Writing a Personal Narrative

What is a personal narrative?

A personal narrative is form of writing in which the writer relates an event, incident, moment or experience in his or her own life.

Examples of events, incidents, or experiences, in a person’s life are:

Winning an award Doing something scary

Experiencing a sad momentSeeing a funny incident

The events of a personal narrative are usually presented in chronological order.

This means the order in which the

events actually occurred.

A personal narrative incorporates vivid descriptive details.

This can be accomplished by using good WORD CHOICE.

Some tools to help with choosing vivid words are a dictionary and thesaurus.

Example 2: Replace words like “laughed” with chuckled, guffawed, giggled, snickered, cackled, or howled.

Example 1: Replace words like “cried” with wept, bawled, whimpered, sobbed, mourned, or whined.

Another way to add vivid descriptive details is to use figurative language!

I.S.H.A.M.P.O.O.

Simile Example:Dull- The water was blue and sparkly.Vivid-The water looked like a blue blanket made of a million sparkling diamonds.

Metaphor Example:Dull-The moon was bright.Vivid-The moon was a lantern of light that illuminated my path.

A personal narrative incorporates the thoughts, feeling, and reactions of the writer.

This can be achieved through using VOICE.

Characteristics of a Personal Narrative

• Focuses on one experience• Shows the purpose clearly to the

reader• Expresses the writer’s thoughts and

feelings• Is written in first person. The author

uses “I”

More Characteristics of a Personal Narrative

• Has many relevant sensory details. (Things for the reader to see, hear, feel, smell, taste)

• Has dialogue so the reader can feel like they are there. (There is such a thing as too much dialogue)

• Must have why it is important and/or how it affected the writer.

• Must have the lesson learned . What did you learn from this experience?

Parts of a Personal NarrativeMust have a clear:

• Beginning

• Middle

• End

Just like any story.

The Beginning

The beginning is your “hook”. It needs to grab your reader’s attention. Leads.

The Middle

The middle tells about important events.

It Describes people and places.

It tells the writer’s thoughts and feelings.

The middle is the “meat and potatoes” of the story.

The Ending

The writer explains the outcome.

The writer shows the meaning of the experience and what they learned from it.

The ending is where the writer “wraps” the story up.

REMEMBER:

Show don’t tell: Don’t tell the reader what he or she is

supposed to think or feel. Use your words to let them see, hear, smell, feel, and taste the experience directly.

Set a tone for your writing: What is the overall feeling supposed to be? How is the reader supposed to feel when he is finished reading the piece?

Personal narratives are stories: Just like stories, personal narratives should include a plot, setting, characters, a climax, and an ending.