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For a good grade on Narrative writing (no matter what narrative it is), you need the following:
Good pacing (Action) - your narrative is NOT a summary.
Good Descriptions of setting and/or characters. These must be easy to find. (Make sure you have 3-5 sentences of JUST description somewhere in your narrative.)
Dialogue! You MUST HAVE CHARACTERS SPEAK TO EACH OTHER. This is not optional. Without dialogue, your story isn't fully finished.
Characters: Odin, Vili, Ve, Ymir
I wrote this one starting with description but I liked the next one better.
Asgard stretched before them, a paradise. Birds soared above, and mountains loomed in the distance. The earth shook repeatedly, and we looked at each other, perplexed. I had been strolling through the hills of Asgard with my two brothers, Vili and Ve, looking for an adventure. We’d been bored, sitting around the fire in our hall, drinking mead and eating a stag we’d killed. Now, it seemed like we might find some excitement.
The earth shook again, and we looked north, seeing a shape rise over the horizon.
There is a fight between Ymir and the brothers...
Vili’s sword crashed through Ymir’s forehead and he crumbled to the ground, dead. The earth shook with the impact.
“What do we do with this body? It’s so huge!” asked Ve, gasping for breath.
I responded, “I have an idea.”
They cut up the body and create EARTH
OR… what if I wanted to start out at the end and flash back?
This is my better narrative.
Example #1: Norse Creation, Retold in 1st person POV by Odin.
“What an interesting day, don’t you think?” murmured Vili, as he hacked off one of Ymir’s arms. It took him seven swings and a lot of grunting to do it.
I looked around at the mess. Blood pooled like lakes, making chaos out of Asgard’s usually quiet paradise. “I thought the fight was fun!” I said. “He almost had us there for a minute.”
Vili laughed, working on separating the head from its neck, “No, he didn’t. I was just toying with him and it certainly beats just sitting around and eating. What else did you have planned for today?”
Ve looked at me askance, eyes wide, and spoke through gritted teeth. “What are we going to do with all of this? We can’t just let it rot.”
Vili stopped, panting, and looked at me. “Odin’s usually got a plan.”
I smiled, “Actually, I do.”
Vili looked at Ve, apprehensively. Some of my plans don’t always work out so well.
Ve muttered, “I knew it. I just knew it. No mead for us today.”
“Wait just a minute!” I countered. “Some of my plans work out great, and this one has a lot of potential. Hear me out.”
Four hours later, we were still cutting. Covered in gore, sweating, cursing, and mostly mad at each other, we cut and cut and cut. Soon, though, we were finished and I was able to begin.
I called upon Aedumla and the power of Yggdrasil. I asked the tree for its help in its language, the original language of life, and he allowed me one branch, a branch right in the middle of its trunk. So I called the new world Middle Earth, or Midgard in our language.
Vili and Ve chanted with me and Ymir’s bones began to rise. A new skeleton was formed and we wove his flesh around it, creating a world of rock and earth. Then we chanted louder, and Ymir’s blood was sucked out of the valleys and soil of Asgard, becoming a funnel, a column of blood. It speared into the new world, creating oceans and rivers and deep wells of blue, clear water.
Vili shouted, “Enough!”
But I wasn’t through. I glared at him and his shoulders slumped.
“Fine. But I’m dying here.”
Ve gave his brother a sympathetic look, “You know how he is,” he said.
I kept chanting throughout, and by my glare, my brothers knew they needed to rejoin me. I called Ymir’s teeth
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