Paper Example. Non-Fiction, Personal Narrative

Nonfiction is any content or document that purports in good faith to represent the accuracy and the truth regarding specific events, information, or people. Moreover, the nonfiction information or contents are presented in two ways that are subjective or objectively, which sometimes changes their form of presentation to story format. Also, the nonfiction contents contain specific factual descriptions and assertions, which at some point may not be accurate, leading to false results of the subject in question. For instance, some of the many creative and literary devices that are mostly used in fiction materials or content might be considered inappropriate to be used in a nonfiction environment. However, simplicity, directness, and clarity are among the most vital considerations or requirements needed when producing a nonfiction work of art (Gerard). For instance, when it comes to descriptive or artistic endeavor audience is very important since, in fiction, the authors concentrate on in-depth explanations hoping that the audience will follow through, which is not true since they might get lost along the way. This essay will evaluate the whole structure of a personal nonfiction narrative and their categories and characteristics, respectively.

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Creative Fiction: Narrative Structure

The narrative structure is the sequence of events or activities and how the author or writer presents the story in nonfiction. For instance, the writer might decide to tell or express out his story starting from the beginning until the end and employ some flashbacks or even contrast two various stories. The first structure is frame or frames, which is the method of controlling and ordering the author's narrative so that the story flows in an exciting and orderly way. There are different types of frames that a writer might decide to use in their narrative nonfiction such as chronological frame where the writer starts the story from the beginning to the end and includes inciting incident to the resolution. Another framework is manipulating time where the writer summarizes the story through the use of flashbacks or starting in the middle of the event and so forth (Hood). Last but not least is the parallel narrative, where the author or artist presents two different tales that later join to become a single narrative and are mostly adopted by the writer to signify a deeper meaning of something.

Three Act Structure

The three-act structure is mostly used in writing screenplays; for instance, in the first act, the author introduces the inciting incident, actors or characters, the problem and conflict of the narrative. In the second act, the writer can present some obstacles, setbacks, or challenges of the description. Finally, in the third act, the artists or writer resolves the story and can demonstrate some changes, growth, and the development of the actors, which makes them able to determine the challenges and answer some difficult or unanswered questions.

Collage

Collage is also another suggested structure for the writer to use in the narrative as described by Dinty Moore in his book “In Truth of the Matter” because it involves the writer getting information from a variety of sources or even images. For example, the writer can create a personal essay from the library, memory, interview, and research then combine the sources to form a single or whole narrative content. Moore goes ahead and argues that the braiding form of writing a narrative can be applied in case the collage fails to present the intended information. For instance, the author can decide to give two different stories and, along the way, decide to combine them and form a whole narrative to make some significance and comparisons.

Nonfiction Categories

Some of the various literary examples used in nonfiction include opinion pieces such as essays, argumentative, expository, and functional. Any information that the writer knows to be false or not true against the journals, textbooks, blueprints, photographs, diagrams, and travel books is considered to be dishonest (Hood). It is upon the writes to stick to the fiction or nonfiction work. Whenever the author has both abilities, they must be able to employ different codes or rules when approaching a specific category of the invention or nonfiction narrative. However, at some point, the fiction work might include nonfictional components, and some nonfiction materials might consist of unverified deduction, imagination, or supposition intended to smoothen or make the narrative interesting. Therefore it is upon the writer to decide in which category of the narrative they want to major in their career and put more effort towards making the narrative unique from other literary or types of creating writing in literature.

Creative Nonfiction: Personal Narrative Essay

Personal narrative essay or memoir is the personal stories focusing on the experience, which was or is a turning point or breakthrough change in direction, which brought significant impacts in that person’s life and decided to share with the audience or the readers. Most writers write about their memory of activity or any life event that has a lot of significance in that person’s achievement or life. The personal narrative essay can be a true story based on actual events such as journey, illness, pilgrimage, death, or quest. Also, the personal narrative essay is known as a memoir because it requires an individual to depend on their memory to retrieve such an event into words or any artistic format to express their opinions in the society.

Sources to Use in Personal Narrative

All human beings have themselves with the entire human condition, which means that an individual can have a life experience that another person has already experienced or even experience some of the memories that reveal the human condition life of a person with tremendous or universal meaning. Materials are found in someone’s mind or brain where it retrieves all the events of the turning point in someone's life, such as death or disease or loss of employment. Also, a spiritual journey can act as a material or source for someone when writing a memoir, which allows an individual to narrate to the audience or the reader who is interested in knowing their spiritual journey life (Hood). Family life and place also contribute a lot as the materials or sources to an individual when writing a memoir, for instance, reflecting on significant family activities or events that happen in everyone’s life or family. On the other hand, writing about home and including all the necessary traveling details makes the readers or audience can capture every single detail about the life of the author or the writer.

Writing Techniques

There are various fiction techniques and other poetic devices that most writers apply in their narrative essay to gain support or have a lot of influence on the targeted audience. One of the fiction devices that the author emphasizes is the character and the characterization where the authors view themselves as the main actor or role in the narrative, and they rely on a combination of the fictional techniques such as dialogue to introduce themselves to the audience or the readers. The author also uses a setting or scene which describes the time and the place where the story occurred, and the reader can identify and know the backdrop of the story (Hood). Also, any writer who focuses on the inclusion of poetic devices in their narrative content makes their story more exciting and entertaining when compared to those who do not use poetic devices in their materials. Moreover, the poetic devices create some memorable prose and account to both the writer and the audience, such as symbolism, metonymy, simile, personification, and metaphor.

Structure of Personal Narrative Essay

The memoir has to follow a specific process to pass across the intended objectives or information. First, the author has to describe a problem in precise detail and be able to alert the audience or writer to the main event that acted as a turning point for that particular individual. The struggle is the second process, which creates the dispute, which is regarded as external or internal; to interfere with the writer’s life to make some changes (Hood). The third is that the problem and struggle can lead to the epiphany of new understanding, which can transform a person’s story from anecdote to qualify as a personal narrative, which has a high impact on the writer and to the readers or the audience they share their accounts with. Last is to have the resolution section which displays or informs the audience or the readers the steps taken by the author or the writer after the epiphany.

Revision of the Personal Narrative Essay

Most scholars regard revision as to the critical section of the personal narrative because not all writers can get their stories correct at their first time to write or narrate. Revising the particular narrative paper makes the writer polishes the story and make some needed corrections whenever necessary to make the essay exciting and best to read or listen to (Hood). The first procedure of revision is to get the first draft by writing on the paper every detail without considering the writing structure then followed by the second draft revision by looking at the point of tone, view, metaphor, simile, and imagery. The last draft is to have a final polish where the written paperwork has no spelling mistakes or typing errors, and this makes the story flow in perfect condition and conveys the intended information or lesson for the readers or the audience.

In conclusion, the nonfiction personal narrative essays are types of artistic work that allows an individual to share their experience or stories that have a significant impact in their life or that acted as the starting point to their successful growth. Most memoirs are meant to encourage or motivate the reader or the audience who might be experiencing the already experienced event by the narrator or the writer.

Works Cited

Gerard, Philip. Creative nonfiction: Researching and crafting stories of real life. Waveland Press, 2017.

Hood, Dave. "Creative Nonfiction: |Writing The Personal Narrative Essay". Find Your Creative Muse, 2020, https://davehood59.wordpress.com/2012/04/30/creative-nonfiction-writing-the-personal-narrative-essay/.

Hood, Dave. "Narrative Structure In Creative Nonfiction". Find Your Creative Muse, 2020, https://davehood59.wordpress.com/2010/04/15/narrative-structure-in-creative-nonfiction/.