Personal Narrative

The Main Focus of Personal Narrative

A personal narrative's main focus (or purpose) is to say something about your life. You might also say something about your role in society, a movement, an event, or a discovery.

A Personal Narrative is Personal

If a narrative does say something about the bigger picture, readers should experience this through the eyes of the narrator… the person! Otherwise, the personal narrative risks being just a narrative.

What makes a personal narrative special is in the name: it's personal. Whatever a personal narrative might say about a culture, place, or place in time—the person is the main focus.

Again, though, a personal narrative does not need to say anything significant. A personal narrative can be a coming-of-age story, a personal learning experience, or any other kind of story where the story is about what's going on inside the person. Personal narratives can focus on growth and development.

A Personal Narrative Is a Narrative

So now you know that a personal narrative is personal. However, it should also focus on the narrative.

A personal narrative is usually told in the first person. First-person narration is told from someone's perspective and uses phrases such as I was, I did, and I experienced. This is easy enough to grasp, but what exactly is a story?

This structure might be incredibly loose. In some stories, it is hard to tell where the beginning becomes the middle and where the middle becomes the end. This might be intentional, or it might be poor pacing. Either way, for these purposes, a strong story has a definite arc.

Personal Narrative Ideas

If you are struggling with how to start your personal narrative, start with self-reflection. A self-reflection looks back at your life and examines how and why you have changed and developed.

Fig. 1 - Consider what contributed to who you are today.

To start, think about what events in your life shaped your current situation. Did you experience an important city, state, national, or international event that impacted you to this day? Think about big or small changes that shaped who you are on the inside.

Also, consider the scope of your personal narrative. A personal narrative can capture:

• A moment in your life. Think about something pivotal that happened to you or the people around you. What was that moment like?

• A chapter in your life. For instance, a year in school is a chapter in your life. Think about a grade in school, a holiday, or a place you once lived. What is a period in your life that fundamentally changed you?

• Your entire life. Maybe you could talk about your passion, for instance, writing fiction. Describe how your passion grew from a young age to now, using small anecdotes along the way to flesh out your story.

Writing a Personal Narrative

When writing a personal narrative, you want to stay organized. Although you are not formulating an argument with evidence and conclusions, you are creating a story with a beginning, middle, and end. Here is what you should have in each section.

Beginning of a Personal Narrative

The beginning of a personal narrative should include the necessary setup of your story, the exposition. Introduce us to the characters, place, and time of your story.

• Tell the reader about you and your main characters.

• Tell the reader where your personal narrative happens.

• Tell the reader the time period. At least supply your age.

Next, your beginning should include an inciting event.

Middle of a Personal Narrative

In the middle of your narrative, you should describe your actions and the actions of others. This is called the rising action.

Think of the inciting event as the start of your personal change, and the rising action of your narrative as the bulk of your change. It's like a butterfly metamorphosing. The inciting event is the big decision to create a cocoon, the action is the change within the cocoon over time, and the result is a butterfly.

In our family death story, the rising action might contain the many struggles that the narrator has with grief. It might include specific low points and high points, but it captures all those "ups and downs" after the death in the family.

End of a Personal Narrative

The end of your personal narrative synthesizes where you began and where you went, and it concludes with where you ended up.

There are three parts to the end of a story: the climax, falling action, and resolution.

At the end of your personal narrative, you want to demonstrate how your trials (the action) forced you to grow and change. You want to say what you learned, where you ended, and why this personal narrative was important in your life.

If your personal narrative also contains a larger story, such as the events of a cultural movement, you might cap everything off with how the end of your story lines up with that story. Describe how that story concluded or continues on to this day.

Personal Narrative Example

Here is a short example of a personal narrative in the form of an anecdote. The three colors indicate the first sentence of the narrative's beginning, middle, and end (e.g. the first paragraph is the beginning). Afterward, try to break it down into exposition, inciting event, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.

Here is how this example breaks down:

• The first paragraph contains the exposition, including information about the protagonist and where she lives.

• The first paragraph also contains the inciting event: the protagonist taking the family rowboat.

• The second paragraph begins the rising action. The brother follows, and the boat springs a leak.

• The fourth paragraph contains the climax: the moment that the father attempts to rescue his daughter.

• The fourth and fifth paragraphs contain the falling action: the father retrieving the boat and the protagonist being chastised.

• The fifth paragraph contains the narrative's resolution: the protagonist's reflections on the events and a description of where she is today.

Fig. 2 - Use a personal narrative to show how you've changed.