A narrative essay is one type of academic writing assignment that most students meet more often. Starting from students pursuing different faculties to real-life situations. Writing doesn’t have an end, and it is a continuous process that requires much practice. Understanding how to draft a perfect narrative essay prepares you for an excellent writing career.
The main reason for the narrative essay writing skill is to tell an exciting and appealing story. It may not sound big or something simple to achieve. However, narrative essay writing requires much effort and skills for storytelling. And that is not enough. It should be an engaging story that attracts attention from readers.
Do you want to become a great narrative essay writer? Our team prepared a list of skills you need to perfect your skills. This is a comprehensive step-by-step guide that will move you from a beginner to a more advanced writer.
What is Narrative Essay?
A narrative essay is a category in academic writing practice that tells a story. As a writer, your role is to develop a favorable atmosphere and a real-life engagement for your readers.
The standard rule state that narrative essay writing should be crafted from a first-person perspective. To achieve or master this, you need to ensure that you make the best writing approach and use numerous vivid details for your entire essay. You have to position your readers at the central part of the story and keep them engaged for the entire story.
The only challenge in narrative essay writing is that it has a limit in terms of length. Consequently, you still have to provide adequate details to keep your readers engaged. Thus, your responsibility to pick a complex story and narrow it down to include major points to fit a short and brief essay.
What is the Relevance of a Narrative Essay Writing?
Narrative easy promotes the culture of storytelling and sharing. Stories make up a more significant part of human life. People are more likely to memorize things through stories. And that is the purpose of narrative essay writing.
As a student or writer, you must inform your readers about actual living conditions and experiences. At the same time, you make a clear narration of the purpose of telling a particular story and its impacts on readers.
What makes a narrative essay more different from other forms of academic writing? It is narrative writing, as the name suggests. It provides guidelines and instructions to readers through stories. In a narrative essay, you don’t make an argument, persuade or criticize them. You only need to tell stories, and that’s it. Again, let your readers make their own conclusions based on the story. That is the most distinctive feature of narrative essay writing.
Types of Narrative Essay Writing
Narrative essay writing exists in 2 major categories:
Descriptive Narrative Essay
It is the most creative style in narrative essay writing. Its main goal is to describe a situation, memory, or experience through using vivid details. It falls under the idea of “don’t tell, but show.” That is the main aim of writing a descriptive essay.
The author plans to evoke different senses from readers and paint a clear picture or presentation of an event. A well-crafted descriptive narrative paper usually is clear. It picks a more complicated story and scales it down to enable readers to digest lessons from the story. Good writers do avoid over-exaggeration and stick to the primary purpose of the essay. With a descriptive narrative essay, there is a set limit for the amount of content you can offer to your readers. Keep that in mind while writing this type of narrative essay.
Autobiographical
Autobiographical is another category under narrative essay. The exciting part about it is that you share your personal life story and events throughout your life. Remember that this essay only focuses on one specific event and not general. Unlike a descriptive essay, an autobiographical only focuses on the story and the purpose but not complete and irrelevant details.
Steps to Perfect Narrative Essay
Begin Prewriting Stage
Prewriting your narrative essay is relatively essential. When figuring out how to begin your essay, make a flashback of your life experiences and relate it in the context of your assignment’s guidelines. For example, when writing about life goals, pick an experience that readers can easily relate to. Make the topic to be generally beneficial to readers. If you make your story an emotional connection to the topic, the essay can be more effective.
Once you have a topic, spend time to rewire your memories and details of your previous experience. Think about the sequence of events in your life and break them down so that they communicate great ideas. Developing the outline will boost the flow of your narrative essay.
Draft Your Narrative Essay
After completing the prewriting activities, it is now time to focus on the actual writing. Focus on how to make the story come alive, considering the following guidelines
Personal narrative or autobiography are naturally written the first-person narrative. And that involves the use of “I” to give your story immediacy and engage your readers.
When telling a story, don’t drive faster into the deeper side of the story. Readers don’t have prior knowledge of your story. Maybe they are hearing it for the first time. Move with them step by step in a way they can easily understand.
Apply vivid decrepitations for your story and illustrate to make readers understand what you are talking about. Your responsibility as a writer is to involve your readers instead of informing them.
Since narrative essays are non-fiction, you still have to embrace some features of fiction. The stories also help writers have a knack for using plot-building techniques.
Revise and Edit Your Essay Submission
Before you hit the publish or even the submit button, ensure your work is free from errors. There are many ways to edit and proofread your work. You can go about it manually, hire an editor or use software to countercheck your essay.
Check if all the details in the prewriting stage are well distributed within your essay. If you feel some points are still hanging, find ways to fix them and make them constructive. Again, ensure your essay is plagiarism-free with no single content copied directly from other sources.