How to Write an Impressive Personal Narrative Essay

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Have you ever been asked to write an essay? How did you feel, especially if it was the first time? Quite often professionals and students find writing essays a challenging task. The fact is writing an essay can be difficult because there are several rules that guide essay writing.

More so, many essays are created for academic purposes and there are many penalties that might befall an individual in case certain parameters are undermined. However, there is also another side of the story.

Not every essay writing process will prove hectic and time-consuming. In fact, penning down a personal narrative essay can be among the best experiences in your writing profession or college programs. But, you may wonder what a personal narrative essay means.

In this piece, we will explore what a personal narrative essay is and how to create an influential personal narrative essay.

What is a Personal Narrative Essay?

There are many types of essays and narrative essay is among them. Consider narrative essay writing as storytelling because it is completely different from other forms of essays. Narrative essays are experiential in nature and will require one to write down his or her experiences.

With that, a personal narrative essay is one where one turns personal experiences into an impactful commentary. It’s a narrative essay that helps an individual turn personal stories into readable material for entertainment or informational purposes.

Steps to Follow to Produce an Impressive Personal Narrative Essay

Although narrative essays require personal experiences, an individual must have good story development skills to share experiences creatively and professionally. And for that matter, here are some of the steps you can take to write an impressive personal narrative essay.

Choose an Appealing Topic

Unlike other academic essays, a personal narrative essay will require you to create your topic. This is indeed a cornerstone for your essay because it will influence your essay’s body. Also, the topic you choose for your personal narrative essay will determine whether people are interested in your entire essay or not.

Therefore, choose an appealing topic that can help you write with a seamless flow and creativity. If you find it difficult to select a topic for your personal narrative essay, then try to think about a conflict, a childhood incident, or tap into the power of imagination.

Imagination can help you create a story out of nowhere and yet seem real and relatable. In this case, you can come up with a supervillain story, romance, or drama storyline. All you have to do is to ensure that you follow a storyline that will give you a chance to create detailed and captivating scenes.

Make Some Research

Although there are no limitations to what you can write about, ensure to make some research. Research can help you attain new insights into the topic you want to write about. It can also help you understand whether other writers have already covered a similar topic before.

Besides that, taking time to carry out research can help you understand how to write a personal narrative essay, especially when you’re writing it for the first time. The research will also show you the search terms and attain more information about the target audience. It will help you clarify what to include in your essay and what not to.

Therefore, carry out some research even though you are writing your essay completely from scratch and out of the personal experience.

Create an Outline

One of the best essay-writing tactics that can help you create an outstanding essay is to create an outline. An outline is a general description or an overview of what you want to include in your essay. It consists of the sections that you would want your essay to have and the language.

An outline will also help you remember the structure and other elements of your essay like the characters and setting. It’s very easy to make and will certainly take less than an hour as long as you have a well-defined topic, characters, or circumstances in your story. Therefore, consider creating an outline because it can smoothen your writing process.

Take Advantage of Tools

Writing has greatly evolved and there is a range of software that writers can leverage to create remarkable pieces. From AI-powered writing tools and productivity management to paraphrasing tools, there is ideally every tool that a writer may require. Consider tools like Grammarly and Thesaurus to power your creativity and writing skills.

A tool like Thesaurus can help you avoid using the same words over and over again. You only need to write a word and it will provide you with similar words that can match your taste. On the other hand, Grammarly is a tool that can help you ensure that your grammar is up to the mark. Whether you’re writing an academic essay or a personal narrative essay, consider tools because they are a good way to simplify writing and yet produce a quality piece.

Write

Planning is a good way to have a smooth writing process, and the steps mentioned above certainly fall under planning. When it comes to writing, there are a few things, yet significant when it comes to presenting an impressive essay. These include;

Introduction: An introduction is a very important element of an essay. In fact, 90% of readers will consider your introduction when it comes to grading your essay. An introduction is a section that details the purpose of an essay. A good essay introduction must consist of a hook and thesis statement.

A hook and a thesis statement serve best when it comes to grabbing a reader’s attention. Commonly, online readers don’t have the time to read an entire essay, especially when unclear about its storyline. It’s the introduction (hook and thesis statement) that will convince readers to read your essay. Therefore, create a captivating introduction to work as a pull factor for your essay.

Plot: A plot is also considered the body of your personal narrative essay. While writing the body of the essay, you must pay attention to the way you create and organize the events. A plot is the real gist of your essay and it’s what your readers want to uncover. Therefore, you don’t want to disappoint them and end up reading negative comments below your essay.

To professionally present an intriguing, yet satisfying body, you must clearly define the characters and genre of your narrative essay. Then articulately pen down the opening scenes, the climax, the falling action, and the resolution. Opening scenes “primary conflict” create tension and introduce the reader to emerging events. The rising action then showcases the motion of characters, and the climax or the turning point is where a choice must be made and this influences the end of the story.

The falling action then brings the story closer to an end and it’s where the reader learns of the effect of the characters’ decisions. The resolution stage then wraps up the story and it’s where conflicts are settled and the end is certain.

The “body” section of an essay, whether academic or personal narrative essay highly influences one’s score or an author’s reputation. That’s why essays can be leveraged as mediums for preventing schools from killing creativity. They generally display or cultivate creativity in a writer, and also display his or her insights, storytelling, and analytical skills.

Conclusion

Even though it’s a personal narrative essay, it must have a conclusion. A conclusion sums up your essay and serves as a closing point. Ensure to create a conclusion that can offer a lasting impression on your readers. Also, avoid providing new views in the conclusion or any information that your reader would have expected in the body.

Proofread & Edit

Grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and poorly paraphrased text can hamper your essay’s performance online and in search engines. Therefore, spare time to proofread your essay properly before submitting or publishing it. This last phase of your essay also allows you to make edits that can sieve your essay of foul language, useless paragraphs, and unclear sentences. With that, make sure to proofread and edit your essay to submit a piece that will help you fetch the intended results.

Bottom Line

Personal narrative essays are interesting to write because almost everyone has a story to tell. They generally eliminate the need for extensive research, citations, or including a range of resources like other academic essays. However, a writer must be crystal clear about the subject matter.

Having a clear topic in mind will help you have a smooth writing process and one that will help you develop your story seamlessly. All that you have to do is to engage in proper planning in order to come up with a powerful plot, characters, and setting for your personal narrative essay. In this way, you will be able to pen down a powerful and one-of-a-kind personal narrative essay.

Somnath Sarkar

Hello, Viewers! Besides being the Founder and Owner of this website, I am a Government Officer. As a hardcore literary lover, I am pursuing my dream by writing notes and articles related to Literature. Drop me a line anytime, whether it’s about any queries or demands or just to share your well-being. I’d love to hear from you. Thanks for stopping by!