Narration Essay

A narrative is another term for a story. People naturally love to listen to stories, whether they are children's bedtime stories, the stories families repeat when they gather together at holidays, or the stories told on their favorite television programs. People also naturally love to tell stories: After a horrible day, a pleasant surprise, or an unusual experience, the first impulse most people have is to tell a close friend or family member what happened.

Narratives are also written on many occasions. If you keep a journal or diary, your entries probably consist mostly of narratives, and when you e-mail a friend, you narrate your recent activities. If you are in an accident or witness a crime, you are asked to narrate precisely what happened. At work you may have to write reports that document events, such as incident reports, or that evaluate yourself or your employees by telling what tasks have been done well or poorly. In college, you will be asked to write essay exams that contain narratives. For example, an economics professor might ask you to narrate the events that preceded the Great Depression, or a history professor might ask you to tell about Reconstruction in the South.

Whether you are writing an academic, professional, or personal narrative, you can make the task easier and the results better by following these guidelines:

1. Consider your purpose. Are you writing to record, to inform, or to persuade? If you are describing an accident to persuade inexperienced drivers to be more cautious, your narrative will have a different purpose than if you are explaining to a police officer how the accident occurred.

2. Consider the reader. What background information does the reader need? For example, members of your family would need less background information to understand a personal narrative than strangers would, and people you work with daily would need less information than people who hold different positions in your company.

3. Make the significance of you story clear. If you are trying to convince drivers to be more cautious, you might include a sentence like "My accident taught me that a light rain after a dry spell can create dangerously slippery conditions." Some writers stat the narrative's point at the conclusion as a way of summing up or closing the story; on the other hand, stating the story's point in the introduction lets the readers know what to expect.

4. Briefly establish the setting and the characters. To decide how much information to include, consider your readers' backgrounds. Include all the information they need to understand your narrative and its point, but do not provide any unnecessary or irrelevant data.

5. Tell events in the order they happened. Sometimes films, television shows, and books use flashbacks, flash forwards, or other changes in the sequence of events. While these devices can be both interesting and effective, they are more difficult to understand than straightforward chronology. Using a simple chronological order makes your narrative clearer and easier to read.

6. Add vivid, specific details. Details and, if appropriate, dialogue make your narrative lively and interesting. Be sure, however, that the details are relevant: Every details should contribute to the story.

7. Make your narrative complete and unified. Include all the information readers need to understand and appreciate your story. Eliminate any unnecessary or irrelevant information.

8. Add transitions. To be sure the readers can easily understand the sequence of events, use expressions such as "first," "next," "at the same time," or 'two hours later."