essay writing prompts

How To Write A Winning Narrative Essay


A narrative essay tells a story about something personal that has happened to you. This kind of essay is one that can be used to let the reader know something about you and how that experience bettered you or how you gained a new insight on the world.

You also could be asked to write a narrative essay on someone close to you as well.  Whether if it is on you or someone close to you, a narrative essay takes a lot of time to write because you are not only tell a story but you are also looking for a deep meaning in the story for your essay.

How To Write A Narrative Essay


  • When you are assigned to do a narrative essay, you are usually gives a topic to work with to tell your story, like an event that changed your life or something that frightened you.  Once you get this topic start brainstorming ideas for the story you want to tell.  Think about things that have happened to you in the past and see which story fits best with the topic.
  • Make a setting and character list and make sure to include descriptions of each of them.  Writing them all in the beginning will help you work them into your essay better.
  • When you begin to write the essay make sure you use good descriptions of the events as they unfold, this will help show the reader what you were seeing at the time and how your felt too.
  • Like all good story, you have to plan out your climax or twist that is the high point of your story.  If you don’t know what the climax is in a story it’s the high point of the story that the beginning builds up to and then you have to slowly build the story back up after that.
  • When you are getting ready to finish your story, keep in mind the topic that you began with and try it into the ending of the story as your lesson or moral of the story.
  • Revise and edit your work, read it out loud so you can hear your mistakes and even have a friend read it and have them help you fix the mistakes.

A Couple Tips


  • Don’t get discouraged if you have to write a few drafts before you get the story right.  Good writers write multiple drafts before they are happy with there work.
  • Don’t try to write if you don’t have a story yet, staring at a blank screen is counterproductive and won’t get your story written faster.
  • Writing your narrative essay in 2nd or 3rd person might make you story more interesting then using 1st person.