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Narrative Essay Examples and Key Elements

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In a narrative essay , you tell a story, often about a personal experience, but you also make a point. So, the purpose is not only to tell an entertaining tale, but also to expound on the importance of the experience. In the narrative essay examples below, see if you can pull out the moral or theme . When it’s your time to draft a similar type of essay, hopefully, you can stir the heart of the reader.

Sample Narrative Essays

Below, you’ll find two narrative essay samples. One has a sad little twist and the other is a personal narrative essay that details the importance of hope. Note that they tell a story, while emphasizing an integral moral or theme.

He Left So I Could Learn

In this first essay example, we explore a lesson on dying:

It was my second day on the job. I was sitting in my seemingly gilded cubicle, overlooking Manhattan, and pinching my right arm to make sure it was real. I landed an internship at Condé Nast Traveler. Every aspiring writer I’ve ever known secretly dreamt of an Anthony Bourdain lifestyle. Travel the world and write about its most colorful pockets. When my phone rang, and it was Mom telling me Dad had a heart attack. He didn’t make it. I felt as though the perfectly carpeted floors had dropped out from under me. Now that I’ve come out the other side, I realize Dad left me with a hefty stack of teachings. Here are three ideals I know he would’ve liked for me to embrace. First, you have to stand on your own two feet. As much as our parents love and support us, they can’t go to our school and confess to the principal that we stole a candy bar from Sara. We have to do that. Neither can they walk into the Condé Nast office and nail a job interview for us. At some point, we have to put on our “big girl pants” and be brave, even if we’re not. Also, there’s a difference between love and co-dependence. Being grateful to have someone to turn to for love and support is not the same as needing someone to turn to for love and support. With the loss of my father, I’ve also lost my sounding board. All I can glean from that is it’s time to look within myself and make proper assessments. If I can’t make sound decisions with the tools already in my kit, then I risk falling for anything. Finally, memories are, perhaps, the only item that cannot be taken away from us. Will I miss my father? Every single day. What can I do in those times? I can open up our suitcase of memories, pick out my favorite one, and dream about it, talk about it, or write about it. Maybe I can’t pick up the phone and call him anymore, but that doesn’t mean he’s gone. Next week, I’m off to Istanbul to explore their art scene. As soon as I read the email from my editor, I picked up my phone to call Dad. Then, I realized he’ll never answer my calls again. I fought back the tears, got up to make a cup of peppermint tea, and added a new note to my iPhone titled, “Istanbul Packing List.” In the end, life goes on. I’m not sure why he had to leave during the single most poignant chapter in my life. So, I won’t dwell on that. Instead, I’ll hold tightly to these three ideals and write about Karaköy in Istanbul’s Beyoğlu district. Dad will be with me every step of the way.

A Teeny, Tiny Treasure Box

The next short narrative essay takes a different approach. Instead of living in a comfortably loving home, the writer had to deal with the uncertainty of the foster system. Here’s a short lesson on hope:

She took me by the hand and walked me into the lobby like a five-year old child. Didn’t she know I was pushing 15? This was the third home Nancy was placing me in - in a span of eight months. I guess she felt a little sorry for me. The bright fluorescent lights threatened to burn my skin as I walked towards a bouncy-looking lady with curly hair and a sweetly-smiling man. They called themselves Allie and Alex. Cute, I thought. After they exchanged the usual reams of paperwork, it was off in their Chevy Suburban to get situated into another new home. This time, there were no other foster children and no other biological children. Anything could happen. Over the next few weeks, Allie, Alex, and I fell into quite a nice routine. She’d make pancakes for breakfast, or he’d fry up some sausage and eggs. They sang a lot, even danced as they cooked. They must have just bought the house because, most weekends, we were painting a living room butter yellow or staining a coffee table mocha brown. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. When would they start threatening a loss of pancakes if I didn’t mow the lawn? When would the sausage and eggs be replaced with unidentifiable slosh because he didn’t feel like cooking in the morning? But, it never happened. They kept cooking, singing, and dancing like a couple of happy fools. It was a Saturday afternoon when Allie decided it was time to paint the brick fireplace white. As we crawled closer to the dirty old firepit, we pulled out the petrified wood and noticed a teeny, tiny treasure box. We looked at each other in wonder and excitement. She actually said, “I wonder if the leprechauns left it!” While judging her for being such a silly woman, I couldn’t help but laugh and lean into her a little. Together, we reached for the box and pulled it out. Inside was a shimmering solitaire ring. Folded underneath was a short piece of paper that read: “My darling, my heart. Only 80 days have passed since I first held your hand. I simply cannot imagine my next 80 years without you in them. Will you take this ring, take my heart, and build a life with me? This tiny little solitaire is my offering to you. Will you be my bride?” As I stared up at Allie, she asked me a question. “Do you know what today is?” I shook my head. “It’s May 20th. That’s 80 days since Nancy passed your hand into mine and we took you home.” It turns out, love comes in all shapes and sizes, even a teeny, tiny treasure box from a wonderfully silly lady who believes in leprechauns.

Essential Elements of Narrative Essays

Let’s go back to basics first. Generally speaking, there are four types of essays: argumentative essays , descriptive essays , expository essays , and narrative essays .

Narrative essays tell a vivid story, usually from one person's viewpoint. A narrative essay uses all the story elements — a beginning, middle and ending, as well as plot, characters, setting and climax — bringing them together to complete the story. The focus of a narrative essay is the plot, which is told with enough detail to build to a climax. Here's how:

Quick Tips on Writing a Narrative Essay

When writing a narrative essay, remember that you are sharing sensory and emotional details with the reader.

Tell Your Story

Use your next narrative essay to tell your story. It’s possible to focus on yourself, while offering the reader some sort of lesson or truth. Encourage them to move past terrible loss or maintain hope in a seemingly bleak foster system.

Narrative essays are close cousins to short stories. If you feel compelled to share another story, fiction or nonfiction, with the world, check out Get Creative: How to Write a Short Story . Who knows how many lives you’ll brighten and shape with your words. Remember, there’s great power in them.

200 Best Narrative Essay Topics and Ideas

examples of narrative essays for grade 8

Imagine being put in a time capsule with an artificial intelligence chauffeur who asks you, 'Which one of your memories would you like to access?'.

This scenario is rather accurate for a narrative essay. Your storyline, voice, and writing style distinguish this type of writing from others. The best option to satisfy your professor's demands and the criteria outlined in the grading scale is to acquire prompt academic assistance from the EssayPro's term paper writing service . Continue reading to find out how to write a narrative essay like a true professional and have a look at our narrative essay examples below!

Narrative Essay Definition and Types of Essay

Before we continue, let's briefly discuss what is a narrative paper. A narrative essay definition is a form of academic assignment that uses a tale about the author's personal experience to make a point. It's not enough to merely tell an amusing tale. Narrative essays rely on settings, character growth, dialogue, conflicts & resolutions, and turning points.

The other purpose of such writing is to stress reasons for sharing the episode and the significance of the experience provided. The narrative essay structure is less rigidly organized than the persuasive essay.

Speaking of which, a narrative essay format follows a typical layout. Everything in these papers needs to maintain a predetermined chronology and have a distinct beginning, middle, and end.

How to Choose Narrative Essay Topics?

In order to hone your writing skills, first you need to learn how to start a narrative essay. It begins with selecting a decent topic for your piece. Here are some tips for making a right choice with your narrative essay topics.

choose-narrative-essay-topics

1. Keep in mind that narratives tell stories

The theme you choose should make it possible for the audience to connect to your personal experience, skills, and the valuable life lessons.

2. Pick useful ideas to discuss

If you have a passion for something, select issues that you have struggled with. This is a unique chance to avoid writing about things that make you yawn.

3. Be ready – don’t miss the planning stage

Your paper has to prove a particular point, so be sure to check how much information you need to collect on different topics.

4. Keep experimenting throughout

Experiment by, for instance, mixing various episodes from your life with different topics. Think of the subject that will guarantee the best emotional experience for your readers.

5. Recall the essay’s structure

An academic paper always requires a golden formula in terms of its structure. For the list of ideas you may choose from, consider whether it is possible to develop relevant, logical sections according to the intro-body-conclusion organization. As the body section of your paper will require at least three paragraphs, decide whether or not you will be able to come up with at least three claims (topic sentences) to support your thesis statement.

Our college admission essay writing service has compiled a whole list of narrative essay topics with descriptions to help you. Scroll down to find some excellent narrative essay topics for college students. ‍

Experience Is a Teacher

Write down any experiences that come to mind using a pen and paper. Your encounter could start negatively but be pleasant, or vice versa. The fascinating aspect of a bad event is how you handled it and, ideally, prevailed. Give your reader a sense of place so they may experience this moment of transformation with you and feel a part of your tale. Consider the following literacy narrative essay examples:

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Narrative essay topic ideas.

narrative essay

Personal Narrative Essay Topics

A personal narrative essay is about your personal experience. It needs to have an emotional effect on the reader. In order to do so, the picture you are creating (with words) has to be vivid and appeal to the reader’s emotions. Using a lot of details is a great way to achieve this goal. Some personal narrative topics include:

40 Best Narrative Essay Topics

Narrative essays aim for the reader to see exactly what the writer has been through. Since you cannot show your readers a picture, you need to create one with words. Make sure you pick something that you remember well—as providing all of the details for the reader is essential. 

Cultural Narrative Essay Topics

Cultural narrative essays allow you to show an aspect of culture to the reader yet make it informative and entertaining. Culture is a very vast and complicated system, therefore avoid touching upon several aspects at one time in the same story. Cultural narratives are great discussion starters as people get to ask questions about culture and explain what kind of prejudice they might have towards a culture or certain aspects of that culture. Here are some examples of cultural narrative essays:

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Narrative Argument Essay Topics

A narrative argument essay examines something that has intrigued you or has had a big impact on your life—through the form of a story. It also needs to include a point that has come from your narrative that is persuasive or argumentative. Your story acts as your argument and an example with which you persuade the reader. 

Interesting Narrative Essay Topics

Childhood Memories

Take a trip down memory lane to your sincere and younger years and find a crazy story to share. If you have a setting, an idea, but no story, you can always make one up. Make it convincing, and people will think that your life is fascinating! Write about a childhood experience that showed the importance of teamwork.

Growing Up in High School

Everyone is nostalgic for their school years in one way or another. It is a time of knowledge, development, and growth—or skipping classes and looking for trouble. Find something exciting from your high school experience and turn it into a narrative essay.

Relationships start with family. As a person grows, their relationship with their family extends to their friendships, romantic interests, business relationships, and far beyond. Explore the vices and virtues of the people you’ve met.

Moral & Ethical Dilemmas

Laws keep the world in order. Or do they? Students from all over the world discuss plenty of challenging moral questions. The time comes when a person has to choose – do the legal thing or do the right thing—according to their set of ethical standards. These points make morality an infinite pool of inspiration for writing.

Hobbies & Interests

Hobbies are the things that people enjoy doing most of all. Hobbies can end up sparking lifetime interests or involvement in one’s community. Most people end up being happier when their hobbies can be incorporated into their jobs. Additionally, people attract each other based on the things they do and the places they go. Ask yourself “What do I enjoy doing?” Or “Why do I like this particular type of music?”

Moments of Inspiration

Ever had that moment that inspired you to do great things? As students, we often get inspired by the most straightforward observations. Whatever your source of inspiration – whether it is a field trip, a beautiful view, a film with a moving story, or a classic book like ‘Catcher in the Rye’ – you can always turn it into a fascinating piece of writing.

College Student Life

Going to college means getting catapulted into a new world enriched with new impressions – new circles of people, a new system of education, student living conditions, and much more. All of the craziest stories happen in college; whether you’re there to party or use textbooks for pillows, there's plenty of narrative essay topics for college, and about college, that you can write about.

‘Imagine If’ Scenarios

Narrative essays usually require students to write about their lives. What are the exceptions? Frequently, narratives get dramatized in favor of telling a great story, over blatantly stating facts. ‘Imagine If…” scenarios can be massively dramatized versions of reality, making them one of the most popular sub-genres in essay writing. Enter the realm of free-flowing imagination and see where it takes you:

Places You Have Been

You should not necessarily discuss only places from your memories; it is also possible to describe locations that you would like to visit and provide reasons for doing so. Some ideas may include:

Most Preferred Activities

This one is similar to your “hobbies”, yet slightly different. It is better to focus on what you do well and share some useful recommendations instead of fake memories. Describing something you have a passion for always adds a dynamic perspective.

Author’s Strong Sides or Expertise

If you believe you are an expert in a particular field, offer the reader some tips and tricks on how to succeed in the same area. Recall personal experiences and factors that have helped you. It may look like recommendations, but do not forget you are writing a narrative essay – involve more creativity and descriptions.

Good Narrative Essay Topics Without a Category

All of the previous narrative essay topics are tied to a particular genre or theme. Still, there are plenty of good narrative essay topics you can pick from that are quite random, yet fun to write about. Check out some additional topics for narrative essay assignments that we have thought up:

Fun Narrative Essay Topics for High School Students

This section is a pleasant bonus for our young readers! A good sense of humor is an excellent ace up your sleeve in writing. You may be able to turn a serious situation into something fun and relaxing by involving a relevant joke or anecdote. The rest of your essay will then feel more alive and exciting. These ideas will help you get inspired:

Narrative Paper Topics about Personality

Each of us has their own personality. It is possible to express yourself in any light by choosing to write a narrative paper about your strengths, weaknesses, characteristics, mood, etc. We have analyzed some of the best topics for you.

Gender & Sexuality

Any topic related to gender is a sensitive one. Essay writers should be careful not to tread on corn. A paper about sex and gender should be objective and written in a neutral tone. Here we are with some issues that you may find interesting to discuss:

tips-narrative-essay-writing

After finding a topic that suits your mood, do some brainstorming. Write all of the possible scenarios on a piece of paper and organize them into a unique narrative essay outline. Follow the instructors of your professor. Most of your questions have probably been answered there. Our essay service has compiled some writing tips to help you manage your essay without any hassle.

Narrative Essay Examples

You may also be interested in the article about the case study format . We recommend reading it to broaden your horizons.

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