(From various sources)

> A narrative paragraph tells a story or relates an event.

> Normally chronological (though sometimes uses flashbacks)

> A sequential presentation of the events that add up to a story.

> A narrative differs from a mere listing of events. Narration usually contains characters, a setting, a conflict, and a resolution. Time and place and person are normally established.

> Specific details always help a story, but so does interpretive language. You don't just lay the words on the page; you point them in the direction of a story.

Model Paragraph:

Around 2 a.m. something woke Charles Hanson up. He lay in the dark listening. Something felt wrong. Outside, crickets sang, tree-frogs chirruped. Across the distant forest floated two muffled hoots from a barred owl. It was too quiet. At home in New Jersey, the nights are filled with the busy, comforting sounds of traffic. You always have the comforting knowledge that other people are all around you. And light: At home he can read in bed by the glow of the streetlight. It was too quiet. And much too dark. Even starlight failed to penetrate the 80-foot canopy of trees the camper was parked beneath. It was the darkest dark he had ever seen. He felt for the flashlight beside his bunk. It was gone. He found where his pants were hanging and, as he felt the pockets for a box of matches, something rustled in the leaves right outside the window, inches from his face. He heard his wife, Wanda, hold her breath; she was awake, too. Then, whatever, was outside in the darkness also breathed, and the huge silence of the night seemed to come inside the camper, stifling them. It was then he decided to pack up and move to a motel.

In this paragraph, the "story" components are: a protagonist (Hanson), a setting (the park), a goal (to camp), an obstacle (nature), a climax (his panic), and a resolution (leaving).

Composing Strategies

Getting Started. First, Select a topic for your narrative. Once you have settled on a topic (see Topic Suggestions, below), scribble anything and everything you can think of concerning the subject. Make lists, freewrite, brainstorm. In other words, generate lots of material to begin with. Later you can cut, shape, revise, and edit. Making a timeline is a good idea.

Drafting. Keep in mind your purpose for writing: the ideas and impressions that you want to convey, the particular traits you want to emphasize. Provide specific details that serve to satisfy your purpose.

Organizing. Although most of your story will probably be united by a narrative line (that is, related moment by moment in time), make sure that you complement this narrative (at the beginning, at the end, and/or along the way) with interpretive commentary--your explanations of the meaning of the experience.

Revising. Keep your readers in mind. This is a "personal" narrative in the sense that the information it contains is drawn from your own experience or at least filtered through your own observations. It is not, however, a private narrative (that is, one written only for yourself or for close acquaintances). Rather, you are writing for a general audience of intelligent adults--say, your peers in a composition class.

The challenge is to write a narrative paragraph that is not only interesting (vivid, precise, well-constructed) but also intellectually and emotionally inviting. Put simply, you want your readers to identify in some fashion with the people, places, and incidents that you describe.

Editing. Except when you're deliberately mimicking nonstandard speech in quoted dialogue (and even then, don't overdo it), you should write your narrative in correct standard English. You may write to inform, move, or entertain your readers--but don't try to impress them. Cut out any precious writing, useless adjectives and adverbs, and wordy expressions.

Don't spend a lot of time telling how you feel or how you felt; instead, show. That is, provide the sort of specific details that will invite your readers to respond directly to your experience. Finally, save enough time to proofread carefully. Don't let surface errors distract the reader and undermine your hard work.

Self-Evaluation

Following your narrative paragraph, provide a brief self-evaluation by responding as specifically as you can to these four questions:

What part of writing this narrative took the most time?
What is the most significant difference between your first draft and this final version?
What do you think is the best part of your work, and why?
What part of this paper could still be improved?

Topic Suggestions

1. We have all had experiences that have changed the directions of our lives. Such experiences may be momentous, such as moving from one part of the country to another or losing a family member or close friend. On the other hand, they may be experiences that did not appear particularly significant at the time but have since proved to be important. Recall such a turning point in your life, and present it so as to give the reader a sense of what your life was like before the event and how it changed afterward.

2. Without getting too sentimental or cute, recreate your childhood perspective of a particular family or community ritual. Your purpose might be to highlight the division between the child's perspective and the adult's, or it might be to illustrate the child's movement toward an adult perspective.

3. Sometimes a significant relationship with someone can help us to mature, easily or painfully. Recount the story of such a relationship in your own life or in the life of someone you know well. If this relationship marked a turning point in your life or if it provided you with an important change of self-image, present enough information so that readers can understand the causes and effects of the change and can recognize the before-and-after portraits.

4. Write a reminiscence of a place that has had considerable significance for you (either during your childhood or more recently)--positive, negative, or both. For readers who are unfamiliar with the place, demonstrate its meaning through description, a series of vignettes, and/or an account of one or two key people or events you associate with that place.

5. In the spirit of the familiar saying, "It's the going, not the getting there, that matters," write an account of a memorable journey, important either because of the physical, emotional, or psychological experience of travel; or because of the phenomenon of leaving somewhere for an unknown experience.

After you have completed one or more drafts of your narrative essay, use the following checklist as a revision and editing guide to prepare the final version of your composition.

In your introduction, have you clearly identified the experience you are about to relate?
In the opening sentences of your essay, have you provided the kinds of details that will evoke your readers' interest in the topic?
Have you clearly explained who was involved and when and where the incident occurred?
Have you organized the sequence of events in chronological order?
Have you focused your essay by eliminating unnecessary or repetitious information?
Have you used precise descriptive details to make your narrative interesting and convincing?
Have you used dialogue to report important conversations?
Have you used clear transitions (in particular, time signals) to tie your points together and guide your readers from one point to the next?
In your conclusion, have you clearly explained the particular significance of the experience you have related in the essay?
Are the sentences throughout your essay clear and direct as well as varied in length and structure? Could any sentences be improved by combining or restructuring them?
Are the words in your essay consistently clear and precise? Does the essay maintain a consistent tone?
Have you read the essay aloud, proofreading carefully?