So, you’ve decided to create a narrative writing assignment. Excellent! Narrative writing is one of the core types of academic writing, and getting to practice writing narratives is a foundational skill for learners of any age.
What do you actually teach while working on a narrative writing project?
That’s what we’re going to dig into today.
Here are five elements of narrative writing and some ideas for how to learn about them in engaging ways.
What is Narrative Writing?
A “narrative” is just a fancy word for story. Telling stories is one of the most fundamental ways we process information as a species. Learning to write narratives is an important academic writing skill because a narrative is often one of the most effective tools we have to get an idea across.
Narratives can be fiction or nonfiction. They can be rooted in another subject (such as history or science) or they can be a response to an existing work of literature.
There are lots and lots of ways to use narrative writing as part of a robust ELA curriculum, and they also tend to be accessible and fun for reluctant writers.
5 Elements of Narrative Writing
First, I have to make it clear that these are not the only elements of narrative writing. Narratives are incredibly complex, and we could dive into layers of literary devices for years.
Learners who are particularly interested in this kind of writing would likely enjoy exploring it more deeply with classes and curriculum focused on creative writing. Getting to write in workshop settings where you share your ideas with other writers and get to give feedback as a peer is invaluable.
For this post, though, I’m focusing on some core elements of narrative you can use when creating a narrative assignment as part of a larger academic ELA curriculum.
I’ve found the following five elements helpful for students as they shape their narratives:
- Narrator/Characters
- Dialogue
- Description/Sensory Details
- Setting
- Transitions Between Place/Time
Let’s take a closer look at each one.
Narrator/Characters
One of the great things about writing narratives is that it allows writers to practice developing robust and interesting characters.
Here are some of the topics and lessons you can build in to make this understanding more thorough:
- Character Development– Are your characters dynamic or static? What descriptions do you use to bring them to life? How is your reader given hints about how to view each character? Do you avoid stereotypes and overly simplistic tropes?
- Narrative Technique– Is your story told in first person or third person? (Or second person?! This one is hard to pull off.) Is your narrator omniscient or limited in what they know? Is your narrator reliable?
Dialogue
Dialogue is anything that the characters say aloud in a narrative. Learning how to handle dialogue well can be tricky because you have to walk the line between making it sound authentic and not making it boring (real-life dialogue is usually not very interesting!)
Here are some lessons and topics you can cover while working on dialogue:
- Mechanics of Dialogue- Dialogue needs to be in quotation marks, and we use commas to set it off from dialogue tags. This is a good place to talk about punctuation conventions in context with a particular goal.
- Dialogue Tags– Without dialogue tags, the reader can get confused about who is speaking. Too many dialogue tags can be repetitive and redundant. Finding a balance and using tags effectively is a skill worth practicing!
- Strong Dialogue– Writing strong dialogue isn’t easy, and practicing making your characters sound authentic while still using dialogue to effectively move the plot forward, establish themes, and demonstrate character personality is a challenging and rewarding activity.
Description/Sensory Details
Being able to write with vivid, descriptive language is a skill that translates across many types of writing, but narrative is a great place to practice it!
Here are some of the things you can discuss with your writers as they bring their stories to life:
- Sensory Details- You’re using words on the page to help your readers imagine an immersive experience. What sensory details (sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and touches) can you describe to help them imagine the story?
- Specific Details– For writers who tend to have trouble getting a lot of words on the page, practicing turning a simple description (“The room was creepy.”) into a more specific and detailed one is an excellent writing activity.
Setting
Setting refers to the time and place in which the narrative happens. There are many ways we can help learners consider setting more fully as they write narratives of their own.
- Time- How does adjusting when this story takes place in time change it?
- Realism vs. Fantasy– Is this story bound by the rules of our world? Or is it set somewhere with a different set of rules? (Can characters, for instance, fly or read minds?)
- Place– How does putting your characters in a different place change their behavior? In what places is your character most comfortable (their house, on stage, in the woods)? In what places is your character least comfortable (in a meeting, at a party)?
Transitions Between Place/Time
A big challenge of narrative writing is moving from scene to scene. Here are some considerations and topics involving those transitions.
- Formatting Markers– Will you use headings, numbers, asterisks, or some other marker to show when a scene has shifted?
- Pacing– How much time will this story cover (an hour, a day, a week, a year, a decade)? How will you make sure that you unfold the story in a way that is balanced for that time period?
- Transition Sentences– How will your reader know you have moved from one location to another? From one time to another? From one character perspective to another?
Narratives Provide Key Writing Skills
As you can see from the list above, writing a narrative is a complex task! Writers are being asked to shape a story with attention to many interacting elements.
This kind of sophisticated writing situation calls upon a wide variety of skills and helps us practice some of the more nuanced parts of writing in context.