How to Write a Narrative Paragraph

 University Hassan II Mohammedia

Faculty of letters Department of English English studies

Writing Paragraphs        Kesbi

How to Write a Narrative Paragraph

How to Write a Narrative Paragraph                                    

People like to tell tales, listen to anecdotes and read interesting stories. A narrative paragraph represents your chance to tell a brief story to your reader. Planning, developing and polishing your narrative leads to a clear, intriguing story — a process teachers can help their students work through when writing narrative paragraphs.

1. Topics and Topic Sentences

o Prewriting helps you discover a topic to write about. Brainstorm by listing some events you might write about, such as the first day of a class, the scariest experience in your life or the happiest moment. Write some notes about why the event was significant. Then create a topic sentence to concisely explain what you will recount in your paragraph and why it matters. A good narrative topic sentence could be “Terri’s only day working as a dishwasher was one of the worst days of her life.” The reader quickly knows the point of the paragraph and why the narrative matters.

Developing Detail

o Develop the paragraph with details that tell the story, focusing on the purpose in your topic sentence. All the details in the dishwasher paper should illustrate how awful the day was. Examples and specific, sensory details make the event vivid. Instead of simply saying Terri broke dishes, the paper might explain, “As she turned away, Terri’s sleeve caught the corner of the full tray of dishes, sending them cascading to the floor with a huge crash. Broken glass and fragments of china flew everywhere.” Typically, you should tell the story in chronological order.

Concluding Sentences and Finishing Touches

o After finishing the narrative paragraph, create a concluding sentence to tie the elements of the story together and remind your reader of your purpose, such as, “Those eight nightmarish hours combined to create a horrific day Terri will never forget.” Once you have completed your draft, add transitions where needed to make the connections among ideas clear. Words like “next,” “after” and “then” tell the reader how events correlate: “After the tray fell, Terri stood rooted in horrified silence.” Check your assignment instructions to see if first-person language like “I” is appropriate, which is often the case in narrative writing.