Narrative Essay Examples

When you get the task of writing a narrative essay, it may seem somewhat complicated, but – in reality – it is arguably the easiest kind of essay to write. Narrative essays are the most widespread in real life, outside of school. All short stories or short films that make a point are essentially examples of a narrative essay. When someone tells you about his or her experience to illustrate a life lesson, it is also a narrative essay example.

So, everybody is familiar with this essay type, even when they don’t suspect it. If you need to write a narrative essay for school, all you should know is that it will consist of the same elements as a regular story: a plot detailing events in chronological order (flashbacks and flashforwards are possible but only with a good reason), the introduction-build-up-climax-resolution structure, vivid descriptions to immerse the reader, occasional dialogues, etc. For you to get an even clearer idea of what you’re up against, here are a couple of narrative essay examples for college:

Narrative Essay Example #1: The Art of Bad Singing

1984 was a big year in music, so much happened. David Lee Roth left Van Halen for good, while Eddie Van Halen joined The Jacksons on one of their Victory Tour concerts. Their most famous sibling Michael, meanwhile, got his scalp burned, won 8 Grammys, secured himself his own person star at the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and released Thriller single. A young girl in Seattle bought this record on her way back from school the day she found out that her school choir no longer wanted her around.

“Some people are just not built for a choir,” someone more polite would tell her. Others would ask her to “hold it if you can’t hold a note.” But she hadn’t the slightest intention of stopping singing. “If they don’t want to enjoy it, then they’ll have to suffer through it, cause it’s a thriller night” – she was thinking to herself bitterly. It was then when she realized something that thousands of people around the world have to realize every day – that they are bad singers but also that bad singing is also an art in which they have to excel. So, she embarked on a journey of mastering this fine art.

And it is a complicated art indeed. If you have a good voice, you may just sing anything effortlessly. But when you don’t – it takes much more zeal. You have to feel every word and every shade of emotion you are singing with the deepest depths of your heart. It means that even among bad singers there are good and bad ones.

Many music journalists and critics like to classify and categorize good singers. Me, I have worked out a classification of bad singers. So, bear with me.

I call the first group “Hi, my name is Miley, and all these girls and boys are not my siblings, even though it’s easy to think so.” They are favored by charts, top 40 radio stations, as well as brands and fashion boutiques. Their lack of singing talent forces them to uphold their “idol” status – from mimicking broad vocal range (through whispering, wailing, yelling, etc.) to wearing overpriced outfits and flirting with the tabloids. Credits should go where credits due, though. These singers have a profound understanding of their job, and they are good at it. It is completely understandable why they earn as much as they do.

The second group of bad singers I like to call “I am brilliant at songwriting, so I write peculiar songs that nobody else could pull off, and that’s the main reason why I have a record deal.” The likes of Thom Yorke of Radiohead or Nick Cave belong to this group – you know they can’t really sing, admit it. For such singers, the vocal performance is a by-product they use to convey their message to the world. The message has to be a meaningful and powerful one – otherwise, nobody would care for their mumbling and moaning. On the other hand, their songs are always so specific and individual. I don’t like to imagine someone like Adele singing “Anyone Can Play Guitar” or “Karma Police.” The world wouldn’t be the same without such bad singers.

Finally, the last but not least – in fact, the largest – group on my list is “I can’t sing, I know it, but I love it, so I couldn’t care less.” This is the biggest and the most underappreciated group of the three. It includes yours humbly, as well as most of my friends and family, including that little thriller girl that I mentioned. Her name is Winter Howell, and she is the 12-year old version of my mother. It may have been the school choir director’s intention to discourage her, but if so – he failed miserably. To this day, she enjoys yelling her belly out with anything from Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” to Motley Crue’s “Home Sweet Home.” And she has dozens of lines from lyrics to respond to that pesky choir director, should she ever hear him say anything again.

The likes of her and myself sing bad, but we do it from the heart. We butcher our favorite songs with care and tenderness that cannot be stopped. We do it in the shower, in cars or strolling down the street with our favorite big headphones on. Despite our “impairment” and all the reprehension of passers-by, we cry our souls out and put all we have in it. It is easy to sing anything when you have a voice. It takes a true artist to keep singing without one against all the odds.

Narrative Essay Example #2: Party Hard

I don’t get people who complain that there’s nowhere to go hang out. When we moved from Chicago to Snowmass, Colorado, I expected just that. I know it’s weird to hear from a teenager, but I was actually looking forward to a more relaxed pace of life. Still, every weekend there was a party in one place or another – the “Belgium,” the lake, or someone’s folks were out of town, and the place was free to crash. That year I decided to look hot rather than original for the Halloween dance and dressed up as Harley Quinn for the Halloween Dance. The party was fun, the tunes were cool, and I was having a great time with my friends from the cheerleading squad. I overheard that Trisha and Cheryl were talking about going to have an after-party at Lilly-Ann’s. Of course, they would invite me along.

I had my doubts about going to the party. I wasn’t good friends with Lilly-Ann. Not that we were enemies or anything, we just never got the chance to know each other and never reached out to each other to do so. Besides, I didn’t warn my parents about any party – I told them that I’d be home after the dance. Like I said, I was used to partying hard back in Chicago, so my parents wouldn’t be surprised or angry if I came home somewhat later than I had promised. But still, one way or another, I was feeling off about coming along. Regardless, I went, just for being a peer to Trisha and Cheryl.

As we came there, it was more or less the way I had expected. There was a trailer, people around it passing bottles of Jack while others stood in line to a small freezer with beers. “How wasted you have to be to drink beer outside in this time of year?” I thought to myself, - it gets real chilly in Colorado at this time of year. But as I stepped out of the car, I found that it’s not cold at all - probably because of all the motion and the persistent odors of cheap booze so familiar to me from my life back in Chicago. As a cherry on top, the soundtrack to this whole mess of a party was that stereotypical white trash country music glorifying alcohol abuse. I thought about my parents once again, but after a moment I realized that I had been just desperately looking for an excuse to leave.

I spotted Lilly-Ann as she was giggling and yelling with her valley-girl-wannabe voice about how awesome the party was. She was barely standing and bending herself in a car next to ours. She looked back at me with surprised eyes, as if she hadn’t seen me at the dance, which I know she had. “Nobody should ever get that much wasted,” I thought, and, as if reading my mind, she began to run her hands all over her body uncontrollably, desperately trying to “fix up” her looks. “Oh my gosh! You shouldn’t see me such a mess!” she babbled. Why, of all people, she cared how I see her after half the school had seen her like this right there at that excuse for a party. Maybe it’s because we were wearing nearly identical Harley Quinn costumes, probably from the same Hot Topic boutique.

I found gum in my pocket and gave her one stick which she frantically took and began to chew while keeping babbling. At this point, I gave up trying to make sense of what she was trying to say. Instead, I somehow wallowed into my own reflections about what could drive her to this. Evidently, she was trying to escape something unpleasant – just like I had been doing not so long ago.

“Please promise me you won’t tell anyone that you saw me like this.” As if I had to, as if I were the only one here. Evidently, she wasn’t herself at all. After hearing that promise from me, she headed back to the freezer for another beer, which made even less sense. I told her I was gonna drive back home and see her at school, but she didn’t seem to hear me.

As I was getting into the car, Cheryl noticed that I was going to leave. She came up and asked me if anything was wrong. This whole experience did overwhelm me – my hands began to tremble, and I could barely hold my tears. I had to lie that nothing was wrong and I was just feeling exhausted.

As I drove, I couldn’t help thinking about Lilly-Ann and what kind of problems she had been trying to wash away with booze. Now I think that it wasn’t such a good idea to drive myself as I could barely keep my eyes on the road. I should have probably called my parents and asked to pick me up. But I felt that uncontrollable drive to get out of that place, like I didn’t belong there and didn’t want to be associated with what’s going on in there in any way. I guess many people go through that nasty point through their years in high school. And once it gets to you, it doesn’t lose the grip. That party-hard spirit will follow you even to a drowsy little town like Snowmass.

Disclaimer: The correct use of narrative essay examples

As you know, all your writing homework has to be original. It means that you must write essays yourself. Even though you may be tempted to copy and paste these good narrative essay examples, be recommended against it. The examples of a narrative essay here are only for you to get a clearer idea of what you are expected to come up with. If you are struggling to come up with your own narrative essay examples for some reason, you should consider hiring a professional academic writing service to write that essay for you. They will charge a price, but your essay will be both excellently-written and original.