Narrative Writing: Include Relevant Details to Guide Your Reader's Focus

I’m continuing our series on narrative assignments this week, and today we’ll be focusing on details. I have an M.F.A. in Creative Writing, so I have studied narrative structures before, and am here to give you some advice to help you shape your narrative Walden assignments.

As a creative writer, I’ve done a lot of work constructing and deconstructing nonfiction narratives. For your work here at Walden, everything is nonfiction and has a logical flow, but some assignments are more narrative than others in that they require you to recount a story or event. In these cases, the approach and expectations of the reader are similar to writing an academic paper, but it can get tricky because there are so many personal details to choose from. Today I’ll discuss how you can narrow down the details to enhance your narrative.

Let’s say you are asked to tell a story of a leader who inspired you recently in your office. You are telling this story in order to show how some of your course readings apply to real scenarios. The story ends when you’ve explained a specific instance in which this leader inspired you.

Include Relevant Details
Let’s say Linda is the name of the leader in your office who inspired you. Linda handled some very passive aggressive behavior in a meeting very effectively by using some of the techniques you’ve been reading about in class. So, ask yourself, what details are relevant and necessary for the reader to understand what happened? Essentially, what details, if left out, would create a gap in the story? You can list all the details you can think of as an exercise and then pick the ones that you need to include from there. Here are some possible details you can choose from to include in this narrative: 

• You have worked with Linda for 10 years

• You have always admired Linda

• The colleagues in the meeting have a history of negative behavior

• Linda is the manager of the project the meeting was about

Which of these details are essential to understanding the story? 3 and 4 are likely the most important to readers being able to follow what you’re saying. It may seem like 1 and 2 are relevant, because they’re part of your background with Linda, but they are not essential for the reader considering the purpose here is not a profile of Linda and your relationship, but a specific action Linda took.

Here’s an example of how a paragraph might look with all the above details:

I’ve worked with Linda in my office for 10 years and she is a great manager. I have always admired and enjoyed working with Linda. We recently had a meeting for a project Linda managed, and some coworkers were very passive aggressive and not productive during Linda’s presentation. These particular coworkers have a history of negative behavior and have negatively impacted past meetings as well. Linda handled this interaction very effectively by using Townsend’s (2017) approaches of effective communication.

Now this paragraph is by no means ineffective, but you want your readers to focus on the important and most relevant details that will enhance your narrative—and when you include details not tied in to the meaning or purpose of your work, you can create confusion or a muddled narrative.

A revised paragraph with clearer focus might look more like this:

My manager, Linda, is an effective leader, and recently inspired me with how she handled some negative interactions during a meeting. Linda was the manager of the project we had the meeting for, and while the coworkers present were in a different department, we had worked with them before and had some difficulties. In previous meetings the coworkers had not paid attention while Linda presented and were un-receptive during group discussion and brainstorming. During this meeting, these coworkers interrupted Linda during her presentation and whispered to one another during group discussion rather than engaging with the group. Linda used Townsend’s (2017) approaches for effective communication to speak to these coworkers in the meeting space and establish clear communication for the group.

See how this revision actually has more details, but they are about the most relevant aspects of what happened in this narrative. It is important for a reader to know what exactly happened, that this was established behavior, and how Linda handled the situation in order to understand why the writer is inspired by Linda. We can assume that the narrative will continue from here, explaining exactly what Linda said and did concerning Townsend’s techniques.

So when writing a narrative as part of your academic work, remember to:

• Ask yourself: What story am I telling? Why? Where does it end up?

• Write down the details

• Pull out the essential details for your focus

And of course you can always submit your work to the Writing Center! Narratives are very difficult since we know so much background information about the topic, so one of the best practices, and one every creative or other type of writer uses, is to get a second set of eyes on your work. 

Claire Helakoski is a Writing Instructor  at the Walden Writing Center and holds an MFA in Creative Writing. She has taught writing and Composition as well as acted as a writer and editor in a variety of mediums. She lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and enjoys reading, writing creatively, and board games of all kinds.

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