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Daniel Kies Department of English College of DuPage |
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| Composition 1
English 1101 |
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The Narrative Essay
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As one of the modes of expository writing, narrative offers us the opportunity to think and write about ourselves, to explain how our experiences lead to some important realization or conclusion about our lives or about the world, in general. Each of us has had meaningful experiences that have taught us lessons about ourselves or others or the world. Through the narrative essay, we have the chance to record and share those experiences as a means to substantiate our new understanding.
To write a narrative essay, we need to think about a moment worth sharing and to think about finding the significant, salient point in that moment. To do this, we should think about the new insights or awareness we gained for ourselves (insights that might be relevant to others as well). Finally, writers incorporate details which will make the incident real for readers.
Also, a narrative paragraph can be an effective, interesting way to integrate significant background information into a variety of different essay types. Even if the essay as a whole primarily uses another method of development, the narrative paragraph can be incorporated into an essay to support a topic sentence in a particular paragraph and to establish a bit of ethical appeal at the same time. I am thinking here of how effectively former Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton were at incorporating some small personal narratives into speeches, press conferences, or interviews. Both might be talking about a larger subject, say the economy, and both would slip in a small aside about a conversation they had had with a local merchant, who taught them how important it was to push the particular economic program that the President was advocating in the larger speech. What's more, such narrative additions can help you as the writer create ethical appeal with your audience: the readers often look at such personal narrative favorably, seeing them as a touch of "realism" in an otherwise dry, esoteric, or abstract discussion.
However, whether you use narrative as the rhetorical mode of the essay as a whole or just of a single paragraph within an essay, there are some conventions and principles of the narrative that readers commonly expect.
Conventions of Narratives
When writing a narrative essay, remember that narratives (like all genres) have predictable patterns.
Narratives are usually written from prespective of the writer him/herself (the first person singular, i.e., I). However, writers do use third person pronouns (he, she, or it) occasionally. Which "grammatical person" (as this is called technically) you use most often is a function of whose perspective is being captured in the narrative. If it's your story, use I; if it's a story about what happened to a friend or group of friends (including yourself), use she or he or we, as appropriate. That's logical and simple.
Yet writers can and do play with perspective for stylistic effect. For example, Jeffrey Zeldman writes his web blog in the first person plural, using we to refer to himself. (This is a device often called the "royal we" since a former British monarch had a propensity for referring to herself in the first person plural, as in "We are not amused." This effect helps Zeldman create a distinctive narrative voice, at once a bit humorous and friendly, at the same time.
However, most importantly, be consistent. If you begin your narrative in the first person singular, say, use that throughout. In other words, don't switch your point of view mid-essay.
Speaking of narrators, although the first or third person singular is the most common narrative voice in a narrative essay, other possibilities exist as well. Consider using interpolated tale (a "twice told tale") to add some flair. An interpolated tale, used by the likes of none other Charles Dickens and Joseph Conrad, are stories within stories, where the character in one story goes on to tell a story that illuminates and adds meaning to the larger story as well. It's a tricky effect to pull off, but a nice effect when used well.
Since narrative essays include a story, the essay should use the conventions found in any story: a plot (telling your readers what is happening), with explanation of the setting and the characters; a climax (telling your readers the important realization, the peak experience related to your thesis); and an ending (explaining how the incident resolved itself, also alluding to how the narrative's thesis comes to its full realization).
- Speaking of plot, remember that most stories follow a simple time line in laying out the narrative. Chronological order is the rule. So feel free to break that rule, when appropriate, if you can think of a way use a different time order to enhance your story. For example, flashbacks are a wonderful device to merge the present and the past all at once.
Speaking of characters, it is often true that the most memorable characters are those who have flaws. So feel to use stories that reveal human weakness as well. Even your weaknesses.
Narratives depend upon concrete, specific details to support their theses. These details need to create a unified, dominant impression. See the page about unity and coherence for more information on this subject.
Principles of Narratives
Telling a story and writing a narrative essay are not the same thing at all.
Build your essay around a central point, a main idea that your story then supports and explains. This is crucial, and perhaps the defining characteristic between a narrative-as-story and a narrative-as-essay. This main idea will be the thesis of your essay, will say something that the story itself then illuminates and shows to be true. This generalization can be quite personal; it does not have to capture a truth about humanity as a whole or about the essence of the human condition. It simply needs to capture a truth about your life and use the story, the narrative experience, to illustrate its importance to you. In this way, it then has meaning to the readers as well.
Remember that ultimately you are writing an essay, not simply telling a story.
Remember to incorporate details of your story that not only illuminate your thesis, but also engage your readers' imaginations and make the story "real" for them as well. On the Specific and Concrete Detail page, I have some advice about how you can do this.
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