Ideas for Writing a Personal Narrative

Writing a personal narrative is your chance to tell your story.

Writing a personal narrative is your chance to tell a story and share a significant experience in your life. We all have a story to tell, so whether you're writing about your first day in high school or standing in as best man at your big brother's wedding, this is your opportunity to take the reader to that place in time. However, before you take to the actual writing of your narrative, it's important that you consider its purpose as well as the audience. This, along with some creative writing ideas, will ultimately determine the style and approach you take when writing it.

Grab The Attention of Your Reader

Grab your reader from the get-go with a creative introduction, catapulting your story into high gear. You, the author of your own personal narrative, have the creative license to throw your reader deep into the story using both words and images. The sooner you command the attention of your reader, the better. You might begin with an action scene or a personal predicament that creatively introduces the reader to the story and its main character.

Take Advantage of Sensory Details

Don't simply tell the reader about the experience; show them using sounds, smells, tastes and other sensory details to breathe life into your story. These are the details, as simple as they may be, that give your story depth and take your reader to that place in time. It allows them to feel what you felt, hear what you heard and smell what you smelled. If you're writing about eating a peanut butter sandwich for lunch, be sure to describe the strong scent of the peanut butter and how the consistency of the sandwich stuck to the roof of your mouth, leaving you parched for a tall glass of ice cold milk. The revelation is in the details.

Add Humor

Unless it's an extremely serious subject, add humor to your personal narrative. Next to including sensory details, adding humor to your prose is an effective tool in writing. Humor adds an additional layer to your story, creating a physical reaction from your reader, as well as an interaction. Much of the success of your personal narrative weighs on the reader's ability to connect to your story. Humor is a useful tool in making this connection happen. For example, if you are writing about the peanut butter sandwich you had for lunch, you might compare it to another sticky substance like wallpaper paste.

Give Your Audience Something To Think About

Give your audience something to think about in the closing of your narrative. Explain why this experience was important to you and why you chose to write about it. One of the purposes of writing is to give your audience pause, imploring them to stop and think about what they just read. So whether your personal narrative is about helping to feed the homeless or eating a peanut butter sandwich at lunch, be sure to close with why this experience was important to you and what your reasons were for telling the story.

References

• Time for Kids: Writing Help; A+ Papers