How to Write a Narrative Essay | Tips & Examples
Unlike an analytical essay, a narrative essay tells a story. Usually, this is a personal story about your own experience (although it can be fictional, too). As is the case with a descriptive essay, this type of essay allows for more creativity than most academic writing.
The narrative essay is an opportunity to demonstrate your ability to articulate events and circumstances in engaging and creative ways. The structure is determined more by narrative flow than by logical progression.
Narrative essays are most common in high school, and apart from composition classes in some university courses, you are unlikely to encounter them after high school. Some college application processes also give you the opportunity to write a narrative essay.
Why choose a personal narrative essay?
First of all, you might not have a choice if the essay is set for you by your school. But if you have the choice, then a narrative essay is an opportunity to demonstrate your storytelling skills and your ability to write engaging, imaginative text.
You need to think about the plot of your story, even if it is only a few hundred words long, and it needs to start and end in a satisfying way. There are fewer constraints on your language in a narrative essay than in an analytical essay.
For instance, incomplete sentences are not acceptable in academic writing, but in a narrative or descriptive essay, they can be used to great effect. Like this. Using the first person (“I”) is often appropriate, as is hyperbole, dialogue, and figurative language.
Choose your topic
There is an almost infinite variety to the topics set for narrative essays. Some will be quite specific in what they ask you to write about.
- Write a story about moving to a new home.
- Write a story about your favorite hobby.
Other prompts will be more open-ended, allowing you more freedom to choose the specific focus.
- Write about a trip that changed your view of the world or yourself.
- Write about the person who has had the greatest positive influence in your life.
With open-ended prompts, you might need to think carefully about which episode to choose and try to pick something that has an unusual angle or twist.
For example, writing about a trip to a developing country might well have taught you about global income inequality, but this is hardly a surprising angle. Eating snails in a French night market when you are normally a picky eater, however, is an interesting discovery to make about yourself.
Narrative essays and college applications
In the US, the Common Application that is used for many colleges requires an essay. Each year, the set prompts are published, and you write one essay that is sent to all the schools you are applying to.
These prompts are all designed to encourage engaging, descriptive writing, and most require an element of self-reflection. As such, they are not merely “stories” but narratives with a purpose.
Narrative essay example
The interactive example below shows a narrative essay titled “Life Lessons Learned in a Kayak.”
Hover over different parts of the text to see how the structure works.
When I first sat in a kayak at the age of 15, I was immediately off-balance and mildly terrified. I don’t have a great sense of balance, and here I was sitting in a craft that was literally designed to rotate about its longitudinal access easily! Simply sitting and not capsizing was a challenge. Little did I suspect that, over the course of the next two years, I would learn a host of lessons that would be valuable, not just for kayaking, but for life in general. Let’s start with that wobble problem. The first thing to remember about balancing in your kayak is that your head has a tremendous impact on your stability. Tilt it over the vertical, even a fraction, and you’ll capsize. Conversely, you can lean your body and your kayak way over, but keep your head above the center line of the boat, and you’ll stay stubbornly upright. Life lesson: where your head is will determine what happens to you more than you realize. Once you start paddling your kayak for the first time, there is a better-than-even chance that you will go around in circles and not toward your intended target. This is because a kayak is designed to be incredibly maneuverable and to spin on its center point. This is great for avoiding rocks but bad for a beginner trying to go in a straight line. To help you keep straight, your instructor might tie a “skeg” from the rear of your boat. This is some rope with lumps of cork attached. It works as a drag on your kayak and evens out your wildly erratic wanderings. Life lesson: just because something might seem to hold you back doesn’t mean it isn’t helping you to keep straight! When you start to achieve straight-ish forward motion, there will be many occasions where you veer off course and, despite your best efforts, fail to come back on course. To overcome this, your coach might get you to close your eyes and paddle toward a sound. What this teaches you is that you first start to sense misdirection of the boat through your backside rather than with your eyes. Beginners don’t know this and rely on what they can see, but by the time your eyes register the problem, it is too late. Life lesson: we need to understand which of our senses to trust for certain situations. One final life lesson I learned in my kayak was taught me by capsizing. The first time you capsize and find yourself upside-down underwater, it is perfectly natural to panic. Before too long, you learn how to first of all escape and eventually roll out of a capsize. And you also learn how to come to the rescue of others who have capsized. Life lesson: dangerous and frightening experiences can be prepared for so that when they happen, you are equipped to cope. And you are equipped to help others in need as well. These are just a few of the life lessons that kayaking has taught me, but perhaps the most important one of all is rather clichéd: not everything that is worthwhile is easy; learning can be a trying experience, involving hardship, discomfort, and occasional fear. But the overwhelming sense of satisfaction that the newly acquired ability brings makes it all worthwhile.
Frequently asked questions about narrative essays
- What is a good narrative essay outline?
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A good narrative essay outline will identify the topic or incident and include a topic sentence for each paragraph.
For example, an essay looking at what we might learn about life from our hobbies or pastimes might have the following outline:
Topic: Life lessons learned in a kayak
- Introduction:
- Hook: When I first sat in a kayak at the age of 15, I was immediately off-balance and mildly terrified.
- Thesis: Little did I suspect that, over the course of the next two years, I would learn a host of lessons that would be valuable, not just for kayaking, but for life in general.
- Life lesson one: Where your head is will determine what happens to you more than you realize.
- Supporting story: learning to keep my head straight
- Life lesson two: Just because something might seem to hold you back doesn’t mean it isn’t helping you to keep straight!
- Supporting story: instructor tying a “skeg” to my boat
- Life lesson three: Dangerous and frightening experiences can be prepared for so that when they happen, you are equipped to cope.
- Supporting story: learning how to get out of a capsize
- Conclusion: These are just a few of the life lessons that kayaking has taught me.
You can use these topic sentences to guide the content of each paragraph.
- Introduction:
- What are some narrative essay topics?
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There are many possible narrative essay topics, including:
Personal Growth and Self-Discovery
- Write about a time you stepped out of your comfort zone. What motivated you to take that step, and how did it change your perspective?
- Reflect on a failure that shaped your character. How did you turn it into a learning experience?
Identity and Values
- Who or what has had the greatest influence on your identity? Share a story that illustrates this impact.
- Recount a time when you stood up for something you believed in. What was at stake, and how did it shape your values?
Connections and Relationships
- Write about a meaningful conversation that changed the way you see the world. Who was it with, and what was the impact?
- Describe a moment when you helped someone or made a difference in their life. How did that experience shape you?
Creativity and Curiosity
- Describe a time when your curiosity led you to an unexpected discovery. What did you learn, and how did it inspire you?
- Write about a creative project or passion that has been important to you. How does it reflect who you are?
Change and New Beginnings
- Recount a time you moved to a new place, joined a new community, or faced a significant transition. What did you learn about adapting to change?
Describe an event or moment that sparked a change in your beliefs or worldview. How did it influence your actions?
- What is the difference between a narrative essay and a descriptive essay?
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A narrative essay usually has a broader focus than a descriptive essay. A narrative essay tells (“narrates”) a story, whereas a descriptive essay focuses on describing a place or a moment in time.
Both essay types require careful use of descriptive and figurative language so that the reader fully experiences the situation being described.
When you are writing a narrative essay or a descriptive essay, you have more freedom with your use of language than with an analytical essay, which requires more formal academic English.
You can use the QuillBot Paraphrasing Tool to express your thoughts and descriptions in different ways when writing a narrative essay or descriptive essay.
