Narrative Essay Topics

When asked to write narrative research, students often struggle to identify an ideal topic. Narrative essays create a platform for you to narrate your experience while allowing your audiences to conclude. This article will guide you on how to choose the best narrative essay topics.

What Is A Narrative Essay?

College and university students have had experiences in the past. A narrative essay helps students narrate their experiences while showcasing their perspective on specific events that occurred in their life. The article focuses on instilling and advancing students’ storytelling skills. Regardless of your course or faculty, you can be assigned a narrative essay as it’s overly universal. 

Majority of the students believe that narrative essays avails a platform for them to share their experiences and life event stories. Nonetheless, it would be best if you always considered keeping your audience entertained and you could narrate someone else’s story. 

Tips On How To Write A Narrative Essay

Students often think that writing a narrative essay requires only linguistic prowess. However, there is more to writing a narrative paper.

• Understand your story and develop a topic
• Enhance clarity
• Avoid sharing every move
• Stay clear from the second person narration
• Your essay must never sound over clinical
• Avoid detailed references
• Proofread your essay

Understand Your Story And Develop A Topic

 There are so many stories, events, and experiences to share, but you need to understand the most outstanding story. Having a subject or a topic for your essay is imperative and helps you narrate the story eloquently. 

Enhance Clarity

In your essay, it would help if you avoided using syntax and tricky words. Jargons and vocabularies are disastrous as they limit clarity. Therefore, ensure to use a simple language that allows enhancing flow between words, sentences, and paragraphs.

Avoid Sharing Every Move 

Some students keep narrating even the tiniest details of their movements. For instance, where your story features you in a bedroom, everyone knows there are a bed and beddings. However, it would be best if you focused on things that matter. Therefore, if your story entails a painting on the wall, you should always leave unnecessary details and movements out of your narrative essay. 

Stay Clear From The Second-Person Narrations

A narrative essay is all about your story, and you must never write from the second-person perspective. Inconsistences will surface where you mix first-person with second-person narratives. There are instances when you can write in the present tense, although the majority of the narrative essays observe the past tense. 

Your Essay Must Never Sound Over-Clinical

You need to loosen up and add some slang language or idioms as you could have done when giving a speech. An essay observing clinical language is boring, and readers want to connect with your story in the most exciting way. 

Avoid Detailed References

A narrative essay is not similar to other academic papers that need multiple references. Your article must allow the readers to conclude as they read through the paper. Therefore, where you find a credible quote for your essay, you should explain yourself as you proceed with your narration rather than referring readers to some of your previous statement. You need to, therefore, limit your references. 

Proofread Your Essay

After writing about your experience, you should consider proofreading your work. At times, you will spot punctuation errors or grammatical mistakes. Therefore, ensure to revise your essay. 

How To Select The Best Narrative Essay Topics

Majority of the students find the process of choosing an ideal item for their narrative essay to be complicated. However, with the right approach, you are guaranteed of identifying the best topic. Therefore, ensure to choose a subject matter or a story that makes sense to you and that carries meaning in your life.

Students who focus on things they care-less about tend to write the most boring narrative essay ever. It’s through narrating a story that you care deeply about that you write an engaging essay. 

You must reflect on your early life and identify episodes of events that occurred in your elementary school, junior class, parties that you attended, or even the summer vacations you took with your family. You have a chance to narrate about anything in your narrative paper as long as you keep it engaging and clear. 

Doctoring your story and adding details that never happened might feel okay at first, but it will ruin your essay and grades eventually. Therefore, ensure to stick within the perimeters of truth and only share details that have happened in the past. Imagined stories lack consistency. 

To determine an ideal topic for your essay, consider examining other narrative essays from students, and explore the nature of their stories. You must never copy their stories but borrow their narration ideas and convert your account to being one of the most captivating stories. 

Top 100 Narrative Essay Topics 

1. A bad experience that you think has only happened to you
2. The first essay you wrote. How was it?
3. If I could travel back in time
4. The time you were grateful to be the only child
5. The moment you realize you have other siblings
6. What would you do if you to change anything in the universe
7. The time your younger sibling looked up to you
8. The most exciting things you did at the university or school
9. The day/ time you saw the strangest in your life
10. The time you looked up to your older brother
11. The effects of technology on your behaviour and hobbies
12. My weirdest experience
13. The moment you felt you are starting to grow up
14. Your experience in solving a dilemma
15. One thing you are afraid to lose
16. A time when some wrongly judged you and the person realized later
17. School lessons that influenced your behaviour
18. If I could change one thing about me
19. A time when you judged someone and realized later you were wrong 
20. The day you realized the world is more significant than what you imagined
21. If I had a billion dollars
22. The beginning of a relationship
23. The day you were chosen as a leader
24. If I could stop time
25. A difficult decision that you had to make
26. When you experienced fighting procrastination
27. The most beautiful place in the world
28. A time when you failed you listen to your parents
29. A situation when you called the police for help
30. The most pleasant sound for me
31. When you attended a major event
32. My first day in a new school
33. The time when you experienced a historic event
34. The days when you experienced racial or religious discrimination
35. The time I lost my friend
36. Your first time away from home at night
37. An event that changed the relationship with your parents
38. The time I made a new friend
39. The time you suffered a significant injury
40. The time you had different opinions on both younger and older generations
41. The day you thought things would go wrong for you but they didn’t
42. The most influential things you learned in your childhood
43. My first day at a new job
44. The day you took stand for someone 
45. A situation where you got a present you didn’t like
46. My most disastrous day
47. The most exciting experience I have ever had
48. A random act of kindness
49. My happiest day 
50. A teacher who inspired you
51. Your first encounter with a stranger
52. The most irritating things in my life
53. When you realized some people want to be like you
54. An experience that left me wondering
55. When you realized the truth was hidden from you
56. The day you experienced rejection
57. The moment I overcame the phobia
58. How you faced situations that affected the whole country
59. A hard experience that ended up to be worthy
60.  The achievements I am proud of
61. Your child heroes and how they have influenced your life
62. The episode in my life that has changed me
63. An episode when people you underestimated acted kindly and nicely
64. An experience that left you frustrated
65. My act of cowardice
66. A sporting experience
67. A sad experience with someone you loved most
68. My act of heroism
69. A memorable experience with your favourite family member
70. What you would love to change in your past
71. The time you got lost somewhere
72. The first month staying on my own
73. The time you went to an amusement park
74. What I learnt from my sibling
75. The first time you experienced a big tornado
76. How I started relationships
77. The special moment when you got your first pet
78. A time when the power went out
79. The worst quarrel with my mother
80. Interesting episodes with greater meaning
81. Something embarrassing that happened to you
82. The biggest risk I have ever taken
83. The time when you chose what your future job to be
84. Something funny that happened to a family member or friend
85. Why I like being alone
86. The time you overcome fear in specific things
87. Something funny that happened to you
88. The most difficult decision I have ever made
89. Episode from a summer vacation in your childhood
90. Moving from one place to another
91. What challenges have I overcome
92. Episodes that changed peoples opinion about you
93. The day you met someone who changed your life
94. How do I relieve stress
95. Your first journey to the countryside
96. When you experienced something spooky
97. Who is your mentor and why
98. A conflict with another person
99. A class field trip
100. The side effects of my digital life

Conclusion

Having a good story to narrate helps set the pace for your narrative essay assignment. Therefore, ensure to brainstorm through the story and determine the goal of your essay. You must always write while focusing on your audience. Write creatively and avoid copying other people’s stories. 

How do you start a narrative essay?

Here are some of the ways on how to start a narrative essay:
1. Begin with a quote
2. You can begin with a rhetorical question
3. Start with a short anecdote that results in a significant story
4. Provide an interesting fact that goes in hand with your story
5. You can always begin with a shocking statement.

What is a narrative topic?

A narrative topic is simply the best way you need to tell a story about unforgettable life experiences and describe your personal attitude to some things, events, places, and people.

What are the 4 types of essays?

The main types of essays include narrative, argumentative, expository and descriptive.