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Narrative Writing and Descriptive Writing
Narrative Writing and Descriptive Writing
Narrative Writing
Narrative Writing
Narration means the art of storytelling, and the purpose of narrative writing is to tell stories. Anytime you tell a story to a friend or family member about an event or incident in your day, you engage in a form of narration.
A narrative can be factual or fictional. A factual story is one that is based on, and tries to be faithful to, actual events as they unfolded. A fictional story is made up, or imagined; the writer of a fictional story can create characters and events as he or she sees fit. Biographies and memoirs are examples of factual stories; novels and short stories are examples of fictional stories.
Descriptive Writing
Descriptive Writing
Writers use description in writing to make sure that their audience is fully immersed in the words on the page. This requires a concerted effort by the writer to describe his or her world through sensory details. Sensory details are descriptions that appeal to our sense of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. Your descriptions should try to focus on the five senses because everyone relies on these senses to experience the world. The use of sensory details, then, provides you the greatest possibility of relating to your audience and thus engaging them in your writing, making descriptive writing important not only during your education but also during everyday situations.
Avoid empty (or abstract) descriptors if possible. Empty descriptors are adjectives that can mean different things to different people. Good, beautiful, terrific, and nice are examples. The use of such words in descriptions can lead to misreads and confusion. A good day, for instance, can mean many different things depending on the reader's age, personality, or tastes. Instead, use concrete descriptors.
Use Specific, Concrete Details
Use Specific, Concrete Details
In an interview with Writer magazine, author Stephen King cautions that it is not enough to fill your story with empty (abstract) adjectives. He advises that writing needs to use concrete details to help create a vivid image for the reader. He uses as an example the abstract term “spooky” saying that writing something like "It was a spooky old house," does not give the reader a concrete image. Instead, he gives as an example, his description of the “spooky” house in his novel Salem's Lot:
The house itself looked toward town. It was huge and rambling and sagging, its windows haphazardly boarded shut, giving it that sinister look of all old houses that have been empty for a long time. The paint had been weathered away, giving the house a uniform gray look. Windstorms had ripped many of the shingles off, and a heavy snowfall had punched in the west corner of the main roof, giving it a slumped, hunched look. A tattered no-trespassing sign was nailed to the right-hand newel post.
Using specific, concrete details is not only important in narrative writing. In all types of writing, being clear helps readers visualize what you are discussing and helps to hold their attention.
Definition: Abstract language refers to qualities and ideas.
Definition: Concrete language appeals to the senses. If a word is concrete, you will know which of the five senses it appeals to. Does it appeal to sight, smell, touch, taste, or hearing? This kind of description is often more useful to readers because it offers more vivid details; however, sometimes abstract language is necessary.
An example of the use of abstract language: The beach was amazing.
We all think a day at the beach is amazing; however, the use of the abstract word amazing to describe the beach diminishes the experience. We want to appeal to the reader’s senses. There are better words to describe the beach. The reader should be able to visualize the blue waves or smell the salty air!
An example of the use of concrete language: The beach was hot.
Even though describing the beach as hot is very simple, it creates a sensory experience for the reader. By calling the beach hot, the reader can imagine the sun beaming down on the water or think about the sweat dripping from the beachgoer’s brow.
Another example of abstract language: The dress is pretty.
Yes, the dress is pretty, but what did it actually look like? If the color of the dress or the texture of the fabric was described, then the reader would have a better sensory experience. An example of concrete language: The dress is purple.
An example of even more concrete language: The dress is a deep shade of violet.
An example of even more specific concrete language: The floor-length, velvet dress is a deep shade of violet. Using more concrete details not only provides specifics, it also helps the reader to experience what they are reading more vividly through their five senses!
For additional examples of when and how to use specific, concrete details, view the LEO: Literacy Education Online page on Sensory Detail. This page also shows how using concrete descriptors is important in informational writing too (not just narrative and descriptive).
Review Characteristics of Descriptive Writing
Review Characteristics of Descriptive Writing
Remember, the general characteristics of descriptive writing include:
rich, vivid, and lively detail
use of sensory imagery
figurative language such as simile, hyperbole, metaphor, symbolism and personification
showing, rather than telling, through the use of active verbs and concrete descriptors
Resources
Resources
TedEd on setting: https://ed.ted.com/best_of_web/Ib2uHIQV
TedEd on anti-social behaviors to improve writing (dialogue and characters): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flthk8SNiiE&feature=emb_rel_pause
Autobiographical/Personal Narrative Activity
Autobiographical/Personal Narrative Activity
Learning Targets
Identify the differences in form between descriptive and narrative essays.
Recognize the structure of autobiographical narratives.
Identify the importance of personal growth in a narrative essay.
Narrative Essay that Shows Personal Growth
Unlike the descriptive essays that strive to explain why a person, a place, an object, or an event is important, a narrative essay demonstrates the development of a person through the chronological retelling of an important event. In addition, a narrative essay should indicate how a person has changed or learned from this experience. The experience should unfold much like the plot of a novel or short story, beginning with the individual facing a problem and ending in the resolution of the problem and subsequent growth of the individual. Thus, the action of the problem should unfold as the telling of the event unfolds, much like the action of a short story builds as the plot progresses.
However, just as in descriptive essays, you must describe the event that is progressing, effectively drawing your readers into the development of the individual. Think of how invested, or perhaps uninvested, you become in the stories you read. Why do you connect with certain characters and not with others? Often, you connect with characters you feel you can relate to in some way or with events that you can imagine experiencing. Thus, it is essential to clearly and concisely indicate the action of the event being described. Your readers must be able to imagine being at and participating in the event. However, you must keep in mind that you can provide too much information to the reader. Make sure all the details you provide are relevant to the narration. For instance, when narrating an event, you do not need to include details that do not add to the feeling of an event. Otherwise, the readers will feel unconnected and disinterested in the development of the individual.
While describing the event is crucial to the reader's understanding and interest, the person's feelings, thoughts, desires, or insights are integral to creating the sense of personal growth. Without these components, the reader will be unable to track the person's development and change. Essentially, in order for the reader to see that the individual has transformed, you must present the inner thoughts, desires, and feelings of the person before and after the alleged transformation. This way the reader can compare the thoughts and feelings from before the change with those after and ultimately evaluate the personal growth of the individual on their own.
Since the personal growth in the narrative is the most essential component, choosing the individual and experiences is an important decision. As a writer hoping to engage the reader, you must carefully consider both the events and the individual that you choose. Not only must you choose events that share a common theme, or that point toward the same idea, eventual personal growth, but you must also choose an individual who is compelling. Generally, a narrative essay can either be autobiographical or biographical in nature. That is, the narrative can be written by you and about you or the narrative can be written by you and about someone else. Moreover, in choosing to write about yourself or about someone else, you decide the organization of your paper.
Autobiographical Narrative/Personal Essay Organization Ideas
Autobiographical Narrative/Personal Essay Organization Ideas
An autobiographical narrative is one of the most personal types of essays. Not only are you writing a paper that expresses your own views and thoughts, but autobiographical narratives are based upon your own life experiences. Thus, it follows that the organization of the paper will also be more personal in nature. Unlike a narrative essay based on another individual, an autobiographical narrative will always contain your personal thoughts, desires, and motivations. While it is hard to know the motives of other individuals when writing a biographical narrative, unless you know the individual well, you always have access to the motivations for your own personal development. Hence, when you organize your autobiographical narrative you must format your essay around the events that promote your personal growth and the feeling you experienced before, during, and after these events.
There are several ways to incorporate your thoughts, feelings, and motivations into the organization of your paper. First, you can consider integrating your description of certain events with your motives and thoughts for the events. This way, you present the events and your motivations both in chronological order and simultaneously. This means that you are describing the events and your feelings as they occurred, or at the same time. Second, you can consider blocking your description of your events and your feelings, providing a paragraph describing the event followed by a paragraph describing your motivations. Also, you could also reverse this blocking format to first provide your motivations and then the description of the event.
Integrated description and motivations
Blocked descriptive and motivations
My sixteenth birthday was when it all began. It was the first girl-boy party I had ever had. I had had to beg my parents for month to have that party. Once they said yes, I had worried for weeks about what I was going to wear. When the day came, I was so excited that my crush Brandon was coming. As I sat next to him during the movie, I could feel my heart race. We were sitting side by side, close enough to touch. I slowly moved my hand towards his, wondering if he wanted to hold my hand like I wanted to hold his and fearing that he didn’t.
My sixteenth birthday was at my house on a Saturday during the summer, and it would be a boy-girl party. I had planned the whole day. First, we would swim in the pool in my backyard while my dad and mom prepared hamburgers. After we ate, we would watch a movie in my living room. At the end of the night, we would have cake, and I would open my presents.
Since it took me weeks to convince my parents to have the party, I was very excited when it finally rolled around. My crush Brandon was going to come, and I hoped that he would finally make a move. I thought that the movie would be a perfect chance to show him that I wanted to be his girlfriend.
How do these two examples compare? Although they both narrate the same event, is one more effective than the other? Generally, the first organizational scheme (when you integrate description and motivations together) is the most seamless. By incorporating the two together, you provide the reader with a more complete picture of the event – as if the reader is experiencing the event as it unfolds in your narration. However, sometimes this formatting does not work, specifically with complicated events. If you feel that the event you are narrating is too difficult to explain or clarify, then you should consider breaking your description and thoughts into two separate paragraphs. Although, you need to be aware of how this affects the story you are telling. Do you want the importance of the event to be at the end? In doing so, you make the event seem more suspenseful, and you can make the reader more compelled to finish your narrative. Nevertheless, organizing your paper in this way places more of a burden on you as a writer because you must clearly connect the separate ideas in the paragraphs.
Regardless of the organizational scheme you choose, you must properly describe your personal growth. In order to do so, you must organize your essay around one significant event or a collection of interrelated specific events. Generally, the number of events you include defines the amount of detail you put into describing your events. If your paper centers around one main event that helped shape your personal growth, the majority of the body would describe the one event while the introduction and conclusion would include your thoughts and feelings from before and after the event to help clarify how the occurrence helped shape you. However, if your paper details a succession of events that culminate in your personal growth, the description of each event, including the insights and feelings associated with it, would be limited to a single body paragraph. In this case, the introduction and conclusion would still indicate how you felt and thought both before and after the transformation.
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