Narrative Summary

Being asked to do a narrative summary is not as uncommon as one thinks. Most of us have experienced doing this in high school or in elementary years. However, if you haven’t tried it, this task may take a lot of time do it but if you know what to do and with careful planning, you’ll ace your narrative summary.

• How to Write a Movie Summary
• Do’s and Don’ts in Writing A Chapter Summary

Making a narrative summary is one way of storytelling and of course, narrative writing. Narrative allows a storyteller to tell tales of what has happened in the previous scenarios or add more context in the present terms. A narrative is also one way to transition from one scene to another through chronological events that were happening over time. A narrative summary can also be a descriptive summary; you are also describing the events, characters, and objects eloquently.

However, in a narrative summary, the essence of the dramatic highlights in the plot of the story are being summarized. It is less detailed in terms of visualization but the plot points are still present. It also helps readers, who are not able to read the full and detailed version of the story, will have knowledge of what is happening in the story.

The use of narrative summary has been in and out of fashion with the public. Stories, both oral and written, are a product for entertainment and are subjective to the tastes of their audience.

How to Write a Narrative Summary

To write a narrative essay, you’ll need to tell a story with lessons or insights to be learned by the audience. Telling a narrative summary in your part must be based in your own personal events; the interesting events or situations that happened to you or to anyone you know. Sometimes you may need to write a narrative summary based on a book or short story. Whatever it is that you’re writing, the format on how to write it are just the same.

Since it was mentioned earlier that narrative summaries also have the same elements of writing a descriptive summary; make your narrative more colorful and vivid to the readers; let them be in touch with their senses; make them feel like they could hear the sounds you are describing, picture out the images you’ve identified, and so on. Here are some ways on how to achieve it:

• Tell a story (if it’s based on your life) in a first-person point of view. Make it interesting. You can put your own writing style to make your story more engaging.
• Proceed to the action. Chuck out long intros and lengthy descriptions about a particular object, especially in the beginning of your narrative summary. You don’t need to describe the objects in a very detailed manner, you can use short and strong words to describe it.
• Your story should have a main theme; something that your readers can learn from the experience. If you’re writing a narrative summary based on a book or short story, don’t forget to include the lessons you’ve learned or the lessons implied in the book/short story.

Examples of writing vivid descriptive sentences:

• The city rain smells different from a countryside drizzle. The city rain reeks with the sewer scent.
• The mountain breeze is cold with the sweet pine scent while the sea breeze is warm that smells like salt.
• Tide pods look like it tastes like orange and peppermint flavored candy.

Take notes in writing your summary based on a book or short novel

Before you can write your summary, you need to collect all the important details you will put in your summary. Read the book first and take note of the name of each character along with their role in the story, a brief description of each individual scene in the story and its highlights, the type of conflict (e.g. man vs. man, man vs. nature, man vs. self, man vs. technology, man vs. fate, etc.) and the characters involved in this conflict, and the theme of the story and its lesson. This is your outline of what to include in your narrative summary. You can also do this outline if your summary is based on your own experiences.

Start with your introductory draft

Now that you have the information you need for your summary, it’s time to start your draft. First, focus on your introduction. Your opening lines must be direct and crisp. Make sure you state the title of the story as well as the name of the author (if the story is based on your experiences, put down your name.) Your introductory lines must be eye-catching. You could start with a rhetorical statement or question before you briefly describe the main characters and the supporting ones, the setting, the conflict, how it moves the plot, and the theme (the latter part may not be necessary to do as you can put it in the body or in the conclusion.)

Make the body

The body is where you will summarize each event of the story. Your notes that you’ve taken will be more useful in this part. You must follow the rule that each obstacle the main character faces should have its own paragraph. Focus how the main character resolves the conflict of the story.