• Describe techniques for writing narratives
• Describe techniques for writing personal essays
• Describe techniques for writing descriptive essays

Narrative Writing

Narration is a rhetorical style that basically just tells a story. Being able to convey events in a clear, descriptive, chronological order is important in many fields. Many times, in college, your professors will ask you to write paragraphs or entire essays using a narrative style.

Most of the time, in introductory writing classes, students write narration essays that discuss personal stories; however, in different disciplines, you may be asked to tell a story about another person’s experience or an event.

The reason we use narrative is because storytelling is the most natural way for us humans to communicate. Like cultural storytelling or personal reflection, it helps us relate to one another and understand our differences.

Telling a Story

When telling a story, you want to hone in on what’s important. Consider, as an example, how you might respond if your friend asked what you did last weekend. If you began with, “I woke up on Saturday morning, rolled over, checked my phone, fell back asleep, woke up, pulled my feet out from under the covers, put my feet on the floor, stood up, stretched…” then your friend might have stopped listening by the time you get to the really good stuff. Your scope is too broad, so you’re including details that distract or bore your reader. Instead of listing every detail in order like this:

… you should consider narrowing your scope, focusing instead on the important, interesting, and unique plot points (events) like this:

You might think of this as the difference between a series of snapshots and a roll of film: instead of a twenty-four frames per second video, your entire story might only be a few photographs aligned together.

It may seem counterintuitive, but we can often make more impact by digging into a few moments or events rather than trying to relate every idea or event.

Story Sequencing

The order of the events and the amount of time you give to each event, respectively, will determine your reader’s experience. There are an infinite number of ways you might structure your story, and the shape of your story is worth deep consideration. Although the traditional forms for narrative sequence are not your only options, let’s take a look at a few tried-and-true shapes your plot might take.

You might recognize Freytag’s Pyramid from other classes you’ve taken:

Freytag’s Pyramid

The typical components of Freytag’s pyramid include:

1. Exposition: Here, you’re setting the scene, introducing characters, and preparing the reader for the journey.
2. Rising action: In this part, things start to happen. You (or your characters) encounter conflict, set out on a journey, meet people, etc.
3. Climax: This is the peak of the action, the main showdown, the central event toward which your story has been building.
4. Falling action: Now things start to wind down. You (or your characters) come away from the climactic experience changed—at the very least, you are wiser for having had that experience.
5. Resolution: Also known as dénouement, this is where all the loose ends get tied up. The central conflict has been resolved, and everything is back to normal, but perhaps a bit different.

This narrative shape is certainly a familiar one. Many films, TV shows, plays, novels, and short stories follow this track. But it’s not without its flaws. What assumptions does it rely on? How might it limit a storyteller? Sometimes, writers want to start the story where the story starts—often, steps A and B in the diagram above just delay the most descriptive, active, or meaningful parts of the story. If nothing else, we should note that Freytag’s pyramid is not necessarily the best way to tell your story, and definitely not the only way.

Another classic technique for narrative sequence is known as in medias res–literally, “in the middle of things.” As you map out your plot in pre-writing or experiment with it during the drafting and revision process, you might find this technique a more active and exciting way to begin a story.

In the earlier example, the plot is chronological, linear, and continuous: The story moves smoothly from beginning to end with no interruptions. In medias res instead suggests that you start your story with action rather than exposition, focusing on an exciting, imagistic, or important scene. Then, you can circle back to an earlier part of the story to fill in the blanks for your reader. Using the previously discussed plot shape, you might visualize it like this:

You can experiment with your sequence in a variety of other ways, which might also include making changes to your scope: instead of a continuous story, you might have a series of fragments with a specific scope (like photographs instead of video).  Instead of chronological order, you might bounce around in time or space, or in reverse. Some narratives reject traditional narrative sequences altogether.

For example, consider how this story starts:

• Lost in my thoughts, I shuddered as the train ground to a full stop in the middle of an intersection. I was surprised, jarred by the unannounced and abrupt jerking of the car. I sought clues for our stop outside the window. All I saw were pigeons as startled and clueless as I.

Using Narrative

You’ll find narrative useful in an essay when you want your reader to identify with your perspective or with the view taken by one of your characters or subjects. Documentary filmmaking is full of narrative examples: People tell us the story of what happened as if they were witnesses, even if the event happened many years before they were born. It’s an effective technique because the filmmaker weaves a tale for us through each narrator.

You can take a similar approach in writing, laying out the facts of a story interspersed with first-person perspectives. Or you might, as Mead did, offer your reader insight into your own thought process as you came to understand the concept or event.

Satire can be a particularly effective form of narrative, exemplified by the novels Animal Farm and Gulliver’s Travels. Satire works to expose the defects in an idea or society by telling a fictional tale of a different social group. Fictional characters stand in for real people or play out social ideas, usually political in nature.

Narratives can be factual or fictional, depending on the writer’s purpose. The writers of factual stories try to recount events as they actually happened, but writers of fictional stories can depart from real people and events because the writers’ intent is not to retell a real-life event. Biographies and memoirs are examples of factual stories, whereas novels and short stories are examples of fictional stories. And the line between fact and fiction is often purposefully blurry, again depending on the writer’s purpose.