What is a narrative essay?
Definition of Narrative Essay
A narrative essay is about telling your experience in a narrative form. You choose to tell the readers of the events related to the topic you are supposed to write about. You do this task by recounting and composing an intriguing story to show your talent in narrating it and your creativity in building a story. There are various types of essays in academic writing, and a narrative essay is among the simplest ones you are assigned.
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Many school teachers or college professors ask their students to write narrative essays to see how much they can be creative and to understand if they can apply expressive writing. This kind of essay is a chance for the writer to describe a personal experience in detail or write a fictional story imaginatively. In general, a narrative essay is like a short story, but it has a proper and coherent structure.
Table of contents
Body of a narrative essay
As its name implies, a narrative essay includes the characteristics available in the structure of a story. By reading a story, you can easily see the exact features you confront in a narrative essay. A narrative essay mainly consists of several elements: plot, characters, setting, and theme. Each feature is an essential part of an essay and assists you in developing your story more comprehensively. Thus, knowing the features and format of this type of essay step by step helps you to maximize the essay’s quality.
First, a narrative essay requires a definite plot. The plot is the chain of significant events you choose to tell that appeal to you and your reader and are important to you. You generally write about your experience based on a complete and structured plot. Remember that your story account is not as important as your way of telling it satisfyingly. Nevertheless, the plot is the fundamental component of your narrative essay.
The setting is another prominent part of your essay. The events you narrate in your story indisputably need an environment. Usually, it is a single setting, but you can describe the happenings in several ones. The better you describe the setting, the more intriguing the story is.
A theme is a significant point you decide to put within the events you have experienced. The way you unfold your narrative to the reader is related to the theme of the story. The theme has a general point in it that excites your audience. Here, you try to make a point to your reader and tell him what you have realized in your experience. The theme is intricately connected to the topic you write about. Describing your experience according to the main purpose you have in mind helps you improve the structure of your essay.
What is the purpose of a narrative essay?
A narrative essay is about telling, describing, and narrating your experience in a given topic. The topic you are given to write about in a narrative essay is variable. The primary purpose is to see whether you can put your experiences in a story-like narrative or not. You write about an important personal life experience that you have had and give your story a bundle of details by using various features introduced above. You should not write just a story without any point. It is necessary to make a point in the essay since it tells the importance of your experience. Additionally, you emphasize your subject matter by using some of the techniques like theme or conflict.
You show how your experience matters to you, and by doing this, persuades the reader to more or less feel in the same way. So, if you are familiar with the general construction of this type of essay and have a clear understanding of it, you can easily do this task.
How to write a narrative essay?
After expressing a general view on a narrative essay, it is significant to know how to write it. Before doing anything, remember your essay has a story structure, and you are free to write it as you want. However, like every other standard essay, you can write your narrative essay in a five-paragraph style. Though it is optional to start a narrative essay, you can begin by telling your reader an overall thought of what you will speak in the following sentences.
Your reader will see how your experience matters to you in the rest of the essay. You can also enrich your experience by using the setting, adding the characters in your essay, and describing them. Build your story on a theme that gives the readers a general moral point in your account. The concluding part is also vital since your narrative essay has a starting and ending point. By the end of your essay, the reader will be aware of your point.
