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2 Narrative Paragraphs – Building Blocks of Academic Writing

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BUILDING BLOCKS OF ACADEMIC WRITING

CONTENTS

Chapter 3: Paragraph Structure

3.2 Narrative Paragraphs

Learning Objectives

Identify the differences in form between descriptive and narrative paragraphs.

Know the major differences between autobiographical and biographical narratives.

Recognize the structure of autobiographical and biographical narratives.

Identify the importance of personal growth in a narrative paragraph.

Previous: 3.1 Descriptive Paragraphs
Stress the importance of personal growth within your own narrative paragraph.
Next: 3.3 Expository Paragraphs

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Unlike descriptive paragraphs—which strive to explain why a person, place, object, or event is
important—a narrative paragraph demonstrates the development of a person through the chro‐
nological retelling of an important event. In addition, a narrative paragraph should indicate
how a person has changed or learned from this experience. The experience should unfold much
like the plot of a novel or short story, beginning with the individual facing a problem and end‐
ing in the resolution of the problem and subsequent growth of the individual. Thus, the action
of the problem should unfold as the telling of the event unfolds, much like the action of a short
story builds as the plot progresses.

However, just as in descriptive paragraphs, you must describe the event that is progressing, ef‐
fectively drawing your readers into the development of the individual. Think of how invested
—or perhaps uninvested—you become in the stories you read. Why do you connect with cer‐
tain characters and not with others? Often, you connect with characters you feel you can relate
to in some way or with events that you can imagine experiencing. Thus, it is essential to clearly
and concisely indicate the action of the event being described. Your readers must be able to
imagine being at and participating in the event. However, you must keep in mind that you can
provide too much information to the reader. Make sure all the details you provide are relevant
to the narration. For instance, when narrating an event, you do not need to include details that
do not add to the feeling of an event. Otherwise, the readers will feel unconnected to and unin‐
terested in the development of the individual.

While describing the event is crucial to the reader’s understanding and interest, the subject’s
feelings, thoughts, desires, or insights are integral to creating the sense of personal growth.
Without these components, the reader will be unable to track the person’s development and
change. Essentially, in order for the reader to see that the individual has transformed, you must
present the inner thoughts, desires, and feelings of the person before and after the alleged
transformation. This way, the reader can compare the thoughts and feelings from before the
change with those after and ultimately evaluate the personal growth of the individual on their
own.

Since the personal growth in the narrative is the most essential component, choosing the indi‐
vidual and experiences is an important decision. As a writer hoping to engage the reader, you
must carefully consider both the events and the individual that you choose. Not only must you
choose an event that points toward eventual personal growth, but you must also choose an indi‐
vidual who is compelling. Generally, a narrative paragraph can either be autobiographical or
biographical in nature. That is, the narrative can be written by you and about you, or the narrat‐
ive can be written by you and about someone else. Moreover, in choosing to write about your‐
selfPrevious:
or about3.1someone else,
Descriptive you decide the organization of your paragraph.
Paragraphs

Next: 3.3 Expository Paragraphs

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Autobiographical Narrative

An autobiographical narrative is one of the most personal types of paragraphs. Not only are
you writing a paragraph that expresses your own views and thoughts, but autobiographical nar‐
ratives are based upon your own life experiences.

Thus, it follows that the organization of the paragraph will also be more personal in nature.
Unlike a narrative paragraph based on another individual, an autobiographical narrative will al‐
ways contain your personal thoughts, desires, and motivations. While it is hard to know the
motives of other individuals when writing a biographical narrative (unless you know the indi‐
vidual well), you always have access to the motivations for your own personal development.
Hence, when you organize your autobiographical narrative, you must organize your paragraph
around the event that promotes your personal growth and the feeling you experienced before,
during, and after this event.

There are several ways to incorporate your thoughts, feelings, and motivations into the organ‐
ization of your paragraph. First, you can consider integrating your description of certain events
with your motives and thoughts for the events. This way, you present the event and your mo‐
tivations both in chronological order and simultaneously. This means that you are describing
the event and your feelings as they occurred, or at the same time. Second, you can consider
blocking your description of your event and your feelings, providing a set of sentences describ‐
ing the event followed by a set of sentences describing your motivations. You could also re‐
verse this blocking format to first provide your motivations and then the description of the
event.

Previous: 3.1 Descriptive Paragraphs

Next: 3.3 Expository Paragraphs

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Table 3.6 Examples of both paragraph types

Integrated description and motivations Blocked descriptive and motivations

Today, I stepped into a new stage of my life by
moving into my own apartment. I am so excited,
because I have always lived with roommates,
and this will be my first time living alone. I was
able to find a great used couch on Facebook
Marketplace that I have set up in the living
room. My friends think living by myself will be
lonely, but I am really enjoying setting up my
place exactly how I want it. After we got
everything moved in, I spent the afternoon
rearranging furniture, putting dishes away, and
hanging pictures.
Today, I moved into my new apartment. We got
up at 6 a.m. to load up the truck up with all of
my stuff and drop it off at my new place. That
took most of the morning. I was also able to find
a used couch on Facebook Marketplace, which
we picked up and brought over. I spent the
afternoon rearranging furniture, putting dishes
away, and hanging pictures.
It was a very exciting day. I have always
lived with roommates, so this will be my
first time living alone. My friends think liv‐
ing by myself will be lonely, but now I can
set up my place exactly how I want it. It
feels like I am entering a new stage.

How do these two examples compare? Although they both narrate the same event, is one more
effective than the other? Generally, the first organizational scheme (when you integrate de‐
scription and motivations together) is the most seamless. By incorporating the two together,
you provide the reader with a more complete picture of the event—as if the reader is experien‐
cing the event as it unfolds in your narration. However, sometimes this formatting does not
work, specifically with complicated events. If you feel that the event you are narrating is too
difficult to explain or clarify, then you should consider separating your description and
thoughts. However, you do need to be aware of how this affects the story you are telling. Do
you want the importance of the event to be at the end? In doing so, you make the event seem
more suspenseful, and you can make the reader more compelled to finish your narrative.
Nevertheless, organizing your paper in this way places more of a burden on you as a writer be‐
cause you must clearly connect the separate ideas in the paragraph.

Regardless of the organizational scheme you choose, you must properly describe your personal
growth. In order to do so, you must organize your paragraph around one significant event. If
your paragraph centres around one main event that helped shape your personal growth, the ma‐
jority of the body should describe the one event while the introductory and concluding sen‐
tences should include your thoughts and feelings from before and after the event to help clarify
how the occurrence helped shape you.

Previous: 3.1 Descriptive Paragraphs

Next: 3.3 Expository Paragraphs

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Biographical Narrative

Unlike the much more personal autobiographical narrative, a biographical narrative tends to be
more formal and less personal. While you can easily include how you felt or what you thought
during events in your own life, it is harder to indicate how others thought or felt during action
in their own lives. Sometimes, if you are writing a biographical narrative about a close friend
or relative, or if you have interviewed the individual you are writing about, you can include
specific insights and motivations. If you do have access to the person’s thoughts and feelings,
you can easily organize your biographical narrative as you would an autobiographical one.
However, usually, you will have to infer how a person felt or what they thought from their ac‐
tions in certain events.

If you must write a biographical narrative about someone you do not know or someone you
cannot interview, you must suggest the person’s motivations through analyzing actions. For in‐
stance, if someone apologizes for past behaviour, then you can infer that they feel regret about
the incident. You could then analyze the events following this apology to see if the individual’s
apology was genuine. In other words, you could see if the individual’s behaviour changed after
the apology or if the individual changed their actions in significant ways. In order to vocalize
the analysis in your paragraph, you must suggest to your reader that the individual started act‐
ing and behaving differently in response to a past experience. For example, you would need to
stipulate that the good behaviour following the apology means that the individual regrets past
actions. On the other hand, if an individual’s actions after an apology do not change (if the per‐
son continues to make the same mistake, for instance), you can infer that the person does not
regret or feel sorry for past actions.

Review Questions

1. What is the purpose of a narrative paragraph?

2. How does a narrative paragraph differ from a descriptive paragraph?

3. What are the two ways you can organize an autobiographical narrative?

4. How do you show the feelings and thoughts of other individuals when writing a
biographical narrative?

Previous: 3.1 Descriptive Paragraphs

Next: 3.3 Expository Paragraphs

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5. Write an autobiographical narrative about your experience as a writer. Be sure to

stress how you have grown as a writer by including both descriptions of past situ‐
ations and your feelings and thoughts about these situations.

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