Writing Narrative (A Story)

Everyone likes a good story. Remember how much you enjoyed it when you were a child and your parents or grandparents would tell you a story? Being able to tell a story or write narrative is an important part of learning a foreign language. A narrative may be true or imaginary, but it is often easier to start with a true story.

Assignment

Choose an amusing, exciting, frightening, or significant experience that you remember well. Your story should include something that was particularly interesting. It is not just a diary entry. The key to good narrative is bring the incident to life for your reader.

Example Narratives: My First Tanabata, The Soba Incident

Chronological Order

Narrative usually follows chronological order, that is you tell the events in the order in which they happened. Go here for vocabulary that shows chronological order.

Conflict in narrative

Narrative often includes conflict -- a struggle against something or someone. It can be conflict with another person, with nature, with society, or even with yourself. In The Soba Incident the conflict was between me and an order of noodles.

Possible topics

• your proudest, happiest, or saddest moment
• a triumph or failure
• a "first" -- date, dance, job interview, day at work, etc.
• your funniest or most embarrassing mistake
• a disaster: fire, accident, flood, storm
• an argument with a relative or friend
• a difficult decision

Audience
The teacher and friends in the class, i.e., people who know Japan quite well.

Purpose
To entertain.

Length
Between 200 and 300 words.

Format
One or two paragraphs.

When writing

• Use first person (I, we, etc.)
• Use past tense.
• Use simple active sentences.

Suggestions for Writing

• Start with a good first sentence. You want to catch your reader's attention so they will continue. For example: "As the sun silently slipped beneath the horizon and darkness crept in, I wondered if I would ever see civilization again. The day had started out fine..."
• Be sure to set the scene of the story for your readers, near the beginning, by saying where you were and what you were doing.
• The middle should give more details in the order they happened. Use suspense. Good stories make you want to finish reading them because you ask "What will happen next?"
• Near the end, your story should have a climax -- the most exciting part. Be sure not to tell your readers what the climax is before the end of the story.
• Use action, reaction and dialogue to help your reader experience the incident. Showing what happened is much more effective than telling what happened. For example:

Telling
Mr. Morehouse shouted angrily at the customs agent. He didn't understand why he should be charged more than twenty-five cents for his pets. The rates were clearly printed in the rate book.

Showing
"But, you everlasting stupid idiot!" shouted Mr. Morehouse madly, shaking a printed book beneath the agent's nose. "Can't you read it here -- in your own plain printed rates? Pets, domestic, twenty-five cents each." He threw the book on the counter in disgust. "What more do you want? Aren't they pets? Aren't they domestic?"

from Pigs Is Pigs

• You may change events that happened to make the story more exciting, but it should be believable. Many action movies are examples of stories which have become unbelievable.
• The ending should satisfy the reader, that is, the reader should not be asking questions such as, "I wonder what happened to the cat in the end?"

Narrative Checklist

After you have finished writing the first draft of your story, use the Narrative Checklist to help you revise it.

Getting Reader Reactions

After you have revised your story, exchange papers with another student and read each other's story. Use the Responding to Narrative form to give feedback to your partner.