Narrative Essay Ideas and Advice

A narrative essay is a person anecdote or story. It is usually written in the first person and almost always is an account of the writer’s personal experience. Writing a narrative essay allows students to express themselves creatively and address issues that they have personally experienced.

These essays are quite popular among students as it is impossible to be factually wrong about a personal story. This limits the need for research. This does not mean that there are no pitfalls that exist, however. For example, before a student can even begin to write, they must have a few interesting narrative essay ideas. They must also use good spelling and grammar, descriptive language, and write with a purpose in order for their essay to be deemed a success. With this in mind, we have created this post with two goals in mind. The first is to provide students with a lot of great essay ideas. The second is to help each student reading this post to write an organized, well-formatted, and extremely readable essay.

Great Ideas for a Narrative Essay

Here are some ideas that you can use as food for thought as you begin selecting the perfect topic for your narrative essay:

What has been your best experience so far as a college student?
Write about a time when you were really frightened?
Describe meeting your current boyfriend or girlfriend.
Has anybody thrown you a surprise party? What was that like?
Describe your favorite place
What did you do on your last road trip?
Plan the ideal week long vacation
What was the last thing you did with your best friend
When was the last time that you were completely unsure of how to handle a problem?
What was the best piece of advice you ever received? How did you use it?
Have you ever traveled to a foreign country?
Have you ever climbed a mountain, gone backpacking, or experienced some other travel adventure?

Technical Advice on Writing a Narrative Essay

A student who has a great idea and a creative mind is already off to a good start when it comes to writing a great narrative essay. However, before they get started, it is very important to think about some technical issues. A big part of this is spelling and grammar, but there is more to it than that. Students must put a lot of thought into the way that they are going to tell their story to their readers. One way to write a narrative essay is to use a storytelling format. If a student wants to use this format that is fine. They simply must include all of the elements that one would expect in a story. This means a plot, climax, introduction, and conclusion.

Another option that students have is to write their narrative essay as a classically formatted essay. This would mean starting with an introductory paragraph that includes a thesis. The thesis could be related to a lesson that was learned or a conclusion the writer reaches after experiencing something.

How to Begin a Narrative Essay

Starting an essay can be quite difficult. This is no different when it comes to the narrative essay. Sometimes the best way to begin is with a bit of a sneak peak. Here is an example:

I felt my stomach jump into my chest when I saw the red and blue lights flashing behind me. What I didn't know was that the speeding ticket I was about to receive would be the best thing that ever happened to me.

This is an easy and excellent way to kick off any narrative essay.