Very often, narrative essay is considered a personal one. It is caused by the fact that this kind of essay tells something about the writer. Writing about yourself is not as difficult as, for example, writing about some scientific issues. Still, it requires attention and concentration.
This type of essay writing can be easy due to the variety of narrative essay topics you may choose. Moreover, there are no strict rules for paper structure, so the writer is free to choose any writing style he wants. Anyway, it does not mean that the writer can do whatever he wants. On the other hand, the writing should be creative and oriented on the target audience.
Every person has something to tell about him/herself and some experience to share. You may tell any story of your life, which seems interesting to you and which may awoke interest of the readers. Anyway, narrative essays writing can turn out to be not that easy. Every writing process requires thorough preparation. Even if you are writing about yourself, you can easily get confused in your memories.
Writing a narrative essay, you should think of its topic first. A little of brainstorming will be useful here. The time span of things that happened to you can be different. You may write about things from your early childhood as well as more recent events. Still, it is not always necessary to write about yourself. You can as well write about someone you know, some news or events that happened earlier with your friends or relatives but from your perspective.
Here are some suggestions of topics that can be chosen for your narrative essay:
- An event from your childhood. It may include description of your first experience in particular things and realization of such experience importance.
- It may be interesting for a reader to find out about some failures you have experienced in your life and the ways you used to overcome them.
- On the contrary, some positive achievements and their effect on you and your life can be outlined.
- The events that have changed your life can be interesting, as well. Write about someone you met, something that happened to the one you loved and how it influenced you.
No matter how free you feel in your writing, do not forget about paper structure, which is general for every kind of essays. It includes three main parts: the beginning, the main body and the final.
The Way to Start Your Work
One of the problems students may face at the beginning of their work is that they do not know exactly how to start a narrative essay. It is recommended to start you essay with a statement, fact or a proverb that will shortly describe what you are going to write about. Sometimes, to accelerate the writing process, it may be enough to write “I” at the beginning of a sentence. The rest will come after it. Write everything you remember about a specific event. Do not be afraid to mess it up, you will have an opportunity to make necessary changes later. Describe how a particular event began, what happened and what results it had in the end. Share your thoughts, expressions and feelings regarding what you are writing. Moreover, do not forget about the chronology of the events.
Good narrative essay means an essay that can catch the attention of the readers. Do not forget that it is one of the most important tasks to make the reader interested in your story. It can be reached by adding personal observations or some details to your narration. Do not be afraid to share your world and make your essay too personal. Structure your essay with a short information on the experience received in a specific situation. Outline its significance for you and what influence it had on your personality.
In order to provide interesting content in the main body of the paper, try to answer simple questions: Who? What? Where? When? Namely, who is the main character of your paper? What did happen to him? Where it happened? When it happened?
To make a good conclusion, do not just interrupt your essay. The most important in conclusion is to make reader feel satisfied with what he has just read. While writing narrative essays, it can be reached by returning back to the beginning of your paper and reflecting on the importance of the experience received in the result of the described event.