Human beings tell stories every day. We understand most of nature through storie
Human beings tell stories every day. We understand most of nature through stories. Though facts can be memorized, stories — the details, the description, the experience — make us believe.
Therefore, as we begin to study writing, we need to begin with the properties of story. How do good storytellers make us believe? How can good writing draw a reader into a story? How can we harness the power of the story to make a point, even in a dry, academic context?
This lesson will reflect on those questions as well as offering concrete advice and practice outlines of typical narrative writing.
Where Do We Find Narrative?
We talk about narrative writing in many ways. Books will introduce it as Narration, Narrative, and Story-telling. Narrative creeps into most of the other kinds of writing we learn about, too. Persuasive essays use short stories — often called anecdotes — to engage a reader’s attention and sympathy. Consider the difference between these two openings to the same essay:
| Statistics show that consistent seatbelt wearing is vital if passengers are to survive a moving vehicle accident. Though laws have been in place since the 1970s in most states mandating this behavior, some drivers and passengers resist because belts cause some discomfort. However, everyone should wear a seatbelt because they’ve been proven to save lives. |
| Timmy’s mother was in a hurry as they left the mall. He’d climbed into the backseat of their minivan and immediately started playing with his tablet, and his mother was in too much of a rush to fight him over putting on his seatbelt. They had to make it to his sister’s concert on time. The van rushed into traffic, and Timmy’s mother tried to beat a yellow light to make a left turn at the intersection — but someone else, coming from the other direction, had tried to do the same thing, and the car barreled into their van, connecting with the door beside Timmy with a sickening bang and crunch. |
Which opening makes you want to read more? The second one engages its readers with a story — and we’re hard-wired, as humans, to want to hear the end of a story.
Television plays on this characteristic all the time. Think of your favorite show and the maddening, brief preview that starts before the credits roll. It’s always a quick snippet that makes you stay tuned because the writers and producers know their audience will sit through several minutes of mindless commercials just to find out how the story will continue.
In our own writing, we can use story in just the same way. We can draw our readers into our own experiences, even if they’ve never been through anything even similar to what we have, by telling our own stories.
How do we write narrative?
A narrative essay is a piece that tells one consistent, cohesive story. In academic writing, a narrative essay will also always convey a lesson, a moral, or a point that the writer wishes the reader to take.
When we say “moral,” some people think of after school specials and having “g