Narration is a message that discloses the peculiarities of an act, event or phenomenon. A narrative essay should tell a story, reflecting the writer’s personal attitude towards the described event. A narrative essay may discuss the events or memorable personalities of the past, or even observe the current events. Narrative essays do not require any particular technique or approach as they most frequently tell someone’s story, and thus it is quite logical to utilize the first person narration in such type of an essay. The writer should demonstrate a relaxed writing style as if he were telling his story to a friend in a natural atmosphere. The subject of a narrative essay may include any topic that the writer feels interest in, beginning from his favorite sports or activities and ending with prominent personalities or significant decisive events of the human history. It is ultimately important for the writer to solidify the entire essay and get to some logical conclusion.



An introduction of the narrative essay should give a clear insight into the story that is going to be presented. An introductory paragraph should also identify the general style that a writer is going to follow (narration, observation, description of the personal experience or any other style). The writer should choose the angle from which he is going to describe an event, personality, or scene, and ensure that his description is original, creative, and thrilling. Deliberate utilization of dialogs and indirect speech is acceptable, and may vivify the story in some cases. Utilization of the personals intimates and personalizes the discussion. The writer should build his narrative essay so that the reader’s emotions are involved and some general resume is made. This objective may be reached through the utilization of some new styles and avoidance of the trite expressions and phrases. Proper word choice is as crucial as for any other type of essays.

Writing a narrative essay, the writer should remember that writing at length is pointless: the main thing is not the volume but the content and ability to use language and different techniques. Brief and well-structured story is always better that boring and incoherent rambling. Planning is very important for this kind of essay, as well as for any other kind. It becomes especially vital as in narrative essays, plot and style should be limited to whatever text length is required (it does it mean “brevity", however, “economy" of words is necessary – every word should count). If a volume of an essay in not very big, insufficient details, too many characters of quick shifts of scenes may become a drawback rather than an advantage. The chain of events is very important to consider in the process of planning. In case there are any dialogues in the story, they should be kept as brief as possible. There have been few masters of dialogue in the world literature, and unless the writer is completely confident in his powers, it is better to reduce dialogues to the minimum as they usually slow down the action.