When you tell your mom all about the horrible day you've had, or you tell a friend a story about what happened on your first day of school, or even when you're just describing how you felt when you woke up this morning, you're offering a narrative. Sometimes, you may even want to write that narrative down in a diary or a story. For an essay, you're going to have to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard.
An essay is a short, informative piece of writing. It includes an introductory paragraph, a body of at least three paragraphs, and a conclusion. The tone of an essay varies among the different types, but the intention of an essay is to make a specific point and inform readers.
There are four basic types of essays: persuasive, expository, descriptive, and narrative. A narrative essay tells a story in a first-person point of view to make a specific point.
In short, a narrative is any story told in first-person through the recounting of a sequence of events. In fiction writing, the story may be told through either the writer's voice, a fictional character's view, or through the voices of a group of characters that vary by chapter or section. The term is used in a more abstract way outside of writing. For instance, one political party may accuse another of using a false narrative around a news event or social issue. In other words, there is a story being created around that topic. Narratives can be both written and spoken and can be both fiction and non-fiction.
If the narrative, or story, you're writing makes a specific point and is written using the structure of an essay, you've written a narrative essay. However, narratives come in many other forms, as well. Some books are narrative, such as F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, because the authors tell their story using a character's (or narrator's) voice that takes a reader through a sequence of connected events. Poems, reflections, journals, and speeches can all be narrative as long as they recount events using first-person perspective.
A good narrative is believable and makes a reader or listener feel as if they are living the story themselves. Using descriptive language and expressing your own or your character's emotions well help make a narrative one that readers and listeners will enjoy.