Creative Truth Telling 101: How to Write a Narrative Essay

Most people get their first introduction to the art of narrative essays through cookie-cutter school assignments or high-pressure college applications. But here’s a fun fact a lot of folks don’t know:

Writing a narrative essay can be fun.

When you’re not under pressure to impress someone who holds your academic fate in their hands, an essay can be a thrilling tool for self-expression and even self-discovery. 

But first, you gotta understand the art form. You and I are going to make that happen right now. We’re about to cover all your most pressing narrative essay questions, from what it is to how to write one. You’ll also get some suggestions for narrative essay examples worth checking out.

Let’s start with a definition:

What is a Narrative Essay?

A narrative essay tells a true story from a first-person point of view. 

It’s often a personal story drawn from the author’s own life, but it doesn’t have to be. You could write a narrative essay about an event you observed or learned about through research and interviews.

What matters is that you’re telling a story rather than reporting on facts. There’s a narrative arc incorporating character development, conflict, themes, and a vivid, relevant setting. You’re basically involving all the elements of fiction, except for the part where everything is made up.

Narrative essays fall under the heading of creative nonfiction. That means the stories are true, but instead of merely conveying information, the goal is to engage readers emotionally, express a personal perspective, or explore a topic in greater depth.

A narrative essay is usually somewhere between 1,000 and 5,000 words long, but it could be as much as 15,000-20,000 words.

Narrative Essay Examples

You’ve likely written a narrative essay before. If you ever had to write about a time when you overcame hardship for a college application or a teacher asked you to write about your summer vacation, you’ve already dipped your toe into this particular art form.

But you can easily find narrative essays beyond the walls of academia, too. 

The New York Times’ famous “Modern Love” column consists of real-life stories about human relationships. 

Authors like Samantha Irby, Jenny Lawson, and David Sedaris write essay collections filled with hilarious narratives from their own lives, some of which touch on profound themes.

Roxane Gay uses the art of the narrative essay to explore social issues in the more intimate context of her personal experience. And Joan Didion was famous for making every essay feel personal, even when she was telling someone else’s story.

As you study these and other experienced writers in the genre, you’ll find that there are endless ways to tackle a true story. 

The Role of Storytelling in a Narrative Essay

Okay, so obviously, storytelling is the defining feature of a narrative essay. But why? Why not just present the facts?

It all comes down to giving readers the feels. Most narrative essays aim to communicate not just factual truth but emotional truth. 

An author might write a narrative essay about antiquing with their mother. Their goal isn’t to inform people about what their mom bought and why. It’s to express something more abstract about parent/child relationships or the passage of time or whatever.

They’re using concrete events to illustrate a much deeper theme. And storytelling is a more effective tool than fact-spewing because it engages the reader emotionally, helping them connect with that profound emotional truth.

Pre-Writing Phase: Planning Your Narrative

In a moment, we’re going to talk about how to write a narrative essay. 

But first, you’re going to want to do a little prep work. How much you do is entirely up to you. Some writers are plotters who like to have everything figured out before they write their essay. Some are pantsers who find their story as they go.

While I land closer to the plotter end of the spectrum as a fiction writer, I veer more towards pantsing when it comes to narrative essays. Probably because I don’t have to dream up all the raw material. It’s already there, rolling around in my memory, and I won’t know what I want to say about it until I start writing.

You do you. But I recommend giving your narrative essay at least a little thought before you dive in.   

Choosing a Topic

First, figure out what you want to write about. You can start with a specific personal experience, like that time you picked up a hitchhiker.

If no interesting life events spring to mind, you can start with a theme instead.

Maybe you want to write about your personal definition of love. Or the homelessness crisis in your city. Start there and brainstorm real-life stories that connect to your main idea.

If you have no idea what you want to write about, here are some open-ended prompts to get the wheels turning:

Narrative Essay Writing Prompts

• What’s your earliest childhood memory?
• What’s your core belief regarding love, forgiveness, family, or justice? How did you come to hold that belief?
• What seemingly insignificant moment had a massive impact on your life?
• What needs to change in society? If you could tell the world one story to help them understand why that change is necessary, what would it be?
• How do you define joy? What moment in your life illustrates that best?
• How do you define loss? What moment in your life illustrates that best?
• Is there a painful moment in your life that you’ll be eternally grateful for?
• What about a joyful moment you’ve come to regret?

Brainstorming Your Content

Once you’ve chosen a topic, you’re ready to start thinking about your story in more detail.

Jot down the basic arc of your story. What happened? Who was involved? What did you learn?

Pinpoint the most relevant details. The challenge of writing about our own lives is that we know everything—what we ate for breakfast, how much the bus ticket cost, the elderly neighbor’s maiden name. 

Review your notes, looking for details that have the potential to clarify your theme and those that are more likely to drag down your story with unnecessary information.

It might also be a good idea to zoom out and see if there are any other personal experiences worth tying into your essay. Maybe the narrative essay about antiquing with your mother would benefit from a one-paragraph flashback to the time when you went with her to visit her own mother in assisted living. 

Mindmaps and freewriting are both great tools for this type of brainstorming. You can learn more about how to do them here.

Creating an Outline

If you’re a planner, you’ll probably want to outline your narrative essay before you start writing. So let’s talk structure real quick.

In school, you probably learned that a good essay starts with an introduction containing a thesis statement followed by multiple supporting paragraphs. But now you’re writing a narrative essay, which means your readers are expecting a story. 

Skip the thesis statement. You still have a main point to make, but that point is called a theme and you’re making it by weaving it into a traditional story structure.

In fact, think of this more like a short story that’s true. A protagonist (probably you) has a goal but faces obstacles in pursuit of that goal. This conflict forces them to either make a bold decision or undergo some internal transformation, possibly both. 

Lay out your narrative so it’s not just a series of events, it’s an actual story arc. Sprinkle in flashbacks and alternating timelines as needed, and make sure to track the way your themes and emotional truth unfold over the course of the story. 

Pro tip: The Dabble Plot Grid is a huge help for stuff like this.

Drafting Your Essay

Time for the fun stuff. Let’s dig in and actually write a narrative essay.

We’ll go over the key elements of a good narrative essay, but first I want to talk prose.

As I mentioned earlier, this is narrative writing, which means you’re going to treat it as if you were writing fiction.

This means you’re going to use the same language tricks you’d use when writing a novel. Figurative language, vivid sensory details, literary devices like foreshadowing and irony… all that fun stuff.

I also recommend checking out these submission tips straight from the editors of “Modern Love.” It’s created for writers who plan to submit their work to “Modern Love” (and much of the advice is several years old), but it also offers outstanding tips for creating a compelling narrative essay in any context. 

Okay, let’s get to writing.

Crafting the Hook

Kick off your narrative essay with an interesting hook—something that immediately draws the reader in and makes them want to stick around to see where this is going.

Great hooks come in many forms, including:

• An interesting setting
• A shocking opening line
• A controversial claim
• A compelling question
• An impossible dilemma
• A fascinating character 

Pinpoint the thing that’s most likely to snag your reader’s attention and get to it right away. Like, in the first sentence. Check out this article for tips on writing a stellar opening line.

Setting the Stage

The setting of a narrative essay is as essential as the setting of a novel. Use vivid details to draw readers into your world. 

Stick with concrete descriptive language instead of speaking in the abstract. Don’t say it was a beautiful day; show the reader dappled sunlight shivering through the gaps in the leaves. This makes it easier for your audience to disappear inside your story and connect with it emotionally.

You can use these worksheets to practice the “show, don’t tell” approach to descriptive writing.

Also remember that a setting is more than physical space. Is there anything your readers should understand about the culture or political climate your story takes place in?

Developing Characters

You may not think of character development as an essential skill for writing a narrative essay. After all, you’re dealing with the truth. The people in your story are who they are.

Nevertheless, you’ve got to think like a storyteller. That means considering how each person contributes to the narrative. How do these individuals move the story forward? How are they changed because of the experience? 

Because most narrative essays are personal stories, the author is typically the main character. That means you’ve got to give yourself the protagonist treatment, going deep on your own goals, motivations, fears, strengths, and weaknesses within the story.

Who are you at the beginning of the story? Who have you become by the end? A great narrative essay reveals a journey of growth—a character arc—no matter how big or small.

Introducing the Conflict

Speaking of personal growth, you need a clear conflict to set your journey in motion.

Now, as an essayist, you don’t face the same pressures a novelist faces—at least not when it comes to crafting nail-biter conflicts. While some narrative essays explore shocking, life-altering conflicts, others reflect on the deeper symbolism of small moments like burning a cake or enduring a humiliating job interview.

So don’t worry about going big if you’re not writing about a major life event. Just focus on creating tension, helping the reader empathize with the protagonist’s (your) emotions, and revealing the theme that explains why this seemingly minor conflict is worth writing about.

Advancing the Plot

In all good stories, things get worse before they get better.

But what if, in the true story you’re telling, they didn’t? What if there was just one conflict and then it ended?

Not a problem. The external conflict—the tough diagnosis or the fight you had with your cousin—is only half of the central conflict, anyway. The other half is the internal conflict—whatever battle you were fighting with yourself in that moment.

And when it comes to narrative essays, internal conflict is huge. 

This includes stuff like:

• Moral dilemmas
• Identity crises
• Spiritual crises
• Conflicting feelings about other people
• Plummeting self-confidence

The beauty of writing a narrative essay is that you get to zoom into small moments. You can tell a 100-year story in an essay if you want to. But you can also write about the 30 minutes you spent trying to get an oil stain off your driveway if each failed attempt triggers the perfectionist tendencies you’re trying to overcome.

You can also heighten the conflict of your narrative essay by demonstrating that the issue is bigger than this one moment in your life. Maybe it reflects a larger societal problem, in which case, reflect on that! Let it add dimension to your personal journey. You might even incorporate statistics or a news story if it fits your writing style.

Resolving the Narrative

A satisfying ending is no less important in a narrative essay than it is in a work of fiction. The challenge, of course, is that we can only work with what actually happened.

This is why it’s so important to build the internal conflict. Your satisfying conclusion is going to come from your personal growth. How did the experience change you? What did you discover about yourself?

Who have you become by the time you’re sitting alone in the middle of your driveway with your steel wool and bucket, willing yourself to make peace with the stain?

Read a ton of narrative essays and pay attention to the endings that shake your soul. Great authors know how to spin a powerful conclusion out of a moment that looks mundane on the outside.

Polishing Your Narrative Essay

So you’ve written the first draft of your essay. Now what?

It’s time to make this baby shine. That means several rounds of self-editing, sharing your work for feedback, more editing, and finally a little proofreading.

If that sounds like a lot of work, it is. But these steps are key if you hope to publish your masterpiece in a magazine or essay collection. 

So let’s get to it.

Self-Editing

In this phase, you are your only editor. For the most part, anyway. You might have an alpha reader or a critique partner to help you workshop problem areas in your first draft. 

But generally speaking, it’s best to do as much revising as you can before you start seeking feedback from others. That way, your readers don’t waste any time (and you don’t waste any favors) pointing out issues you could’ve found and fixed on your own.

I recommend doing a few rounds of self-edits, focusing first on big-picture things like structure and flow, gradually moving your focus down to smaller details like syntax, word choice, and grammar.

You can find more self-editing tips here.

Seeking Feedback

Once you’ve made all the improvements you can make on your own, you’re ready for outside input. 

Reach out to fellow essayists and essay readers. Ask if they’d be willing to read your manuscript and provide honest feedback, and give them a clear (and generous) time frame for when you hope to receive their notes.

It’s always a little uncomfortable to invite critiques of your work, but this process is key for making your narrative essay the best it can be. You don’t have to incorporate all the feedback you get, but make sure you express gratitude whether you agree with their notes or not.

You can learn more about the feedback process here.

Final Polish

After you’ve completed several revisions and taken advantage of all that insightful feedback, you’ll hopefully have a compelling narrative essay you feel great about. 

The only thing left to do is scour it for remaining typos, grammatical errors, punctuation problems, formatting issues, or any other tedious issue that could potentially distract from its brilliance.

Once you’ve polished your narrative essay, you’re ready for the next step, whether that means submitting your masterpiece to literary magazines, pitching it to glossies, publishing it in an essay collection…

…or even just sitting yourself back down at the keyboard to get started on the next one.

Master the Art of Narrative

Now that you’ve nailed the basics of how to write a narrative essay, you’re ready for a deeper dive into the art of narrative writing. And you can learn how to tell a compelling story right here in DabbleU.

Browse DabbleU for hundreds of free articles and resources on character development, conflict, setting, prose, and more. Find inspiration and learn what it takes to build a writing routine and become a published author.

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