How to write a narrative essay? [Definition and Examples]

What Is a Narrative Essay?
How to Write a Narrative Essay?
20 Topics to Choose from for Narrative Essay Writing
Elements to Include in a Narrative Essay
2 Samples of Narrative Essay
Still Can’t Get Your Head Around Narrative Essay Writing?

A narrative essay is one of the most intimidating assignments you will ever receive in your academic life. From the perspective of the rest of the assignments, which are more factual and argument-based, narrative writing revolves around a story. However, at the same time, it must be clear and must contain a single theme.

"One day I will find the right words, and they all will be simple."
- Jack Kerouac

Just as Jack Kerouac said, chasing after complex structures is not the way to achieve ideal writing, but instead to keep it simple and fundamental. By reading this blog, you will be equipped with the ideal narrative style of writing. So let's dive deep into this guide and begin writing your essay.

What Is a Narrative Essay?

A narrative essay is a form of writing with the main goal of telling a story. As the author, it is up to you to either tell a fictional story or draw from real-life experiences. A narrative essay is just like a short story; the only difference between them is that narrative writing follows a set pattern or structure.

The main idea behind narrative writing is that the story has to be told from the first-person perspective. To keep the story interesting and engaging, a writer has to add a lot of vivid elements and enthralling acts to the story.

One of the biggest challenges that a student faces while writing a narrative story is that this writing style is limited in words. So a writer has to take an interesting story and narrow it down to precise details in a short essay while at the same time keeping it captivating.

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How to Write a Narrative Essay?

A student receives various types of essays to write about. A narrative essay is one of the simplest essays they will receive during their academic session. To help understand this style in a detailed manner, given below is a step-by-step template to write a fascinating essay.

Narrative essay format and structure are standard. Just like others, this also follows a fundamental process: introduction, main body, and lastly, a conclusion. However, the main body of a narrative essay is always broken into three set parts, which we will discuss below.

Introduction: An intro should provide a short and precise insight into the story that introduces the reader to your world. It is advised to include a hook at the end of the introduction because a well-defined hook in this part will make the reader even more interested in your essay.
Main body part 1 (Rising Action): In this part, the plot of the story should be introduced to readers and details about all the characters in the story are included.
Main body part 2 (Climax): The climax of your story should be the highest point of tension. It should be depicted in one scene and should not take up much space in your story.
Main body part 3 (Falling Action): This part shows what happens after the climax and reveals the resolution of the story. It follows the climax and is often confused with the end of the story, but actually, they are not the same. In simpler terms, it is just the opposite of rising action, in which the story's main plot unfolds
Conclusion: This part is the actual end of the story. This section should restate your whole story, summarizing all the key points in it and offering the central idea of it.

This is the fundamental structure of a narrative essay, which gives your story a proper format and helps the reader fully immerse themselves in the story itself.

20 Topics to Choose from for Narrative Essay Writing

A narrative essay is a way of telling a story in a personal manner. It needs to have emotions attached to it that create a meaningful impact on the readers. If you are still unsure about what topic to write about, the following are several popular narrative essay topics that can be tailored to your needs by our experts who can assist you in writing your spectacular essay.

Narrative Essay Topics

Your first day at
Your best day of school
A field trip that your class took.
Your favorite vacation.
A trip that included something surprising.
A time that you experienced something scary.
A Thrilling Moment of Adrenaline
A time that you learned something new that changed you.
The moment when you met someone who changed your life.
The day that you got your first pet.

Heritage Narrative Essay Topics

Unique family traditions.
A tradition that surprised you.
Your favorite holiday and how you celebrate it in your culture.
Why knowing your culture is important?
The influence of media on culture.

Narrative Argument Essay Topics

A time you had an argument with a friend.
A story of you having a conflict.
A time you had to deal with a problem.
An act of charity you undertook.
A problem you helped your friend with.

After finding a topic you like, do some brainstorming. Grab all the ideas that come up in your mind and write them down on a piece of paper. Analyze those ideas and choose one that you find a bit unique and can write about easily.

Elements to Include in a Narrative Essay

A narrative essay relies on three main components: character, theme, and dialogue.

Characters are crucial in this form of writing, as they are the main device of communication and set the whole scene in your story. Even if you are writing an autobiography, the person writing it automatically becomes the character of the story. There are no set numbers for characters in a story, but a general guideline to follow is to keep those numbers average. They should not be so many that the reader gets confused between them, nor should they be so low in number that the writer will be able to form an interesting story from them.

The story should revolve around a single motif from the intro to the conclusion. This is the main idea behind narrative writing. It can be broken into different parts in the main body to help the reader understand it more thoroughly.

Lastly, dialogue is used between characters to create a way of communication between them. No matter how good a story’s plot is, it will not succeed in capturing the readers' attention if the dialogues are dull and confusing.

2 Samples of Narrative Essay

One of the best ways to learn to write is to look at top-quality samples. Let’s take a look at some truly spectacular narrative essay examples that will give you a deep insight into writing one of your own.

A Ticket to the Fair by David Foster Wallace

Today is Press Day at the Illinois State Fair in Springfield, and I’m supposed to be at the fairgrounds by 9:00 A.M. to get my credentials. I imagine credentials to be a small white card in the band of a fedora. I’ve never been considered press before. My real interest in credentials is getting into rides and shows for free. I’m fresh in from the East Coast, for an East Coast magazine. Why exactly they’re interested in the Illinois State Fair remains unclear to me. I suspect that every so often editors at East Coast magazines slap their foreheads and remember that about 90 percent of the United States lies between the coasts, and figure they’ll engage somebody to do pith-helmeted anthropological reporting on something rural and heartlands. I think they asked me to do this because I grew up here, just a couple of hours’ drive from downstate Springfield. I never did go to the state fair, though—I pretty much topped out at the county fair level. Actually, I haven’t been back to Illinois for a long time, and I can’t say I’ve missed it.

A Death In The Family by James Agee

I have cried bitterly only twice in my life: once when my old girlfriend left me and once when my cat died. Mop was very special to me. Her death taught me not to delay getting the proper care for loved ones.

Mop came into my life as a kitten. Her mother died when she was very small, so I raised her all by myself. I took her to work every day and gave her milk every hour for two or three weeks until she was big enough to stay home. When Mop was two or three years old, I took in a stray Tom cat and Mop soon got pregnant. Mop got sick shortly after she had kittens. Her kittens all died and she got weaker and weaker. She ate and drank very little and spent most of her time lying on the floor and staring into space. I thought about taking her to the vet, but I did not want to spend all that money and I hoped that she would eventually just get well on her own. Finally, she looked so sick and unhappy that I gave in and took her to the vet. He said she was too far gone and would soon die. I took her home and watched her carefully. A day or two later, she died in my arms. As I held her thin body in my hands, I remembered all the fun we had and the times I was mean to her. I felt heartbreaking and I cried hard for ten minutes. Then I wrapped her in a plastic bag and took her to Monkey Mountain, where I buried her in an unmarked grave beside a trail.

I felt bad about waiting so long to take Mop to the vet and I decided that if any of my pets or family members got sick, I would not wait to take them to the doctor. If I had acted sooner, Mop might still be alive, or at least she would not have suffered so much for so long.

Look at these stellar examples thoroughly and then try to frame your own essay in this language. If you keep practicing in this manner, you will reach a level of expertise where you can write narrative essays that are parred with top professionals.

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Still Can’t Get Your Head Around Narrative Essay Writing?

To recapitulate, writing a narrative essay should be a positive experience. It is a way to express emotions through writing. A narrative essay is the most artistic style of writing through which you can tell various stories. In spite of the freedom provided, a story should follow the set structure to create an impactful experience for the reader.

If you are still struggling with this style of essay writing, you can contact the most reliable and trusted source, Instant Assignment Help Australia, known for its range of experienced writers. These writers can guide you in every way possible. Furthermore, they even provide tools such as essay typer, that give an instant result when you type in a topic of your need. Experts from this website will help you write an ultimate narrative essay and impart life-long knowledge to you. To get started all you need to follow are these six steps.

Complete our online form.
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These are the six stages that will lead you on a beautiful path to achieving high grades. You can also get a lot of freebies by following these procedures, such as proofreading, topic generation, topic creation, unlimited revisions, formatting, bibliography, etc. So hurry up and don’t lose your chance to ace your class.

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