Tips for Writing a Personal Narrative

Purpose and Audience

Structure

Methods

Purpose and Audience

Personal narratives allow you to share your life with others and vicariously experience the things that happen around you. Your job as a writer is to put the reader in the midst of the action letting him or her live through an experience. Although a great deal of writing has a thesis, stories are different. A good story creates a dramatic effect, makes us laugh, gives us pleasurable fright, and/or gets us on the edge of our seats. A story has done its job if we can say, "Yes, that captures what living with my father feels like," or "Yes, that’s what being cut from the football team felt like."

Structure

There are a variety of ways to structure your narrative story. The three most common structures are: chronological approach, flashback sequence, and reflective mode. Select one that best fits the story you are telling.

Methods

Show, Don’t’ Tell

Don’t tell the reader what he or she is supposed to think or feel. Let the reader see, hear, smell, feel, and taste the experience directly, and let the sensory experiences lead him or her to your intended thought or feeling. Showing is harder than telling. It’s easier to say, "It was incredibly funny," than to write something that is incredibly funny. The rule of "show, don’t tell" means that your job as a storyteller is not to interpret; it’s to select revealing details. You’re a sifter, not an explainer. An easy way to accomplish showing and not telling is to avoid the use of "to be" verbs.

Methods

Let People Talk

It’s amazing how much we learn about people from what they say. One way to achieve this is through carefully constructed dialogue. Work to create dialogue that allows the characters’ personalities and voices to emerge through unique word selection and the use of active rather than passive voice.

Methods

Choose a Perspective and Point of View

Point of view how your story is told. It encompasses where you are in time, how much you view the experience emotionally (your tone), and how much you allow yourself into the minds of the characters. Most personal narratives are told from the first-person limited point of view. If you venture to experiment with other points of view, you may want to discuss them with me as you plan your piece.

Methods

Tense

Tense is determined by the structure you select for your narrative. Consider how present vs. past tense might influence your message and the overall tone of your piece.

Tone

The tone of your narrative should set up an overall feeling. Look over the subject that you are presenting and think of what you are trying to get across. How do you want your audience to feel when they finish your piece? Careful word choice can help achieve the appropriate effect.

NARRATIVE ESSAY PROMPTS

 1. [Being Unprepared] Because you have been sick, out of town, busy at work, or working on other homework, you didn't have as much time to study for an important test as you needed. Everyone going to school has been in this situation. Think of a specific test that you took that you felt unprepared for and narrate the events. Tell your readers about the preparation that you were able to do, the reasons that you didn't get to prepare as well as you wanted, taking the test, and any significant events that happened after you took the test. Your paper should help readers understand what it felt like to be unprepared.

NARRATIVE ESSAY PROMPTS

 2. [Lightbulb Moment] Think of an experience when you realized that you suddenly understood an idea, a skill, or a concept you had been struggling with -- it might be something related to a class that you took or a specific athletic skill you were trying to perfect. For instance, you might consider trying to perfect your free throws and suddenly understanding how your follow-through was affecting your success. Write a narrative that tells the story of your movement toward understanding. How did you finally come to understand? What changed your perceptions and gave you a new understanding? Your paper should help readers understand how you felt to struggle with the idea or skill and then to understand.

NARRATIVE ESSAY PROMPTS

 3. [Childhood Event] Choose a vivid time from your childhood -- You might think of the first time that you rode a school bus, of a time when you went to the principal's office, the first A you earned on a test or paper, earning money to buy something that you really wanted, and so on. Narrate the events related to the childhood memory that you've chosen so that your readers will understand why the event was important and memorable.

NARRATIVE ESSAY PROMPTS

 4. [Achieving a Goal] Think of a time when you achieved a personal goal -- you might have bettered your score on the SATs or another test. Tell your readers about the story of how you met your goal. Be sure that your readers understand why the goal is important to you.

NARRATIVE ESSAY PROMPTS

 5. [The Good and the Bad] Think about an event in your life that seemed bad but turned out to be good. What makes the event change from bad to good may be something that you learned as a result, something that you did differently as a result, or something that happened that wouldn't have occurred otherwise. Tell the story of the event that you experienced and help your readers understand how an event that seemed negative turned out to have valuable consequences.

NARRATIVE ESSAY PROMPTS

6. [Being a Teacher] Teaching someone else how to do something can be rewarding. Think of a skill that you've taught someone else how to do. Perhaps you taught someone else how to swim, or helped someone learn how to study more effectively. Think about the events that made up the process of teaching the skill, and narrate the story for your readers.

NARRATIVE ESSAY PROMPTS

7. [Changing Places] Every place has things that change -- sometimes as the result of economics, sometimes because different people are involved, and sometimes for no clear reason that you know about. Think of a change to a place that you know well. Perhaps an older sibling moves out of the house and your family changes the room to a guest room or an office. Think of a specific change and narrate the events that occurred. Readers should know the details of the change, and they should know how you feel about the changes that occurred.

NARRATIVE ESSAY TOPICS

1) Choose 3 different topics about which you may want to write your personal narrative.

2) Recalling the Event or Person. If you have chosen to write about an event, begin by writing for five minutes, simply telling what happened. Do not worry about telling the story dramatically or even coherently.If you have chosen to write about a person, begin by listing anecdotes you could tell about the person. Then choose one anecdote that reveals something important about the person or your relationship, and write for five minutes telling what happened.

3) For each of the 3 topics I want you to write down in a single sentence how you want your reader to feel after reading your narrative.

NARRATIVE ESSAY (Feeling/ Emotion)

Recalling Your Feelings and Thoughts. Write for a few minutes, trying to recall your thoughts and feelings when the event was occurring or when you knew the person. What did you feel—in control or powerless, proud or embarrassed, vulnerable, detached, judgmental? How did you show or express your feelings? What did you want others to think of you at the time? What did you think of yourself? What were the immediate consequences for you personally?

NARRATIVE ESSAY TOPICS

Take one or two of your stories and try to explain it to your neighbor. After telling them your story have them answer these questions:·What feeling were you left with after hearing the story? ·What, if anything, was unclear about the story?·Write a brief summary of the story you heard.

NARRATIVE ESSAY TOPICS

Look at your partners comments and evaluate how well you communicated your narrative. After reading the comments, you may want to try a different topic with another person on your own.

NARRATIVE ESSAY (Purpose)

Considering Your Purpose. Write for several minutes exploring what you want your readers to understand about the significance of the event or person. Use the following questions to help clarify your thoughts: • What will writing about this event or person enable you to suggest about yourself as an individual? What will it let you suggest about the social and cultural forces that helped shape you—for example, how people exercise power over one another, how family and community values and attitudes have an impact on individuals, or how economic and social conditions influence our sense of self?

• What do you not understand fully about the event or relationship? What about it still puzzles you or seems contradictory? What do you feel ambivalent about?

• What about your subject do you expect will seem familiar to your readers? What do you think will surprise them, perhaps getting them to think in new ways or to question some of their assumptions and stereotypes?

NARRATIVE ESSAY (Reflection)

Exploring Your Present Perspective. Write for a few minutes, trying to express your present thoughts and feelings as you look back on the event or person. How have your feelings changed? What insights do you now have? What does your present perspective reveal about what you were like at the time? Try looking at the event or person in broader, cultural or social terms. For example, consider whether you or anyone else upset gender expectations or felt out of place in some way.

NARRATIVE ESSAY (Setting)

Describing Important Places. Identify the place where the event happened or a place you associate with the person, and detail what you see in the scene as you visualize it. Try to recall specific sensory details: size, shape, color, condition, and texture of the scene or memorable objects in it. Imagine the place from head-on and from the side, from a distance and from close-up.

NARRATIVE ESSAY (Dialogue)

Reconstructing Dialogue. Write a few lines of dialogue that you could use to convey something important about the event or to give readers an impression of the person you have chosen to write about. You may use direct quotation, enclosing the words you remember being spoken in quotation marks, or you may use indirect quotation, paraphrasing and summarizing what was said. Try to re-create the give-and-take quality of normal conversation in the dialogue.