How to Write a Compelling Narrative Essay

Narrative essays are a type of creative writing. They can be fiction or non-fiction, but in most cases, they are non-fiction

They could be required as part of an assignment or they could be used as a part of an exam like an entrance exam, or for qualifying for a scholarship.

What Makes Narrative Essays Different?

Narrative essays are usually difficult to write because they are so out of line with other types of essays.  You have to use flowery and attractive language instead of being concise and straightforward. And that can throw you for a loop. However, worry not, in this article, we will teach you how to write a compelling narrative essay without any issues.

• Selecting a Topic

Selecting a topic to write on is one of the most important parts of a narrative essay. That’s because your creativity is directly tied to how much you like what you are writing about. It does not matter if the topic is mundane, trivial, or exciting. All that matters is how much interest you have in it.

If the topic is open, meaning that you can choose whatever topic you like, then the selection process can be done easily. However, many times it is possible that you are given a topic without your input and you have no choice but to write on it.

In such a case, you have to look for a perspective that is more interesting than the others. And that is the first step in writing a compelling narrative essay—finding something of personal interest.

• Break the Essay into Parts

All essays are written in specific formats. The same is true for narrative essays. Since narrative essays are like stories, you can break them into parts just like how you would a story.

So for instance, you can break your essay into:

• Intro
• Build up
• Climax
• Anti Climax
• Ending/Resolution

Of course, that is just one method of doing so, and you can actually do it however you want. But the point is that no matter what you do, you need to provide some structure to your essay.

That’s because without structure there is no pacing and pacing is very important for a narrative essay. An irregular pace can make your readers confused, while too slow of a pace can make them bored. When you structure your content, you are able to follow a medium to fast pace that keeps your audience hooked till the end.

• Be Very Descriptive

You knew this was coming, after all, it’s a narrative essay we are talking about, and it is supposed to be descriptive. However, there is a certain art to being descriptive. You cannot just start writing about all sorts of mundane details…that’s really boring to read.

What you have to be descriptive about is your emotions in particular. For example, if your essay was about “the best day” of your life, then you will probably go over a fair few events that happened that day. Your descriptions should be more focused on how a particular event made you feel rather than the event itself.

For example, if you were going on a car ride across the countryside, your description could be as follows:

“The engine rumbled as the car sped up. I felt the wind pick up my hair and blow it across my neck. A heartfelt scream of joy couldn’t help but escape my lips as we raced across the country.”

In that small passage, we were able to understand that the writer was feeling really elated with a car ride in the beautiful countryside. The only description that was not related to the writer themselves was the car engine. So, in this way, your descriptions should focus more on yourself, and what made you feel a certain way.

You can improve your descriptions with the help of online tools. If you are not feeling satisfied, then get help from an online paraphraser such as Rephrase or Wordtune. Tools like these can really spruce up your descriptions by using the appropriate vocabulary to make them feel authentic.

•  Use First Person Perspective

Narrative essays are almost always an essay about yourself. In a narrative essay, you have to describe events and how you felt while going through such events. So, understandably, you have to use the first person and describe everything from your perspective.