Guidelines for Writing Narrative Essays

Many people write narrative essays, and pursue writing as a hobby. This in turn, improves their thought process and their communication skills. Writing narrative essays helps the writer keep his imagination going, and come up with interesting ideas and stories. There is a huge difference between telling a story verbally, and writing a narrative essay. An essay may be a reflection of the author's views and personal values, molded in the form of a story. However, there are some guidelines that are to be kept in mind before writing a narrative essay.

Before you start writing, just relax for a moment, collect your thoughts, and try to write the essay steadily. Use clear and simple language which should be easy for the reader to understand.

Ensure the story is introduced in such a way that would distinctly indicate if it is a personal experience or just an observation. You may start the introduction with a quote or a proverb, if you want.

If you want to write about an experience, understand why it was important. Try and sort out the recollections of the experience, and create an outline based on it. You can certainly describe the essay in a better way using the outline.

You may also use dialogs is some cases, but largely try and avoid their use. Write an essay which should seem realistic. Mention sensory details that should attract the reader's attention.

Try to inject some humor in your essay to help lighten the mood of the reader. Build your essay around a central idea and revolve around a point to provide clarity to the readers. Don't change ideas often, or switch between conclusions, as it may confuse the reader.

Put yourself in the shoes of the main characters, so as to elucidate on your thoughts. Put an 'I' in the place of the protagonist of the story, and start writing. Don't bother about the number of times 'I' appears in the essay, or how much unfocused and unordered the points are. Write whatever you feel is correct. This is known as freewheeling essay writing. When you've finished writing or have written the concluding paragraph, read the essay all over again and try to put all points into place, and replace the 'I' if needed. If it is an essay of your experiences, you need to keep the 'I'.

After you have gone through the essay thoroughly, and have eliminated all the possible errors, spend some time away from the essay. This should give your mind a break, which is necessary to find mistakes which may go unnoticed, if you read the essay immediately after you write it. If you are still not satisfied with the essay, get a second opinion. This should help you improve.

Scan the essay and ponder over the details. Try and remove redundancy and any possible mistakes. Conclude the essay properly and logically and tie up any loose ends.

There are many other tips that are to be followed for writing a narrative essay. With constant practice, I'm sure you'll be a successful writer.