Narrative Writing

Narrative writing tells a story from beginning to end. The organization imposed on a narrative by its very nature is the order of chronology.  

Questions to consider when doing or evaluating this kind of writing are:

• What happens first?   
• Is this story in the order that it actually happened?
• Is the thread of the story apparent to the reader?
• Are confusing digressions omitted?

Narrative writing is good for telling stories, but it is not usually appropriate for academic writing. There may be a place for a narrative or narratives within an academic paper, but most professors are looking for understanding of ideas and concepts rather than for stories. As a tutor you need to be able to recognize narrative writing in the papers you see in the writing center.

Inexperienced writers like narrative because it comes out naturally. You may need to gently lead a writer who brings you a narrative to a look at the purpose for the piece and the audience to help her determine whether a narrative is an appropriate response to the assignment at hand.

No topics are listed here because it is very rare for a college assignment to call for only narrative writing.