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WRITING WORKSHOP
Writing an Effective Narrative
A narrative is a story, usually told from a first person point of view, that is intended to reveal something significant about the narrator to the reader. Effective narratives must have a reason for existence beyond being a classroom assignment. They should not be the “what I did last summer” stories you wrote in elementary school, but rather, “What I did last summer, and why it matters.”
The goal of writing an effective narrative is to communicate a meaningful experience to an audience in an interesting way. Writing an effective narrative requires two essential components: you have to have something to say, and you need to say it well. While the purpose of this Workshop is to improve your narrative writing skills, at several points you will read or reread professional models of effective narrative elements before having an opportunity to practice each one for yourself.
Besides being a common classroom assignment, stories actually do matter. Our own stories matter to us, and to others. Look over the following quotes about storytelling, and think about the value of storytelling to the writer and to society:
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”—Maya Angelou
“People become the stories they hear and the stories they tell.”—Elie Wiesel
“Without our stories, how will we know it’s us? Without the stories of others, how will we know who they are?”—Dudley Cocke
“Stories simultaneously celebrate what is unique about us and provide bridges to what is common among us.”—The Storyweavers, Lucinda Flodin and Dennis Frederick