How does a perfect narrative essay look like? This question occupies the minds of students all over the world. Fortunately, this assignment is extremely interesting, and many scholars find it one of the best tasks during high school and college years.
They help to tell a story, describe a character, draw an image of a local community, and render anything important you are willing to share. With the help of a narrative essay, a person learns the basics of storytelling, opens up in front of an audience, and even helps others. And the best part is that you can choose any specific topic that you like!
In this article, we will tell you how to write a great narrative essay, and you will definitely become a guru of writing without many efforts!
Show Me How to Write a Narrative Essay
A narrative essay is definitely the most popular assignment, so you may face it both during school and Ph.D. years. A good narrative essay aims to describe a story and share your own experience to inspire, motivate, or meet the audience’s other needs.
Everyone likes stories with antagonists and protagonists, culmination, and life lessons. However, a reflective narrative essay may be rather tricky if you don’t know how to structure it, follow guidelines, and come up with unexpected twists and turns.
If you want to describe the scene to the fullest, disclose the plot, and help readers in a particular way, follow the tips below:
- Choose a great topic that matters. A narrative essay should be personal, so the topic must stir your interest. If you select a general topic like love, try to think of a subtopic that will help to uncover the issue. For example, types of love, betrayal, how to build a strong relationship, etc. In a narrative essay, it is important to discuss your own experience and ideas;
- Be brief. A narrative essay usually 2-3 pages long, so stick to a general structure and try not to bore readers with too many details. If there are any irrelevant details, cross them out instead of focusing on the things that really matter.
- Make a list of the things you want to discuss. If you are willing to know how to write a narrative essay fast, we recommend making notes beforehand. Thus, you’ll always know what topics to cover and will never have to experience writer’s block;
- Always revise your final draft. Too many students make the same mistake: they don’t check spelling, grammar, and structure. This makes the text unprofessional and clumsy. If you are not sure that you can complete this stage on your own, turn to online checkers or the people you trust.
Outline of a Narrative Essay
An outline is a crucial element for any paper because it helps to avoid numerous mistakes. It should include the main points of your future paper, i.e., its structure. Some students also call it a prompt. However, they often avoid this stage because they think it only takes extra time.
However, if you look closely, you’ll notice that an outline is an excellent basis for the future essay and is similar to the book’s table of contents. With its help, you can improve writing and remember key elements of the future paper.
Here are the elements any narrative essay should contain:
- Introduction;
- Body paragraphs;
- Conclusion.
Below we will discuss each section in more detail.
Narrative Essay Thesis Statement
The thesis is a compulsory part of any introduction because it shows readers the main idea of your essay. It describes the whole essay in a single sentence. Future paragraphs should support your thesis. If you feel that the main idea has changed in the process of writing, feel free to alter the thesis as well.
Some writers complete thesis statement only when other paragraphs are written. We recommend using this tip as well.
Good Narrative Essay Introduction
The introduction can be considered as a guiding star of your narrative essay because it creates a general overview of the text and keeps the audience engaged.
The introduction usually consists of the basic information that helps readers understand your world and the reasons why you decided to discuss a particular topic. This may be the event’s relevance, interesting facts, and so on. When background information is provided, you should think of a proper hook.
It is an opening sentence that engages readers and motivates them to learn more. It can be an interesting fact, question, joke, or statistics. Anything that will leave the audience speechless and intrigued.
Body Paragraphs
The main paragraphs of your narrative essay should consist of the following elements:
- Setting;
- Background;
- Characters;
- Action.
At the beginning of the body paragraphs, you should tell readers about the place and time when the story took place. If you have already indicated this information in the introduction, give a more detailed description and cover details that are missing.
The background is the part where you give data about the things that happened before the story and impact it. This data gives a clearer understanding of the story. The background should be indicated right after the setting.
The next section, characters, is extremely important. People are always the main part of the story, so you should do your best to describe them in the best way. Here you should indicate protagonists, central figures, and antagonists, those who oppose the main figures. Their descriptions usually include appearance, manners, feelings, behavior, beliefs, and dreams.
Finally, you should tell how the story unfolded. Here is when you provide the events in a chronological (or in a reverse-chronological) order. Usually, a narrative essay starts with rising action and leads to a certain conflict. As a rule, conflict is a struggle that a protagonist has to deal with. In the end, you should discuss how this conflict resolves.
Narrative Essay Conclusion
As a rule, many students think that conclusion is unnecessary. However, as well as an outline and a draft, it helps create a great piece of writing and make it look professional.
Conclusion, or verdict, is a summary of the whole story from the author’s (or protagonist’s) point of view. Here you should relate to the topic, explain why everything happened, what could be changed, and the result if people acted differently.
In conclusion, you should restate your thesis statement and then explain the main lessons you have learned. We all have a few lessons to teach, so don’t be shy, and who knows, maybe your narrative essay will save someone’s life.
Now you know how a perfect essay looks like, and all you should do is to take a piece of paper and start writing. But if it is not your strong side and you don’t have enough time, entrust the task to our essay homework help experts. We will eagerly write your narrative essay and ensure that you’ll get the highest grade!
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