Tips for writing your personal narrative Start with a hook. The first few sentences of your personal narrative is what’s really going to reel your readers in. Discuss the events in chronological order. It’s easy to get overwhelmed and jump from one moment to the other without Include sensory 2 days ago · Part 2 of Start with a hook. Begin the personal narrative by drawing the reader in with a strong opening sentence. Use rich description and detail in the opening, how to write a personal narrative essay. Start in action so the reader is grabbed right · Hooking a reader is all about keeping them interested by using craft to paint a compelling picture. If you consider the ten items that help build tension and move the story forward, writers can weave a tale that keeps readers up at night and that is the magic in the best of blogger.com: Ann Garvin
How to Start a Personal Narrative: 12 Steps (with Pictures)
First impressions decide whether or not your readers want to be pulled into the world of your narrative. This makes the exposition of any novel or short story particularly important. If your narrative borders on bland, clichéd and uninteresting, readers will soon lose interest.
In other words, who is the target audience for your novel or short story? In the early phases of planning and writing, this can be a particularly difficult question to answer. The Advanced Fiction Writing website advises that you distinguish between your General Target Audience, those interested in your fiction or genre as a whole, and your Specific Target Audience, those interested in your narrative in particular, how to hook your reader in a personal narrative.
The former is generally determined according to the genre and voice that interest your target readers, the latter according to demographic information including age, gender, income levels and political standpoints. Rather, write with one specific type of reader in mind.
After all, only when you how to hook your reader in a personal narrative a concrete picture of the reader in your head, are you able to better mould the style, context and composition of your narrative accordingly.
What makes a narrative gripping are the profound or innovative messages it seeks to convey to the reader. However, to figure out your message, you must first figure out your purpose. This is crucial. Considerations of character voice are necessary to writing a good hook.
A hook that introduces an interesting protagonist is necessary to compelling them to read on as they endeavour to find out more about the character, their world views and their responses to the situations within which they are placed.
The Now Novel website wisely says. It is the point of view from which the character views the world. Think of the opening lines of J. Indeed, a description of a house being torn from its roots, of birds battering against the wind and of four fingers gripping to the edge of a table as it flies across the sky is far more interesting to read about than a statement declaring that a tornado is ripping up homes all across town.
Detail is crucial to alerting the reader to the small but significant cracks that your narrative is creating in an otherwise familiar, oft taken-for-granted setting. A hook that conceals specific pieces of information from the reader can work hand-in-hand with unusual imagery to create suspense and arouse curiosity.
Writers Dennis Jerz and Kathy Kennedy give a great example to highlight this point. They compare two sentences that say essentially the same thing in different ways:. This fact compels them to ask a number of other questions, such as:.
This applies not only for the hook, but also for the rest of your narrative. However, on the way there, she encounters a cat stuck up a tree and decides to rescue this cat. How boring would it be if the narrative began from the moment Anna woke up!
What Vonnegut is advising us to do is to initiate the plot from the moment Anna finds the cat stuck up the tree, or better still, from the moment Anna finds herself stuck up the tree following her valiant attempt to rescue the cat. Use action to engage the reader in your hook.
Ensure that something is happening — something unexpected, something exciting, something moving, something that simulates a reaction from the reader.
There are many different types of action you can incorporate into your narrative for the most effective scenes. The advantage of imparting some kind of refreshing philosophical muse in your hook is that you add the element of innovation to your narrative.
In doing so, you also embed greater nuance into the meanings contained within your novel or short story. Contradictions and paradoxes tend to have a philosophical undertone to them, so, when used astutely, they can connect with readers on both an intellectual and emotional level.
Think along the lines of:. Not only do contradictions and paradoxes inspire the reader to read between the lines and to examine the profundity of the statements remarked, but they also trigger a pensive state of self-reflection within the reader. Philosophical statements may also take the form of irony. It is a truth universally acknowledged, how to hook your reader in a personal narrative, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
By providing the reader with a train of thought, it positions the reader with the power to challenge this train of thought.
These words are able to engage with the reader of any age or era by simultaneously stimulating their mind and stirring their heart. And this is what a hook should ultimately do: move the reader. It should create a space within which the reader is able to establish a genuine connection with the narrative. On the one hand, it should be unusual, unexpected and unconventional, but on the other, it should consist of some point of relevance and familiarity. So what are you waiting for?
Katherine is a writer and part-time blogger, an avid reader and a collector of inspiring quotes. Having been in love with stories from a very young age, she is always looking to transform daily observations into beautiful, philosophical tales.
She is currently studying Bachelor of Arts Media and Communications at the University of Sydney, how to hook your reader in a personal narrative, and hopes to one day inspire positivity, provoke deep thought and give a voice to the voiceless.
You can read more of Katherine's writing here. World-building is essential for believable, relatable, well-rounded storytelling. It can help to create mood and atmosphere, build character, and evoke a powerful sense of place and If there's one thing recent times have taught us, it's how vital human connection is. Long bouts of isolation at home and social distancing have left many craving connections to their how to hook your reader in a personal narrative ones, Points to Consider Before Writing the Hook 1.
Know The Purpose of Your Narrative What makes a narrative gripping are the profound or innovative messages it seeks to convey to the reader.
Why am I writing this narrative? Do I want to convey some philosophical muse that the reader will find relevant or applicable to their own lives? Do I want to reveal to the reader something they may not have been aware of prior to reading my narrative?
Crafting how to hook your reader in a personal narrative compelling hook involves a lot of considerations for the writer. Image credit: Joanna Kosinska via Unsplash Points to Consider while Writing the Hook 3.
Adopt a strong character voice. Continue Reading.
Writing a Personal Narrative: Writing an Introduction or Opening for Kids
, time: 3:157 Clever Steps To Hook Your Reader Into Your Narrative – Writer’s Edit
2 days ago · Part 2 of Start with a hook. Begin the personal narrative by drawing the reader in with a strong opening sentence. Use rich description and detail in the opening, how to write a personal narrative essay. Start in action so the reader is grabbed right · Hooking a reader is all about keeping them interested by using craft to paint a compelling picture. If you consider the ten items that help build tension and move the story forward, writers can weave a tale that keeps readers up at night and that is the magic in the best of blogger.com: Ann Garvin Tips for writing your personal narrative Start with a hook. The first few sentences of your personal narrative is what’s really going to reel your readers in. Discuss the events in chronological order. It’s easy to get overwhelmed and jump from one moment to the other without Include sensory
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