Instructions on how to write a college narrative essay

As with every type of essay, it is vitally important that you understand that type and what is required with that type of essay. With a college narrative essay you are in short telling a story. You are presenting a narrative. Telling an argumentative essay you will be setting up a case to support the argument you propose. This is not necessarily the case with the narrative essay although you can introduce elements of an argument throughout. But basically this is a personal essay where you are taking the reader through a tale, a narrative.

Always, always use an outline

Just because you are telling a narrative and maybe have some or most of the ideas for your story in your head beforehand, do not begin to write until you have completed an outline. For no other reason it helps you arrange your thoughts and ideas. But more importantly it helps you get an overview of the entire project simply by looking at a single page of paper or a single screen shot on your computer or tablet.

In a persuasive argument you will have a thesis statement and in a narrative essay you will have the main point; similar but not necessarily the same thing. And once you have your main point you then weave your story around it.

Remember to express a point of view

The narrative may be about a person being bullied at school and the story goes from the beginnings of the bullying to the actual bullying and then to the resolution or ending of the narrative. In telling the story, you may wish to express your opinion about the unacceptable behaviour which is bullying. So while you're telling a story you are also being able to express an opinion.

In your outline you will have divided your story into a series of paragraphs. Make notes under each paragraph heading so that you can see at a glance how the story is developing and hopefully building. The traditional aspects of essay writing which include an introduction at the beginning and the conclusion at the end will also be involved. These will enable you to kick off your story and of course at the end to round it off.

Think of a good story and how it develops and concludes satisfactorily. That’s your goal in writing a narrative essay.

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