ORDER YOUR PAPER

15% off today

from a verified trusted writer

total: $11.23
Narrative essay writing

Narrative essay writing: common mistakes to avoid

Narrative writing, or writing that tells a story, may come in the form of both fiction and nonfiction pieces. Fiction narratives are very common and are found all throughout novels, books, and magazines. Non-fiction stories are also very popular, compelling pieces sometimes found in the form of autobiographies and personal essays.
Narratives, along with other forms of writing, involve lots of practice and revisionary efforts. Plenty of hard work and discipline is required to bring a publishable, final product to light. Therefore its not surprising that new and inexperienced writers alike often fall into many pitfalls when attempting to explore narrative writing for the first time. The first and most common blunder is the concept of 'show & tell.'

Show your audience-don't tell them

Even if you don't plan on writing the world's next best selling novel, your writing should still follow certain artistic guidelines. Among those is to slowly and craftily reveal to the reader the events and happenings of your story rather than blatantly stating them.
*For example, rather than tell the reader that a character in the story has an eating problem, reveal or show it to them by describing the character's physical features as well as providing a few scenes illustrating this condition; such as the character eating late at night, when upset, or overfilling a plate for dinner or in a restaurant.
Artful unveiling is one of the most significant parts of narrative writing. Though unfortunately many people are unable to execute this aspect properly. You can develop your skill in this area by implementing a few helpful techniques. (1) As in the example above, you can give detailed descriptions such as physical features (2) you can also use conversation or dialogue to reveal some things (3) and finally, properly develop your scenes with vivid sensory details as oppose to simply explaining them after they've already occurred.
Readers will also enjoy the presence of suspense and foreshadowing in your narrative. These two writing techniques can also be used to artfully craft your writing and sufficiently engage readers.

Lack of suspense and foreshadowing

Some writers fall short in enticing the reader due to deficiency in suspense building. When reading a story marked with suspense you probably experienced anticipation, guessing, and wondering at the unknown. All of these factors are part of good suspense building. Overall, the idea is to provide your audience with slight hints and clues, little by little, without giving them the full story or answer until later on or at the very end of the narrative.
As a writer, this can be achieved using a few different methods. You can build suspense by including odd or intriguing details in the story that doesn't make much sense or seem to be very out of place (for instance, a full plate of food on a table when no one was home to prepare it). Likewise you can also build suspense by allowing a character to undergo a near-death or life-threatening experience (for example a fatal car accident in which they were only saved at the very last moment when all hope was lost).
Likewise, foreshadowing is also a technique that is used to help build suspense in a story. It can be very effective in both fiction and nonfiction stories. In nonfiction stories you may choose to use foreshadowing by providing direct or indirect clues of the information that will be covered later in the story.
*For instance, in a personal essay you may start off by stating, "Our mothers are our examples" by doing this you are hinting to the audience that your essay will involve a story about how your mother was an example to you or something related to parenting and role modeling.

Information overload

Sometimes we have so much great information to offer we fall into trouble when trying to logically relay that information to the reader. Too much information will affect the readability of your essay which is crucial to its overall quality and effectiveness. No matter how great you develop characters or set a scene, readers will not bother finishing your story if they find it difficult to get through.
Information overload may be traced back to several initial causes. For instance, you may need to provide your reader with a bit of background information on a topic to provide clarity to some issues or maybe a particular objective, concept, or idea needs to be reiterated or further explained. When these situations arise writers may become overzealous and provide too many events or happenings to try to better 'drive' home the point or likewise may give the reader too many facts or details on a subject in an effort to properly explain or 'define' it. If you need to further define or explain something, try to do so in clear and concise manner. Additionally, resist the urge to overwhelm your story with additional characters and events to make clarify your point. Readers should be able to deduct the main idea or objective of your story without such the additions.

Mistakes with dialogue

Along with information overload, some beginning writers tend to bong down readers with access amounts of dialogue. This can be a complete 'turn off' to readers when trying to make it through a particular passage. Make use of functional paragraphs and provide your readers with short but intense pieces of dialogue to keep their interest and provide necessary breaks in reading.
Dialogue is a great tool to be used in narrative writing but should be done so with a bit of hindsight. Every detail does not have to be explained in dialogue and long, drawn out conversation should be broken up into smaller more powerful segments to improve fluency and the overall quality of writing.
Great narrative writing takes tons of practice and hard work. In addition to the common mistakes mentioned here several other issues may arise as well. Capitalization and punctuation problems are commonplace and need to be properly adhered to in any form of writing.
Likewise, a lack of attention to audience and purpose may pose significant problems in writing as well. To keep audience and purpose in mind, while avoiding a story thats 'all over the place' ask yourself some focused questions before writing. For example, how do I want my readers to feel after reading this story? Do I want them to laugh, cry or think about something in a new or alternative way? Also, why am I writing? What do I hope to achieve by relaying my thoughts onto paper? These and similar questions are an excellent means of self-disclosure and focus to narrow down your narrative while simultaneously preparing you for the drafting process to come.

Our TOP writers

TOP 10
Writer 155864
ID 155864

Master's in Project Management, PMP, Six Sigma

Rating 97.2%
(97.2%)
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (8) about writer 155864

1259 written pages

315 orders

299 a+ papers

My Master’s degree and comprehensive writing experience allow me to complete any order fast and hit the nail on the head every time.

hire writer
TOP 10
Writer 121526
ID 121526

MBA, PMP, ITIL

Rating 99.3%
(99.3%)
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (7) about writer 121526

3560 written pages

509 orders

473 a+ papers

I am experienced writer with an MBA, PMP, ITIL, that consistently delivers unique, quality papers. I take pride in my experience and quickness.

hire writer
TOP 10
Writer 47072
ID 47072

MS in Human Resource Management

Rating 99.2%
(99.2%)
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (9) about writer 47072

19383 written pages

3877 orders

3528 a+ papers

I hold a MS degree in Human Resource and my goal is to help students with flawless, unique papers, delivered on time.

hire writer
TOP 10
Writer 106387
ID 106387

RN, MSN, PCN, PHN

Rating 99%
(99%)
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (6) about writer 106387

5609 written pages

561 orders

539 a+ papers

As Registered Nurse (RN, PCN), I can quickly deal with any medical paper. My expertise and writing skills are perfect for this job.

hire writer
TOP 10
Writer 128170
ID 128170

MPA, MHA

Rating 99.5%
(99.5%)
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (8) about writer 128170

3787 written pages

758 orders

690 a+ papers

I have MPA, MHA degrees but, most importantly, experience and skills to provide unique, well-written papers on time.

hire writer
TOP 10
Writer 99022
ID 99022

DNP, BA, APN, PMHNP-BC

Rating 97.1%
(97.1%)
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (9) about writer 99022

7168 written pages

897 orders

807 a+ papers

I can write about multiple areas and countless topics, as I have a DNP and BA degrees. High-quality writing is my second name.

hire writer
TOP 10
Writer 117750
ID 117750

PhD in American History

Rating 97.4%
(97.4%)
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (8) about writer 117750

18265 written pages

2610 orders

2349 a+ papers

A PhD in American history comes handy. Unique papers, any topics, swift delivery — helping with academic writing is my passion.

hire writer
TOP 10
Writer 99423
ID 99423

MA, PsyD, LMFT

Rating 98.5%
(98.5%)
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (7) about writer 99423

21748 written pages

2417 orders

2344 a+ papers

Incredibly fast PsyD writer. Efficient paper writing for college. Hundreds of different tasks finished. Satisfaction guaranteed.

hire writer
TOP 10
Writer 85466
ID 85466

MEd, NCC, LPC, LMFT

Rating 97.6%
(97.6%)
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (9) about writer 85466

6853 written pages

2287 orders

2173 a+ papers

Top-ranked writer with tons of experience. Ready to take on any task, and make it unique, as well as objectively good. Always ready!

hire writer
TOP 10
Writer 124685
ID 124685

MSW, LICSWA, DSW-C

Rating 98.8%
(98.8%)
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (8) about writer 124685

2522 written pages

316 orders

294 a+ papers

Experienced Social Work expert focused on good writing, total uniqueness, and customer satisfaction. My goal — to help YOU.

hire writer

Buy your papers from the best writing service

Have your tasks done by our professionals to get the best possible results.

total: $11.23
Confidentiality

NO Billing information is kept with us. You pay through secure and verified payment systems.

Quality

All papers we provide are of the highest quality with a well-researched material, proper format and citation style.

Communication

Our 24/7 Support team is available to assist you at any time. You also can communicate with your writer during the whole process.

Authorship

You are the single owner of the completed order. We DO NOT resell any papers written by our expert

Originality

All orders are done from scratch following your instructions. Also, papers are reviewed for plagiarism and grammar mistakes.

Samples

You can check the quality of our work by looking at various paper examples in the Samples section on our website.

Special price $11.23/page
Place an order
63,000
more than 63,000 times students trusted us to write their papers
9/10
9 out of 10 customers recommend us*
92%
92% of our customers have placed more than 7 orders
*data is based on 6,568 customers' feedback received from Jan 1, 2017 till Jan 1, 2018.
Special price $11.23/page
Place an order
Customer #5150

I wasn't sure about the presentation quality you provide, but you did a wonderful job! Glad I ordered it from you!

Customer #1905

I like your services and don't regret getting my papers done here. I don't need a lot of help but since I'm a working student I don't have enough time for all my papers. I always order in advance so the deadline extension was ok with me. Free revision option is great! I am always sure I would get what I wanted.

Estimated Deadline: Tuesday, Apr 09 6:47 PM in Your timezone
Total price: $11.23
Price starts from $11.23
Regular discounts and offers
Excellent results guaranteed
Professional 24/7 support

Free samples of our work

There are different types of essays: narrative, persuasive, compare\contrast, definition and many many others. They are written using a required citation style, where the most common are APA and MLA. We want to share some of the essays samples written on various topics using different citation styles.

services
Hey, you...Yes, you! Don’t you want to get your Discount?
binder1
binder2
Your discount will be
sent to the email!

I have read and agree to the Terms of Use, Money Back Guarantee, Privacy and Cookie Policy of BestCustomWriting.com

  • dmca_logo
  • safecharge
  • trustpilot

Use your opportunity to get a discount!

To get your special discount, write your email below

  • dmca_logo
  • safecharge
  • trustpilot

Best papers and best prices!

Want to get quality paper done on time cheaper?

  • dmca_logo
  • safecharge
  • trustpilot