Narrative Writing Telling a Story

What is narrative writing? What is the difference between “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” and a newspaper article on bear attack statistics? Both are about human interaction with bears, but the difference is the first is a made-up story about girl meeting some bears, while the second is reporting on facts about bears. A story has many obvious differences from a statistical report. 'Goldilocks' is an example of narrative writing, which is any kind of writing that tells a story. (from study.com)

Narrative A story Tells what happened Must have characters, setting, and plot (w/ conflict) Characters are people in a story. Setting is the place and/or time. Plot is the sequence of events. (pyramid) Conflict is a struggle or problem. Internal (vs. self) External (vs. character, nature, or society)

Personal Narrative A true event you experienced Often students want to explain what happened to them, but remember a narrative tells a story and is meant to entertain (whether happy, sad, scary, etc.). Write in a way that your personal narrative could be a book read AS A STORY. You may use first person point of view (I, me), but tell a story! (You aren’t writing an essay.)

Fictional Narrative Very much like a personal narrative, but fiction (made up) Plot and characters invented by the author The author can use multiple perspectives (1st, 2nd, 3rd person POV)

WHAT DOES A NARRATIVE NEED?

Lead or Hook Grabs a reader’s attention Can be a sentence, a paragraph, or a few paragraphs long Possible leads: Question Figurative language Announcement Descriptive Opinion Imagine Quotation Personal experience

Imagery Creates visuals for the reader Creates pictures in the reader’s mind Think: Show Not Tell Tell: The room was perfect. It took her back to her childhood. Show: She threw open the wide oak door and stepped into the past. It was the bedroom she remembered down to the last detail. There were pink-candied striped walls with white trim, a thick white shag carpet, and an enormous canopy bed with a sheer white veil.

Figurative Language Figurative language can be used to create imagery. Personification: Jan ate a hotdog despite the arguments it posed to her digestive system. Metaphor: Her hope was a fragile seed. Simile: Dawn breaks open like a wound that bleeds.

Dialogue When telling a story, it is more effective and engaging to recreate what happened. You’ll have people, and those people have to talk. Speaker tags go either at the beginning, middle, or end of dialogue. (Note the comma.) “Mom isn’t going,” Sally said. “I want to,” voiced Johnathan, “but I just can’t.” “Run! This is crazy,” yelled Victor. When two or more people are speaking, you start a line for each new line of dialogue. Inner dialogue (thoughts) can be written in italics or even no special formatting.

Maintaining Point of View Writers should maintain their point of view unless there is a compelling reason not to. When we write quickly, we sometimes change the point of view of a sentence or a paragraph by switching from one pronoun perspective to another. This switch in perspective is called a switch in point of view or a pronoun shift. For example, the sentence we just read could have said: When we write quickly, you sometimes change the point of view of a sentence or a paragraph by switching from one pronoun perspective to another. (Where’s the pronoun shift?)

Conclusions The Four Elements of a conclusion “Touch back” to the main idea of the essay, as stated in the thesis paragraph. “Look to the Future” What further discussion could this essay lead to? What could you write about next? “The heart of the matter” What difference does it all make? Why should the reader care? “The zinger” What final statement can you end with that will leave the reader thinking “Wow!”?