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After the school holidays are
NARRATIVE ESSAYS
A narrative essay requires you to relate an event or incident as an eyewitness would. This is the art of story-telling, and a wide experience in the reading of short stories, novels, and so on, is required.
Your essay must be interesting and convincing: the reader should enjoy reading it and be led to believe that what he is reading is true. The narrative should follow the order in which the events took place, gradually moving the reader to the climax of your story. You only have to state the facts as they were. Read this short passage below.
It was pitch-dark outside the bedroom. It must have been that the security light was not switched on before we went to bed. There was some movement outside one of the windows, I listened. As I got-up from bed to check at the window, a flash of light through the window dazzled my eyes. I shouted ‘thief, and the next thing I heard was a gun shot, The writer is here trying to paint a picture in words. It is only by your own imagination that this picture can be made more beautiful. Now, let us examine the following ideas that emerge from the passage:
- An element of fear in the reader introduced by the use of the adjective ‘pitch-dark’
- The was at night, and the narrator was in the house.
- The excuse for not having switched on the security light. Is it not possible that the thief damaged it to provide cover of darkness?
- The movement! Could the narrator be sure of the number of people outside the window?
- The dazzled eyes. What was the source of the light?
- The plan of the thief or thieves.
(vii) Do you remember ever hearing or reading similar stories?
(viii) What are the points of difference?
(ix) What can you imagine to be the next series of actions?
It is clear from the above that reading or writing a narrative essay requires imagination. This is because the reader expects not only to hear but also to feel, with the five senses, and along with the writer both in body and in mind.
With regard to the scope of the essay, if, for instance, you are writing on ‘Childhood Memories’, you should take care not to discuss too many events. Since you have only 50 minutes for the essay, your writing should not be too much in excess of the minimum of 450 words required. Do not forget that this same topic can be written as a whole book. Therefore, you are not expected to narrate fully all that you remember. It is better to discuss three or four events at length, for your reader to feel with you rather than deal with a catalogue of events, narrating each event too briefly, and thereby failing to impress your reader.
To impress your reader, the treatment of the subject must be systematic and attractive. You should allow the narration of one event to flow into the next. It is not absolutely necessary that each event should be discussed within one and only one paragraph. Otherwise, your paragraphs might be too long. All the same, you should make sure that there is a flow of ideas from one paragraph to the other.
In this kind of writing, many students are fond of using expressions such as ‘then’, ‘the next thing that happened was’, ‘when we finished’ or ‘after that’. These usages are tempting because a narrative is giving an account of events that follow one another. You should avoid using such expressions too frequently.
It is also usual in a narrative to use the simple past tense very frequently since the account relates to past events, e.g. ‘he wrote’, ‘they thought’, and we were shocked’. Be careful with your choice of tenses in this kind of writing. See how appropriate the tenses are in the following sentences:
- We were sleeping when the robbers broke into the house.
- When we arrived the stadium, the match had gone on for twenty minutes.
These sentences can be rewritten as:
(i) We were asleep when the robbers broke into the house.
(ii) When we arrived at the stadium, the match had gone on for twenty minutes.
Question
Write out the details of your experience on the longest journey you have ever made as you will relate it to your class-mates, at the request of your teacher.
TOPICS FOR PRACTICE
- Your school was invited to another school’s Silver Jubilee celebrations and since all the students could not go, you were one of the few selected to represent your school. Write an account of all the interesting things that happened for the benefit of your class-mates who could not go.
2. Write an essay on, “The day I will never forget.
3. You have just started a new class and your friends would like to know your experiences. in a far away state during the long vacation. Give an account for their benefit titled, ‘How I spent the long vacation’.
4. Write a story to illustrate saying, ‘Had I known always comes last’.
5. Write on the topic, ‘An interesting film I have watched’.
