We can see that every year narrative essay question is asked and it is about

completing a story either given the beginning or the ending of the essay except in
2005 where the question stated clearly on what is the main event of the story.
The rest of it, you can determine your own plot of story. Easy hah?
Now I will explain why I am so excited about narrative essay.

you are only write the essay in past tense; therefore no confusion on tenses

it lets you to imagine a situation; allowing to express creative ideas

if you lucky enough, the question given is plot-free (its you who create the plot
fitting to the question given)

you can use wide vocabulary

easier compared to open essay, factual essay and argumentative essay

need not to remember current issues around you

These are lists of benefits that I can think of when writing a narrative essay.
Continue reading my blog as I will bring you on how to produce a good narrative
essay.
PRIOR TO THE EXAMINATION: WRITING PRACTISES
To produce a good narrative essay, first you need to brush up your grammar. It
does not work if your grammar is not that good. Get help from your friends and
english teacher especially because they know what they are doing; plus that is
what they do - teach you!
Buy if you can afford to, if not borrow grammar books, example of english
essays, and anything that is related from friends or library of your school because
by reading it will improve your English skills.

There is always a friends that 'master' a certain subject and for this identify your
friends who have the highest marks in Continuous Writing among you. Read
his/her essay and try to relate his/her writing to yours. It is not a bad thing to
copy the way they write the essay as long as it involve study and education.
Try to find time to write an additional essay (which is your own personal
essay; not homework) for two or a week times and asked for your teacher's
comments. As for me, I started to write additional essays after finishing my trial
examination because my bahasa Inggeris grade was the lowest among the 10
subjects that I took. I started a bit late, but you should start NOW while you have
the time. Believe me it helps a lot because for my trial I got a B but for the SPM
examination I got an A+ for bahasa Inggeris and English GCE-O an 1A. English
GCE-O is the marking standard of British English and it only takes the marks of
your Continuous Writing. See how important it is for you to excel in Continuous
Writing.
MY TIPS ON HOW TO WRITE A BETTER NARRATIVE ESSAY
1. BRUSH UP YOUR GRAMMAR
There is nothing more important than having a good grammar skills. So,
language must be taken into consideration when writing an essay. Refer to the
above writing practises.
2.

ESSAY

SHOULD

DEPICT

WIDE

USE

OF

VOCABULARY

AND

INTERESTING PHRASES
Unlike the other types of essays, a narrative essay requires you to have a wide
repertoire of vocabulary in the story you wrote. This is to avoid a dull story to
be presented to the reader; in this case the examiner. From my previous writing, I

wrote that the marking system for continuous writing is based on impression.
Thus, to give good impression to the examiner on the essay you wrote, you must
include a wide range of vocabulary and some interesting phrases. Study the
examples given below:
Example 1
"It was a boring weekend. We were lazy to read books and study, so we planned
for a camping trip. After gaining permission from our parents, we brought
necessary camping things and food for the camping trip. Then, we went to Mount
Tahan."
Example 2
"It was a mundane and lacklustre period after the school final examination.
Danny, Erik and I had had enough of reading books and studying, so we all set
on going a camping trip. After getting the green light from our parents, we
equipped ourselves with the necessary camping gear and enough food to last us
for the two-day camping trip. Then, we embarked on our journey to Mount
Tahan with high spirits."
Between both examples, Example 1 depicts a dull story but Example 2
depicts a colorful story although both are mainly telling the same idea.
Why? Here are the answers:
1

Example 1 lacks of vocabulary.

Reading Example 1 does not portray sense of maturity in writing unlike Example
2.

Example 1 lacks of details but Example 2 has an adequate details in the writing
that added the value of interest.

The use of word/phrase like mundane and lacklustre, green light, camping gear,

embarked and high spirits added more sophistication to Example 2.

So, how to make your essay more interesting to read?
1

Find words or phrases that can replace a common word that you think can
be used for every essay you want to write. For example happy can be replaced
by cheerful, cheery, merry, joyful, light-hearted, jovial, gleeful, buoyant, carefree,
blithe, glad, elated, ecstatic, euphoric, overjoyed, exuberant, in seventh heaven,
propitious, auspicious and fortuitous. Actually these replaceable words for happy
just only a portion of it. A thesaurus may come handy for this job. Try searching
for sad, shocked, scared and so on.

Insert at least two idiomatic expressions in your essay like Example 2 that
uses the idiom green light which means giving permission and high spirits which
means happy. From Example 2 which is a complete paragraph there are already
two idiomatic expressions. So, imagine if there are five similar paragraphs!

This next tips could be very ambitious. Try to insert common words and
phrases from Latin and modern languages which had been accepted and
used in English Language. Such words like ad initio (Latin) meaning from the
beginning, esprit de corps (French) meaning team spirit, genre (French) meaning
style and so on. These words can be found in english dictionary.
3. HAVE A FIXED PLOT WHEN WRITING NARRATIVE ESSAYS
Here is another important part in narrative essay writing. Plot. A good narrative
must have a strong plot. Beginning with an introduction, then there is rising
action, a climax, then falling action and lastly a resolution.

Example of a narrative essay:

From Terengganu 2010 Trial Examination; beginning with "I could not sleep
throughout that night..."
Stranded

I could not sleep throughout that night. Not even a minute. It was just
because I might miss the ships or boat that passed by the island. I
was shivering in cold even it was just a gentle breeze. I thought to Introduction
myself that things would have been different if I did not take part in
that vacation. Never in my wildest dream that a spectacular vacation
on a cruise ship at the beginning turned out to be a nightmarish affair.

The day before was a joyous one. I embarked on a three-day

vacation trip on a cruise ship. The vacation was amazing. The scenic
view was splendid across the horizon of the sea as far as the eyes Raising
could see. The sea water was crystal clear and the sky was a
magnificent azure. My blissful day did not stop there. The dusk
thrilled me as I sat on a chair. The sky gave its golden appeal and the
Sun looked like it was sinking into the sea as night began to unfold.
Then, the golden yellow background of the sky changed to twinkling
stars. I was staggered to see the view of the opulent God's magnum
opus.
As the night grew older, something totally different started to appear
up to the sky. The sky was too dark. It darken so much as the

action

glimmering stars started to disappear. To my instinct, something bad

would happen any time soon, but I just could not figure it out. I went
into my room and soon dived into a deep slumber.

'RIIIINNNNGGGG!!!!!!'
"This is your captain speaking. Abandon the ship! This ship is about

Climax

to sink!"
The loud ringing sound really woke me up from my comfort bed and I
was taken aback to hear the announcement. To my horror, the ship
was in topsy-turvy. High jinks enshrouded the air. Then I realised,
there was a storm happening outside. To my flummox, I dragged
myself outside and saw people running higgledy-piggledy as they did
not know what to do. As for me, the only thing I could remember is
that a huge wave came crushing upon the ship and then everything
seemed to darken.

Streaks steaks of light awaken me found out that I was on a beach.

At last I thought that my misery had ended. But a little exploration did
not bring much hope. There was no one there. So, being an optimistic Falling
person, I built up a settlement near the beach. I laid upon my leaves
bedding. I wondered. Could I survive? Did my family know that I
loved them? For how long did I have to wait?
Out of the blue, an abrupt siren was heard from afar. Swiftly, I arose

action

from my leaves bedding and ran nearer to the beach. I shouted for
my life while waving my hands up on the air.
"Help! I'm here! On the island! Help! Help! I'm here!"

Then, the siren became louder and louder. At the moment, I knew
they had noticed me. Unexpected, tears of joy started to drop from
my eyes. Before I even thought my life was over, now the door back

Resolution

to my life was widely opened. By the moment I stepped into the

rescue boat, I know that it was the time for me to go home.

That is the example of a complete narrative essay written by me within a week

time after my trial examination. This essay earned me 45 marks out of 50 marks.
Note: the underlined words or phrases in the essay really help in earning me a
high marks.
Now back at the title above which is about a fixed plot. What is the meaning of
fixed plot?
A fixed plot is the plot that you will be using during your exam. How to do that?
The example essay above is from the question; beginning with "I could not sleep
throughout that night..."
But, what will happen if the question says; ending with "...It was truly the
experience of a lifetime." My suggestion is that you keep on using the same plot,
NOT the same essay by means memorising word by word, but change either

the beginning or ending with respect to the question given.

This an example for changing the ending with the same plot:
"...Then, the siren became louder and louder. At the moment, I knew they had
noticed me. Unexpected, tears of joy started to drop from my eyes. Now, looking
back to what had happened to me I realised that I am surviving alone at a
deserted island. Not everyone could say that they slept on leaves bedding and
have the sky as the roof. It was truly an experience of a lifetime."
Now, can you see what I am trying to make point here? By practising two or three
times, you can easily remember the plot. When writing the essay, try as much as
you can to relate the plot to the question asked. This is what I did for my
examination.
Note: the benefit of having a fixed plot is that the time that you usually used to
plan for your essay can be used to write. By the way, it is the written part is
submitted to the examiner, not the planning part, right?
IMPORTANT NOTE ON WRITING A NARRATIVE ESSAY
1

Give a title to your essay (refer to the example essay given above; it has a
title) . The title itself must be relevant to the plot. So, does the title 'Stranded'
relevant to the plot? Yes it is because the plot is about a person was trapped in
an island after a tragedy on a cruise ship. The title of an essay can be anything
as long as it fits the story.

Must write more than 350 words. But, the essay must not too long. Remember
this; the longer you write, the more mistakes you write. An ideal essay should be

around 350 to 400 words.

3

Use only one hour to write the essay and the same for Directed Writing; only
use 45 minutes. Be fair when writing the essay;

Include wide range of sentence structures, vocabulary and must have at least
one dialogue (MUST HAVE - one of the characteristics of excellent essay). Why
you should have dialogue in your essay? When you include a dialogue in your
essay, it shows that you have the knowledge in punctuation. This is what is
special about narrative essay because there is no dialogue in factual essay,
right?

At least include a word that plays a specific sound. In the example essay I
include the word 'RIIIINNNNGGGG!!!!!!'. In english, it does not mean a thing, but
it gives the reader a feel to the story you wrote.

Include a wide range of vocabulary to your essay to keep the interests of the
readers.

Check for any grammatical error after finishing the essay. Make sure it is
grammatically correct in order to get high marks.
WHAT TO AVOID?
1. AVOID WRITING SOMETHING THAT YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND
My teacher used to tell me that narrative essay is relatively a little bit easier that
the other types of essays; but it depends on the question itself! If your do not
understand a word or a phrase for a particular questions; DO NOT even try to
write about it! For example you are given this question:

Write about your most propitious moment.

See the underlined word? Most of us do not understand the word "propitious",
some may guessed that it means sad, surprise and so on where the real
meaning is happy. Avoid to write something that you do not sure.
2. AVOID MEMORISING THE ESSAY WORD BY WORD
Continuous Writing is very related to Directed Writing in terms of language. The
quality of language you portray in Directed Writing reflects the grammar
knowledge that you have because in Directed Writing the is no specific question
to be asked. It can be anything of any format. Unlike Continuous Writing,
students tend to memorising an essay.
How do the examiner even know that a student was memorising an essay or
not? It depends on the language on Directed Writing. Let say R got 6 marks for
language in Directed Writing but in the Continuous Writing R's language band
stands for A. By that time the examiner know that R was memorising an essay.
Thus, R's Continuous Writing essay will fall to the lower band. Directed Writing
does play a major role here.

Therefore, it is crucial for you to have a strong knowledge on basic grammar.