax Expenditure and Multipliers” to check how an excellent topic should look.
If you are given an open end to choose whatever topic, you can explore many narrative essays. You can go on to describe your family tree or talk about your most significant achievement so far and the process of achieving it.
2. Create a rough outline for your essay
To make your writing process easy and smooth, you need to have a rough outline to ensure you know where your story is going. A rough outline helps you know the end from the beginning and allows you to keep your article’s purpose and goal in view.
3. Watch the tone of your essay
A narrative essay should be communicative and interactive. Narrative essays are academic essays that aim to tell a story and let others in on your personal experience.
You must carry your readers along in a narrative essay while retaining the story’s center. Getting the right tone for your essay can be a bit challenging because it has to be suited for the audience or the reader.
As much as you must incorporate storytelling into your essay, you should remember that you are still in an academic setting. Certain words and language patterns are allowed.
4. Take note of the length
Fitting your story to the prescribed length is something you should note. Your primary task is to compress your story into a short essay without losing the message and key points.
The details you incorporate into the essay length have to be detailed, engaging, and explicit. Keeping your reader’s attention through the whole essay length is also one of the major things you should consider.
Legitimate Format for Your Narrative Essay
Traditionally, narrative essays should have five paragraphs. If you bear this in mind, you can communicate your story. Let us take a look at what the format of your article should be:
1. Introduction
This is the part where you introduce the idea and give a background story necessary for comprehension. You should also write the first paragraph to catch the reader’s attention so they can read through it all. It had to contain an engaging element to hook the readers till the end.
2. Body of the essay
The following three paragraphs consist of the. It is the part where you tell a detailed story and share an intriguing idea. However, each paragraph has a definite function in a narrative essay.
The second paragraph is to pursue the idea of rising action. At this point, you’re quickening your reader’s or audience’s imaginative interest. The story progress at a steady rate in this paragraph.
The following paragraph, which is the third, is where you get to the middle of the story. You reach the climax of your story at this point, and your audience should be completely enthralled. In this paragraph, you discuss your highest achievement and biggest downfall.
3. Optimal revealing paragraph
The fourth paragraph is where you have the declining action, and the audience begins to realize the moral of the story and gather their thoughts about your idea. The story has reached its peak and is heading toward a conclusion.
Conclusion
The last paragraph contains your conclusion. This is where you draw the curtain and give a summarized plot of your whole story. This is where you share the lessons learned through the story process and let your reader make their conclusions too.
In the concluding paragraph, you should not present a new idea but rather summarize the ideas you have shared throughout the essay. Set the outline of your essay well, and you will have a beautiful essay.
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