What is Narrative Writing?

Teaching Narrative Writing

Narrative writing…you’ve heard the term, you’re expected to teach your students how to write a narrative story or personal experience narrative, you’re given rubrics that describe and define what the state sees as effective examples of the successful narrative.

But what is narrative writing?  What are the salient characteristics of a successful narrative?  What about author’s purpose and audience?  Character/problem solution vs personal experience?  What specific skills must the author possess?  And, beyond all this, the big question is, why is it important to teach narrative writing at all?

Understanding Genre

Narrative writing can be broadly defined as story writing – a piece of writing characterized by a main character in a setting who encounters a problem or engages in an interesting, significant or entertaining activity or experience.  What happens to this main character is called the plot.  The plot follows a beginning, middle, and end sequence.  The middle of the story is the largest, most significant part, which we call the main event. The main event is really what the story is all about and involves either a problem to be solved or a significant life experience for the main character.  Authors write narrative stories in order to entertain an audience of others – this is called author’s purpose.  

See Narrative Student Samples

What specific skills are involved in narrative writing?

Your students may or may not be required to generate narrative writing, but they do need to know the foundational skills authors use to write a narrative story. Understanding how authors construct a narrative story (or informational piece) is the key to reading comprehension and responding to text.

Authors of successful narratives are well-versed in the following skills:

• organization – they understand the shape that a narrative story takes as well as the salient characteristics of this kind of writing
• crafting entertaining beginnings – authors must understand the function of a story beginning – to grab the reader’s attention and introduce the reader to the story world. They also need to recognize the specific strategies and techniques authors use to accomplish this.
• elaborative detail – involves so much more than assigning adjectives to nouns! – the author needs to know why to elaborate (to allow the reader to experience story critical characters, settings, and objects through the five senses of the main character.), where elaboration is appropriate, and how to create it.
• suspense – story tension is what keeps the reader reading. Young authors must understand the need for suspense/tension and some specific techniques for building this into their plots.
• fully elaborated main events – every short story has a single significant main event – what the story is really all about. This main event needs to be told through a mix of action, description, dialogue, thoughts and feelings. It needs to be stretched out to reflect its relative importance to the story.
• satisfying extended story endings – after the main event concludes the author needs to allow the main character to reflect on memories, feelings, hopes, wishes, and decisions brought about by the main event.

Click here for a deeper dive into the different types of narrative writing.

Download the Sample Pack of Narrative Lessons!