Writing a Personal Narrative :: Personal Narrative Writing

Purpose and AudiencePersonal narratives allow you to sh be your life with others and vicariously endure the things that happen around you. Your job as a writer is to put the reader in the midst of the action letting him or her live through and through an experience. Although a great deal of writing has a thesis, stories are different. A good story creates a dramatic effect, makes us laugh, gives us pleasurable fright, and/or gets us on the edge of our seats. A story has done its job if we can say, Yes, that captures what living with my father feels like, or Yes, thats what being cut from the football team felt like. StructureThere are a variety of ways to structure your narrative story. The three most common structures are chronological approach, flashback sequence, and reflective mode. Select one that best fits the story you are telling. MethodsShow, Dont TellDont tell the reader what he or she is supposed to think or feel. Let the reader see, hear, smell, feel, and taste the exper ience directly, and let the sensory experiences lead him or her to your intended thought or feeling. presentation is harder than telling. Its easier to say, It was incredibly funny, than to write something that is incredibly funny. The rule of show, dont tell means that your job as a storyteller is not to counsel its to select revealing details. Youre a sifter, not an explainer. An easy way to accomplish showing and not telling is to avoid the use of to be verbs. Let People TalkIts amazing how much we learn about people from what they say. One way to achieve this is through carefully constructed dialogue. stool to create dialogue that allows the characters personalities and voices to emerge through unique word selection and the use of active rather than passive voice. Choose a Point of overtakePoint of view is the perspective from which your story is told. It encompasses where you are in time, how much you view the experience emotionally (your tone), and how much you allow yours elf into the minds of the characters. Most personal narratives are told from the first-person limited point of view. If you venture to experiment with other points of view, you may want to discuss them with Miss Burke as you plan your piece.