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Narrative Writing

Narrative Essay Example 1

Narrative Essay Example 2

Narrative Writing Prompts

Everybody likes a good story. But what makes a story good? What's the difference between the story of "The Three Little Pigs" and an essay about weather-resistant construction materials? After reading both, wouldn't you think a house built of brick superior to one built of straw? Do both forms convey the same message? The answer may well be yes, but the delivery of the message differs.

Stories, like essays, can entertain, inform, teach, and enlighten. Stories use a more descriptive approach. That's not to say that essays are NOT descriptive. In fact, using elements of narrative writing in your essays will make them more palatable to your readers. How do you become a more descriptive writer? Most would say to be more descriptive use more descriptive words. This usually translates to adjectives and adverbs, but that's not where to start. Instead, start by choosing more descriptive nouns and verbs.

In Part Two: The Enemies of Good Writing, we talked about the overuse of linking verbs. Linking verbs show no action. Without other words to help, linking verbs are dead. A strong action verb gives the reader an image to grab onto. Watch how a simple verb changes the following image.

He threw the ball. He tossed the ball. He fired the ball.

All three describe an action, but with much different results. You could use adverbs to modify threw and get the same meaning as the other sentences. He lightly threw the ball. He threw the ball hard. Yet why use an adverb to do the job when a more descriptive verb exists? Save the adverb for when you really need it.

How can you use a more descriptive noun? Take a look at the following example.

The poor, begging priest walked slowly down the path.

Look at the noun priest. Ask "what kind of" priest? This yields the description of a priest as a beggar, which leads to the word mendicant. So instead, we have The mendicant slowly walked down the path. I can hear you saying, "I didn't know the word mendicant." True, me neither. I looked up the word beggar and found it there. We're quick to look in the thesaurus for synonyms of adjectives. The thesaurus works for nouns and verbs, too.

To complete the transformation of that sentence, we should address the verb also. Ask "how" the mendicant walked. This yields... The mendicant trudged down the path.

Remember the grade school game "Show and Tell"? Well, narrative writing changes that old favorite to "Show NOT Tell." Great writers show us and let us experience something. They don't just tell us. Don't say "the beautiful blue sky made Fred happy." Show us his happiness. If it's the result of the blue sky, show us this blue sky and show us Fred's happiness.

Stories have a purpose. At the end of yours, don't leave the reader guessing what your purpose is. A good test to avoid this disaster is to ask yourself "so what" throughout your work. You should have an answer. If your purpose is to make your audience think about something, make sure your message isn't obscured in the story. In the New Testament Bible book of Matthew, Jesus teaches the crowds using parables (a story with a moral message). At the end of each parable, he turns to his disciples and asks if they understand the parable. Inevitably, they don't, so he tells them the meaning. The stories work for the reader because the disciples ask for clarification -- the same clarification the reader needs. Keep this in mind for your own work. If your purpose is to entertain, entertain; if to instruct, instruct; and if to enlighten, enlighten.

Narrative Writing Example #1

I wrote the following essay in reaction to the cultural differences I faced while living in Madrid, Spain. Is the tone of the essay serious or light. How can you tell?

Make sure to read Narrative Writing Example #2 by George Orwell below.

                                                     The Right of Way

     I love to walk. I grew up in the country where a walk meant hours of solitude meandering the paths of the neighboring forest. But as an adult, I find myself living in big cities, where the masses compete for limited space on the world’s sidewalks. Currently, I live in Madrid, Spain, the land of tranquility – or so it appears.
     The uninitiated find the sidewalks of Madrid a battleground—not one of violence, but of space. Manhattan and London both deal with large crowds of tourists and natives, yet Madrid’s problem is unique.
     In Manhattan, size and ferocity rule the sidewalks. As I made my way around Time Square, I noticed that the more malevolent the approaching person, the more likely the competition gives way. Let’s not kid ourselves; it is a competition—that’s the American way. A group of unassuming Japanese tourists approached me – definitely a winning situation. I felt like Moses as they filed around me. Behind the final cluster of Nikon-toting tourists, I spied the black leather, silver-spiked garb of an obvious demonic biker. Knowing well the rules of the sidewalk, I gave way. In fact, I crossed the street to avoid the conflict. In this way I both gave in to my fears and remained a winner. I didn’t move for him, I needed to cross the street.
     The streets of London provide a different challenge – and I’m not talking about the British habit for driving on the left. The rules on London’s walkways are difficult to discern. As a frequent traveler there, I know the problems that tourists provide the average Londoner. Walking down Gray’s Inn Road one morning, I saw in the distance a British businessman. We were the only two people on the walkway, so I thought I’d try an experiment. The British drive on the left, so they also walk on the left. Trying to dazzle this native with my courtesy, I moved gracefully to the left. Unfortunately, the man, seeing I was a foreigner, moved instinctively to the right. Both of us were aware that if we didn’t decide upon a course of action, we would collide. After a few more moments of the Tipperary Two-step, we passed each other without incident. Yet, in passing, the man uttered the British national phrase, “sorry.” The Brits say sorry for just about everything. For a long time, I just thought they were incredibly polite. But after reflection, I believe that it’s merely a cover up for their internal monologue, which goes something like this: as the man says “sorry,” he’s really thinking “you buffoon, don’t you know that you stick out as a bloody foreigner? When are you going to bless us all and leave our island?” Personally, I prefer “sorry.”
     A two-hour flight from London gets you to the Spanish capital, Madrid. The trip from the airport to center city takes a mere twelve minutes on their ultra-modern metro. It’s on the streets outside the metro that you meet a Spain that is lodged in the past. I’m not talking about the trappings of society – there they are just as modern as the next capital – no, I’m talking about the sidewalk, remember?
Twenty minutes on Madrid’s streets will instruct you on the Spanish way: nobody moves for anybody. In fact, it seems that people actually want to bump into you – something about that Mediterranean personal space issue. Being a recorder of social ways, I continued to explore. I began scientifically to study the issue. First, I formed a hypothesis: all Spaniards are rude. Yet watching as several people went out of their way to assist a woman who dropped a shopping bag, I discounted that view. Next I decided that Spaniards liked the contact. So, I went to El Rastro, Madrid’s famous open-air market, to test this theory.
     Imagine three thousand people poured into the top section of an hourglass, and for five hours they squeezed and pushed their way through the slender neck to freedom. That’s El Rastro. From the protective vantage on the wall of the Ayunamiento (City Hall), I watched the action at the tightest point for two hours. This was not Manhattan; there would have been twenty fights by then. And in London, the funnel would have a solid single-file queue through it. But in Madrid the crowd neither scrapped nor "sorried," they reveled as if one body of content cells. Was this the answer I sought? I thought it was until I noticed something just downstream from the funnel.
An elderly gentleman walking down the hill confronted a young couple carrying their child and all his treasures moving up the hill. Conventional wisdom dictates that the elderly man should make way for the small, heavily laden family. But to my surprise, the family, struggling with the onslaught of people, made way for the man. Equally surprising, the family did not make any gestures to the man that he did anything wrong. They seemed to be following some unwritten social code, but what was it? Could it be that simple? I needed more evidence.
     I decided to try the code myself. Not wishing to combat the throngs at El Rastro, I journeyed around the side streets up to the Plaza Mayor. As a wide-open, pedestrian square, the Plaza Mayor provided the ultimate test ground. Upon entering the square, I scouted my first prey. On the north side of the square, an elderly couple was enjoying the toilet paper sculpture fluttering high above the updraft of the subway grate. I ignored the aesthetic value of this rebellious artform and pushed on with my test. The couple moved across the square to one of the many terrace cafés dotting the plaza. I drew a path of interception. Easily maneuvering myself into position, I headed for my quarry. I looked at the equestrian statue; I looked at the accordion players; I looked everywhere but into the eyes of my competitors. At the moment of decision, I balked and moved aside. The couple had no intention of moving. It never occurred to them that I wouldn’t move. But before I could draw any meaningful conclusions, I needed more data.
     On the south side of the plaza, near the caricature artists, gathered a gaggle of giggling girls. Where else would a giggling gaggle of girls gather than around an artist whose task is to find and exploit a facial physical defect. Goodness, but I digress. I watched the girls until several of them split from the tribe seeking other excitements. Feigning an interest in caricatures, I headed straight towards them. I neither threatened them with a look, nor in any way changed my detached demeanor from the last test – always the mark of a good scientist. The girls, as I expected, moved out of my way without the slightest protest. Success. Now to solidify my findings I encountered other lab rats around the square for half an hour more.
     Thirty minutes later, after explaining to the policeman that I was indeed conducting a scientific study, and paying a small fine, I realized I could now publish my findings: “The Right of Way: Tradition of Personal Space in Pedestrian Affairs in Spain.” My thesis is simple: right of way is determined by the relative ages of the combatants. A man of 50 has the right of way over all persons, male or female, under the age of 50, yet must give way to all persons, male or female, above 50. When the age of combatants is in question, the combatants must retire together to the nearest café or bar and discuss their ages at length over an agreed beverage. Rules also state that the older person, though they get the right of way, must buy the beverages for both combatants. To an outsider, this seems strange. Who would come up with such a complicated pedestrian traffic control system? The answer is no one. No one came up with the rule. It has developed over the centuries. Moorish Koranic verses, Catholic scripture, Jewish atonement laws together with parts of the Roman Code and remnants of Celtic tribal tradition and Phoenician naval laws developed into the pedestrian code that the Spanish abide by religiously to this day. Unless they are walking a dog, in which case all civilized codes are abandoned. But that constitutes a different study entirely.
     This noble tradition, handed down through the ages, applies to all people, male or female, and maintains the calm, tranquil nature of the Spanish pedestrian population. The sole exception is for baby carriages, and as we all know, they get the right of way in all societies at all times.

Narrative Writing Example #2

The following excerpt is taken from George Orwell's narrative essay "Shooting an Elephant." He wrote the story as his testament against British imperialism in Burma (and imperialism in general). Notice his use of specific nouns and descriptive verbs. Also, notice he DOES use linking verbs AND the pronoun it. Remember, they're OVERUSED, that doesn't mean you can't use them at all. (click here for the full text of this and other Orwell essays)

     But I did not want to shoot the elephant. I watched him beating his bunch of grass against his knees, with that preoccupied grandmotherly air that elephants have. It seemed to me that it would be murder to shoot him. At that age I was not squeamish about killing animals, but I had never shot an elephant and never wanted to. (Somehow it always seems worse to kill a large animal.) Besides, there was the beast’s owner to be considered. Alive, the elephant was worth at least a hundred pounds; dead, he would only be worth the value of his tusks, five pounds, possibly. But I had to act quickly. I turned to some experienced-looking Burmans who had been there when we arrived, and asked them how the elephant had been behaving. They all said the same thing: he took no notice of you if you left him alone, but he might charge if you went too close to him.

     It was perfectly clear to me what I ought to do. I ought to walk up to within, say, twenty-five yards of the elephant and test his behavior. If he charged, I could shoot; if he took no notice of me, it would be safe to leave him until the mahout (owner) came back. But also I knew that I was going to do no such thing. I was a poor shot with a rifle and the ground was soft mud into which one would sink at every step. If the elephant charged and I missed him, I should have about as much chance as a toad under a steam-roller. But even then I was not thinking particularly of my own skin, only of the watchful yellow faces behind. For at that moment, with the crowd watching me, I was not afraid in the ordinary sense, as I would have been if I had been alone. A white man mustn’t be frightened in front of ‘natives’; and so, in general, he isn’t frightened. The sole thought in my mind was that if anything went wrong those two thousand Burmans would see me pursued, caught, trampled on and reduced to a grinning corpse like that Indian up the hill. And if that happened it was quite probable that some of them would laugh. That would never do.

     There was only one alternative. I shoved the cartridges into the magazine and lay down on the road to get a better aim. The crowd grew very still, and a deep, low, happy sigh, as of people who see the theatre curtain go up at last, breathed from innumerable throats. They were going to have their bit of fun after all. The rifle was a beautiful German thing with cross-hair sights. I did not then know that in shooting an elephant one would shoot to cut an imaginary bar running from ear-hole to ear-hole. I ought, therefore, as the elephant was sideways on, to have aimed straight at his ear-hole, actually I aimed several inches in front of this, thinking the brain would be further forward.

     When I pulled the trigger I did not hear the bang or feel the kick — one never does when a shot goes home — but I heard the devilish roar of glee that went up from the crowd. In that instant, in too short a time, one would have thought, even for the bullet to get there, a mysterious, terrible change had come over the elephant. He neither stirred nor fell, but every line of his body had altered. He looked suddenly stricken, shrunken, immensely old, as though the frightful impact of the bullet had paralysed him without knocking him down. At last, after what seemed a long time — it might have been five seconds, I dare say — he sagged flabbily to his knees. His mouth slobbered. An enormous senility seemed to have settled upon him. One could have imagined him thousands of years old. I fired again into the same spot. At the second shot he did not collapse but climbed with desperate slowness to his feet and stood weakly upright, with legs sagging and head drooping. I fired a third time. That was the shot that did for him. You could see the agony of it jolt his whole body and knock the last remnant of strength from his legs. But in falling he seemed for a moment to rise, for as his hind legs collapsed beneath him he seemed to tower upward like a huge rock toppling, his trunk reaching skyward like a tree. He trumpeted, for the first and only time. And then down he came, his belly towards me, with a crash that seemed to shake the ground even where I lay.

     I got up. The Burmans were already racing past me across the mud. It was obvious that the elephant would never rise again, but he was not dead. He was breathing very rhythmically with long rattling gasps, his great mound of a side painfully rising and falling. His mouth was wide open — I could see far down into caverns of pale pink throat. I waited a long time for him to die, but his breathing did not weaken. Finally I fired my two remaining shots into the spot where I thought his heart must be. The thick blood welled out of him like red velvet, but still he did not die. His body did not even jerk when the shots hit him, the tortured breathing continued without a pause. He was dying, very slowly and in great agony, but in some world remote from me where not even a bullet could damage him further. I felt that I had got to put an end to that dreadful noise. It seemed dreadful to see the great beast Lying there, powerless to move and yet powerless to die, and not even to be able to finish him. I sent back for my small rifle and poured shot after shot into his heart and down his throat. They seemed to make no impression. The tortured gasps continued as steadily as the ticking of a clock.

      In the end I could not stand it any longer and went away. I heard later that it took him half an hour to die. Burmans were bringing dash and baskets even before I left, and I was told they had stripped his body almost to the bones by the afternoon.

      Afterwards, of course, there were endless discussions about the shooting of the elephant. The owner was furious, but he was only an Indian and could do nothing. Besides, legally I had done the right thing, for a mad elephant has to be killed, like a mad dog, if its owner fails to control it. Among the Europeans opinion was divided. The older men said I was right, the younger men said it was a damn shame to shoot an elephant for killing a coolie, because an elephant was worth more than any damn Coringhee coolie. And afterwards I was very glad that the coolie had been killed; it put me legally in the right and it gave me a sufficient pretext for shooting the elephant. I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool.