Narrative Essay

Miami Dade College

ENC 1101 – FALL 2018

Professor C. McCormick

The Narrative Essay*

Due Date: TBA

Word Count: 750

For this essay you will need to write about one specific experience that changed how you acted, thought, or felt. Use your experience as a spring board for reflection. Your purpose is not to merely tell an interesting story but to show your readers the importance and influence the experience has had on you. Good stories occur everywhere and can be told about anything. They are as likely to occur in your own neighborhood as in some exotic locale. Potential stories happen daily; what makes potential stories actual stories is putting them into language, recounting them, orally or in writing. Good stories are entertaining, informative, lively, and believable; they will mean something to those who write then as well as to those who read them. All stories account for something that happened-an event or series of events, after which something or somebody is changed. As in a fictive story, your personal essay will contain the similar elements: a character (who?) to whom something happens (what?), in some place (where?), at some time (when?), for some reason (why?), told from a particular perspective (how?). 

In other words, any time you render a full account of a personal experience, you answer what is commonly known as "reporter's questions"--the who, what, where, when, why, and how questions reporters ask themselves to make sure their reports of news stories are complete. Whether your essay is engaging or not depends upon the subject, your interest in telling it, and the skills you use to weave together these story elements. All stories recount something that happened-an event or series of events, after which something or somebody is changed. As in a fictive story, your personal essay will contain the similar elements: a character (who?) to whom something happens (what?), in some place (where?), at some time (when?), for some reason (why?), told from a particular perspective (how?).

Choosing a Subject:  Writers, as we have seen in our reading assignments, write about their personal experiences to get to know and understand themselves better, to inform and entertain others, and to leave permanent records of their lives. Subjects for good essays have no limits. You already have a lifetime of experiences from which to choose, and each

experience is a potential story to help explain who you are, what you believe, and how you act today. Here are some subject suggestions:

Winning and Losing Winning something—a race, a contest, a lottery, a lover—can be a good subject, since it features you in a unique position and allows you to explore or celebrate a special talent. The truth is that in most parts of life, there are more losers than winners. While one team wins a championship, dozens do not. So there is a large, empathetic audience out there who we will understand and identify with a narrative about losing. Although more common than winning, losing is less often explored in writing because it is more painful to recall, therefore, they are fresher, deeper, more original stories to tell about losing.

Milestones Perhaps the most interesting but also the most difficult experience to write about is one that you already recognize as a turning point in your life, whether it's winning a sports championship, being a camp counselor, or surviving a five-day solo camping trip in mid-winter. Writers who explore such topics in writing often come to a better understanding of them. Also, their very significance challenges the writers to make them equally significant for an audience that did not experience them. When you write about milestones, pay special attention to the physical details that will both advance your story and make it come alive for readers.

Daily Life Commonplace experiences make fertile subjects for personal narratives. You might describe practicing, rather than winning the big competition, or cleaning up after, rather than attending the prom. If you are accurate, honest, and observant in exploring a subject from which readers expect little, you are apt to pleasantly surprise them and draw them into your essay. Work experiences are especially fruitful subjects, since you may know inside details and routines of restaurants and retail shops that the rest of us can only guess.

Author’s Choice As we have seen, personal narratives encompass a wide range of subject types: from the ones described above to personal observations, personal profiles, etc. Do not feel constrained to write about an experience that doesn't fit into one of the categories above; in personal writing, everything overlaps.

*Please note that essays must be in MLA format. If you submit a paper that is not in MLA format, your grade will be dropped a full letter grade.