SMARTHINKING Writer's Handbook

Chapter 1, Lesson 1

Writing about Memories

Objective

In this lesson, you'll learn the principles of narration, which are necessary for passing on your own and others' experiences.

What Is a Narrative?

Narrative is a basic writing style, or genre. Sometimes authors use memorable experiences to write about their lives. Often, they tell their own stories to entertain or to teach the reader values and life lessons. Such true stories are called "non-fiction." At other times, authors write narratives to tell a created, or "fictional," story.

In this lesson, we'll be focusing on the first kind of narrative because many college writing assignments will ask you to remember and write about something from your own past (autobiography). Some assignments will require that you be able to tell a short story (anecdote) about yourself or someone else in order to make a point. Sometimes, writing teachers will ask you to create a journal or diary to help you record details so you can tell your stories well.

Before You Start to Write

For many writers, the narrative essay is the easiest form of writing. After all, writing a narrative is nothing more than remembering and telling a story to someone--something we do in everyday conversation.

There are several tips that can help you begin to write an effective narrative:

• When you have a memory that you want to write about, pretend that you're telling the story to a friend or a relative and write just as though you were talking.
• In fact, sometimes the best way to write a narrative is not to write at all; you can speak into a tape recorder and tell the story orally at first.
• Be sure to include lots of details and to describe situations and people fully, so your reader/s can picture the memory that you are writing about.
• As you begin writing, don't worry about organization, grammar, spelling, or punctuation--just get the basic story on paper or into the computer.
• Every narrative essay should have a main point (an idea or focus) that you want to convey to your readers. No matter what kind of story you're telling, determine what your point is and keep it in mind while you write.

Exercise

What stories do you have to tell? In the text box below, write down some of your narrative ideas. Below each idea, write the main point/s that you want the reader to understand. Why do you believe that story should be told? Where could you publish the narrative (a private journal? a magazine?)

Example:

Narrative: My family trip to New York to see the Yankees play the Oakland A's brought us closer together.

Main Point: A family that plays together shares experiences that helps them to relate to each other.

Why: In our busy world, people sometimes forget that sharing experiences as a family builds positive memories that can help them get through difficult times.

Published As: A short story in Reader's Digest.

 

Writing the Narrative

Now that you've decided what story you want to tell, it's time to write. Try answering the following questions before you write the first draft and again before you revise: knowing the answers will help you to create more effective narratives.

• Why am I telling this story?
  All stories should have a point. Before you begin writing, make sure that you know the purpose of your story. Readers aren't interested in stories that go nowhere or are meaningless.
  
  
• Does my story fit into the requirements of the assignment?
  Writing assignments usually have requirements (what should be included) and restrictions (what should not be included). If you're writing for a college course, you may have been asked to write about a particular subject or told how long your narrative should be. If you're writing for a publication, your editor probably will specify what kind of a story and how long it should be before you start.
  
  
• What details are most important to the story?
  As you know, every narrative needs details to be interesting and to make its point. Details are the way that narrative writers draw pictures; they are the tools of the trade for a writer, like paints and brushes are for a painter. While there may be many vivid details of an event in your memory, you must be selective in writing a narrative essay. Choose only those details that are important to the point of the story. For example, you could write fifty pages about dinner at a fancy restaurant, right down to the color of the cashier's shoes; however, most of those details have nothing to do with the point of the story and simply would bore the reader if you include them.

• Am I going to "tell" or "show" the reader?
  There is world of difference between telling and showing the events that make up a memory.

  Telling a reader something is like repeating a story that you've heard or reporting on something you've witnessed. For example, you could write: When my brother John saw the Yankees play, he was happy. This sentence conveys something about John's experience, but doesn't draw a picture or pull the reader into the memory.

  Showing involves the reader more in the narrative because your word choices make him/her see, hear, smell, taste, and feel everything that you or your characters experienced. For example, you could rewrite the sentence from above: John's eyes lit up and the broad curve of his lips told me that he was going to enjoy this show. The Yankee pitcher could walk every player and my brother wouldn't care-he was finally here, at a real baseball game where heroes are made one day and fade away the next. What more could a kid with a passion for baseball ever want? This passage uses active verbs, nouns, and adjectives to show, rather than tell, John's response to the baseball game.

• How will I organize the story?
  Since a narrative is a story, you must decide in what order you want to tell it. Do you want to write it as it happened? If so, you would write in chronological order, relating the events in the exact order of their occurrence. On the other hand, you could start the story in the present time, and then use a series of "flashbacks" to tell the story as it happened in the past. Sometimes using flashbacks can help you to tell a more engaging story, but this technique must be used carefully. Verb tenses need special attention because they must be consistent so the reader can distinguish (tell apart) present and past events.

• What will my point of view be?
  The first person point of view means that you are an active character in the story. You use "I" or "we" throughout the narrative because it's your own observations that you're describing. Sometimes student writers think that they can never use the first person in college writing. However, the purpose of the writing, in this case to tell a personal memory, dictates that the writer should use first person to tell about him/herself.

  The third person point of view means that you are telling the story from a more objective stance. You would use pronouns such as "he," "she," or "they" to describe what the characters are doing or feeling. You might even talk about yourself in the third person and distance yourself from the memory being told. There are many interesting ways to accomplish this goal. You could write using the voice of a person very different from yourself, such as that of a child. If you decide to write in a voice other than your own, try describing ideas, people, and settings from the perspective of that different person. Experiment and find out what works.

• What kind of language and what tone of voice will I use in the essay?
  You need to know what kind of language you're going to use when writing your narrative. Are you going to speak informally as though you're talking to the reader as someone you know, like an intimate friend? This technique, called a conversational approach, is effective for some stories. Are you going to speak more formally, as if the narrative is written for a professor or other less intimate audience? This is a safe technique for writing narratives due in college classes. Just remember that although "safe" can work well, it's not always as interesting as taking a risk in writing.

Exercise

Take one of the narrative ideas from the previous exercise and place it into the text box below. Below the idea, answer each of the questions we've presented above for the idea you selected. When you've finished, you'll have laid the groundwork for a narrative essay. Print the information in the text box, and save it for future use.

Summary

You've learned the basic principles of relating memories through the narrative essay. Use the guidelines, information, and exercises in this lesson to help you write narratives for yourself, instructors, and general audiences.