Writing a Narrative Essay

Everybody tells stories

When Kofi comes home late and explains what happened at the football field, he is telling a story. When your grandmother describes the day the river flooded in her village, she is telling a story. A narrative essay is simply a story written down with care.

In exams you will often see a question like: Write a story that ends with the words "I never made that mistake again." To answer it well you need more than imagination. You need a plan, a shape, and a set of tools for making readers feel they were there.

In this book you will learn:

• how a plot is built from a problem and its solution
• how to choose and describe a setting
• how to create characters readers care about
• how to write an opening that grabs and an ending that satisfies
• how to show, not tell
• how to organise it all in clear paragraphs

By the end you will write a complete story set in Ghana, from first idea to final full stop.

What makes a narrative?

A narrative has four things that an ordinary piece of writing may not:

Events in time. Something happens, then something else happens because of it. Stories move.

A narrator. Someone is telling it: either a character inside the story ("I") or a voice outside it ("she", "he", "they").

People. Characters who want things, fear things and make choices.

Change. By the end, something is different. A problem is solved, a lesson is learnt, a secret is out.

Compare these two sentences:

Accra is a busy city with many markets.

By the time Abena found her mother's stall in Makola, the sun had climbed over the roofs and her feet were burning.

The first describes. The second narrates: a person, a place, a moment, something at stake. This book teaches you to write the second kind.

Reading the question

Exam questions tell you more than you think. Read this one slowly:

Write a story about a day when everything went wrong, ending with the words "and then I laughed."

Underline the instructions:

• a story → narrative, not a report or a letter
• a day → the whole thing happens within about 24 hours
• everything went wrong → a chain of problems, not just one
• ending with the words… → those exact words must be your last ones

Students lose marks by ignoring one of these. A beautiful story about a week-long journey that ends "and I smiled" has broken two rules.

Try this

Underline the instructions in these:

1. Write a story that begins "The letter arrived on a Tuesday."
2. Tell the story of a time you helped a stranger.
3. Write a story titled "The Lost Goat".

Plot: a problem and its solution

A plot is the chain of events in a story. The simplest and strongest plot shape has five parts:

1. Opening – we meet the character in their normal world.
2. Problem – something goes wrong or something is wanted.
3. Rising action – the character tries to fix it; things get harder.
4. Climax – the biggest moment, where it is decided.
5. Resolution – the dust settles; we see what changed.

Here it is for a small story:

1. Kwame is sent to buy kenkey for the family's supper.
2. He loses the GH₵20 note on the way.
3. He searches the road, asks at the kiosk, is chased by a dog.
4. He finds the note stuck to the wheel of a parked trotro, just as it starts to move.
5. He returns, late and dusty, and his mother already knows something happened.

Five sentences, one complete story. Every narrative you write should be plannable in five lines like this.

Finding a problem

No problem, no story. "Ama went to school, had a nice day and came home" is not a narrative; nothing is at stake.

Good problems for a short story are small but urgent:

• something is lost (money, a phone, a goat, a letter)
• someone is late for something that matters
• a promise is hard to keep
• two people want the same thing
• a secret might come out
• the weather turns (a storm, a flood, harmattan dust)

Big problems (war, death, a kidnapping) are harder to write well in 400 words. They need more space than you have, and it is easy to sound unconvincing.

Try this

Write three one-sentence story problems about life in your own town. Make each one something a reader would want to see solved. For example: The day before the inter-schools quiz, Abena loses her voice.

Planning in five boxes

Before writing, draw five boxes on rough paper and fill them:

Box	What goes in
Opening	Who, where, when; the normal day
Problem	The thing that goes wrong
Rising action	Two or three attempts, each harder
Climax	The moment of decision or discovery
Resolution	What is different now

Planning takes five minutes and saves you twenty. Students who plan do not run out of ideas halfway, do not forget the ending words, and do not write 300 words of opening and 20 words of climax.

Worked plan for "Write a story that ends 'I never made that mistake again.'"

• Opening: Kofi, 13, trusted to lock the family shop in Kumasi for the first time.
• Problem: He is distracted by friends and cannot remember if he locked it.
• Rising action: He tells himself it is fine; he cannot sleep; he sneaks out at night.
• Climax: The shop is open and a goat is inside eating the bread.
• Resolution: He chases it out, locks up, tells his father in the morning.

Setting: where and when

Setting is the place and time of your story. A strong setting does three jobs: it helps the reader see the scene, it affects what can happen, and it sets the mood.

Think about:

• Place – a fishing beach at Elmina, a classroom in Tamale, a trotro station, a compound at night.
• Time of day – dawn, blazing noon, dusk when the lights come on.
• Season – rainy season mud, harmattan haze, the heat before the rains.
• Weather – a sudden downpour changes everything in a story.

You do not need a long paragraph. Two or three precise details are enough:

The harmattan had turned the sky the colour of weak tea, and dust lay on every leaf in the compound.

In one sentence we know the season, the light and the feel of the air.

Try this

Write two sentences of setting for a story that happens at a lorry station at 6 a.m. Use at least one sound and one smell.

Setting with the senses

Writers who make readers feel present use all five senses, not just sight.

Sense	Example
Sight	the orange and blue of the painted canoes
Sound	the slap of waves, the shouts of men hauling nets
Smell	smoke from the fish ovens, salt, diesel
Touch	wet sand sucking at your feet, the sun on your neck
Taste	salt on your lips, the sweetness of a coconut

Try describing the same beach without sight at all:

Even before I could see the sea, I heard it, and the smell of smoked fish told me we were close.

Notice how arrival feels real.

Tip: choose one or two senses for each scene; do not list all five every time, or your writing will feel like a checklist.

Try this

Describe your school at break time using sound and smell only.

Recap: plot and setting

Before we move on to characters, let us gather the tools so far.

Narrative essay = a story written with care: events in time, a narrator, people, change.

Read the question and underline every instruction: form, length of time, topic, required opening or ending words.

Plot has five parts: opening, problem, rising action, climax, resolution. Plan it in five boxes before you write.

Problem should be small but urgent. No problem, no story.

Setting is place and time. Two or three precise details, chosen through the senses, do more than a paragraph of general description.

Quick check

Plan a five-box story for this question: Write a story about a market day that did not go as expected. Set it in a market you know. Spend no more than five minutes.

Characters: who is in the story?

A character is any person (or animal) in your story. In a short narrative you need very few: one main character whose problem it is, and one or two others who help, hinder or simply react.

Students often crowd their stories with names: Kofi, Ama, Kwame, Abena, Yaw, Akosua and Esi went to the river. The reader cannot hold them all, and none of them becomes real.

Instead:

• One main character, usually the narrator.
• One other important character (a friend, a parent, a rival).
• Others can be the shopkeeper, a woman with a basket, the driver, with no name at all.

Give your main character:

• a want (to get home before dark, to win, to be trusted)
• a weakness (forgetful, proud, easily distracted)
• a way of speaking

The weakness is often what causes the problem, and overcoming it is often how the story ends.

Making a character real

Readers believe characters who have specific details. "Ama was a nice girl" tells us nothing. Compare:

Ama always carried a spare pencil, because she had once lent hers and never got it back.

Now we know she is careful, a little hurt, and remembers things. One sentence.

Ways to build a character quickly:

• An object they carry – a cracked phone, a lucky coin, a Black Stars cap.
• A habit – chewing a stick, humming highlife, checking the time.
• How others treat them – the trotro mate who always saves her a seat.
• One line of their speech – "Ei, you people!" tells us plenty.

Try this

Write three sentences introducing a character named Kwame, a Basic 8 pupil, without using any of these words: nice, kind, good, tall, short, clever. Use an object, a habit and a line of speech.

Dialogue: letting them speak

Dialogue is speech in a story. It makes scenes lively and reveals character faster than description.

The rules of setting it out:

• Speech goes inside quotation marks: "Where have you been?"
• A new speaker starts a new line.
• Punctuation goes inside the closing quotation mark.
• Use said most of the time; vary it only when the way of speaking matters (whispered, shouted, muttered).

"Where have you been?" my mother asked, not looking up from the stove.

"Nowhere," I said.

"Nowhere has made you very dusty."

Three short lines and we know she is calm, sharp, and not fooled. Dialogue should move the story or show character. Cut any line that does neither ("Hello." "Hello." "How are you?" "Fine.").

Try this

Write six lines of dialogue between a pupil who has lost a textbook and a librarian who has heard it all before.

First person or third person?

You must decide who is telling your story.

First person ("I") – The narrator is a character. We know their thoughts; we see only what they see. It feels close and honest, and is the natural choice when the question says a time you…

I knew the moment I saw the empty hook that the keys were gone.

Third person ("he/she/they") – The narrator is outside. You can follow more than one character and describe things the main character does not know.

Abena did not notice the boy watching from the kiosk.

Both are fine. The one rule: do not switch halfway. If you begin with "I", the story stays with "I".

Also keep the tense steady. Most stories are in the past tense (walked, said, saw). Slipping into the present (walks, says) by accident is one of the commonest errors examiners mark.

Show, don't tell

Telling gives the reader a conclusion. Showing gives the evidence and lets the reader conclude.

Telling	Showing
Kofi was nervous.	Kofi wiped his palms on his shorts for the third time.
It was very hot.	The tar on the road had gone soft under our sandals.
She was angry.	She put the plate down so hard the stew jumped.
The room was untidy.	Books, a single sock and half a loaf of bread shared the bed.

Showing uses actions, body language, objects and the senses. It is slower, so you cannot show everything; choose the moments that matter, usually the problem and the climax, and tell the rest briefly.

Try this

Rewrite each by showing:

1. Ama was tired.
2. The market was crowded.
3. Kwame was proud of his new shoes.

Verbs do the work

Strong writing leans on strong verbs, not piles of adjectives and adverbs.

Weak: He walked quickly and nervously across the very busy road.

Strong: He darted across the road.

One verb, darted, carries speed, nerves and danger. Here are families of verbs to choose from:

• walk: stroll, trudge, march, shuffle, creep, stride
• say: mutter, snap, whisper, announce, plead
• look: glance, stare, peer, squint, glare
• hold: grip, clutch, cradle, grab

Adjectives are not banned; they should be precise. A red cloth is fine. A beautiful, lovely, wonderful cloth is three words doing nothing.

Try this

Replace the weak verb and cut the adverb in each:

1. She looked angrily at him.
2. He said quietly that he was sorry.
3. They walked slowly and sadly home.

Recap: characters and style

Characters – few of them: one main character with a want and a weakness, one or two others. Build them with objects, habits, how others treat them, and one line of speech.

Dialogue – quotation marks, new speaker on a new line, punctuation inside, mostly said. Every line must move the story or show character.

Narrator – choose first or third person and stay there. Keep to the past tense.

Show, don't tell – give actions, body language and sensory evidence at the key moments.

Verbs – pick the precise verb instead of a weak verb plus an adverb.

Quick check

Here is a telling paragraph. Rewrite it with showing, dialogue and strong verbs, in about 80 words:

Abena was late for school. She was worried. Her mother was angry with her. She ran to school.

Openings: the first sentence

Your first sentence has one job: make the reader want the second. There are several reliable ways to begin.

In the middle of action

The goat was already halfway through the bread when I opened the door.

With dialogue

"Don't come back without the change," my mother said.

With a striking detail of setting

That morning the harmattan was so thick I could not see the end of our street.

With a hint of what is to come

If I had checked my pocket at the gate, none of it would have happened.

Avoid these tired openings: Once upon a time…, It was a bright sunny day…, My name is Kofi and I am going to tell you a story about…. Examiners have read them ten thousand times.

Try this

Write four different first sentences for the same story: a pupil who finds a wallet on the way to school. Use each technique once.

Openings: the first paragraph

After the hook, the first paragraph must quietly answer who, where, when, and hint at what is normal so that the problem, when it comes, feels like a change.

The goat was already halfway through the bread when I opened the door. It was six in the morning, and Papa's shop on Asafo Road should have been locked, dark and empty, exactly as I had left it the night before. Or as I thought I had left it. I am Kofi, I was thirteen, and that week I had been trusted with the keys for the first time.

In four sentences: a hook, the time, the place, the normal state, the narrator, his age, and the seed of the problem ("as I thought I had left it").

Keep the opening paragraph short, 60 to 90 words. The reader wants to get to the problem.

Try this

Write the first paragraph of your wallet story, using your best hook from the previous page.

Paragraphs: one step each

A paragraph is a unit of thought. In a narrative, start a new paragraph when:

• the time jumps (Later that evening…)
• the place changes (At the station…)
• a new person speaks
• the action shifts (from searching to finding, from calm to panic)

A story of 400 words usually has six to nine paragraphs. A single block of text with no breaks is hard to read and loses marks. So does a story in which every sentence is its own paragraph.

Vary paragraph length on purpose. A long paragraph slows things down, good for description. A very short one, even a single sentence, makes the reader stop.

Then I saw the goat.

Use that trick once or twice, at the moments that matter most, and it will hit hard.

Linking paragraphs

Readers need to know how one paragraph connects to the next. Linking words and phrases do this quietly.

Time: at first, then, meanwhile, by noon, an hour later, that night, the next morning, finally

Cause: because of this, so, as a result, which meant

Contrast: but, however, instead, even so

Place: outside, back at the compound, across the road

A story that uses only then… then… then… feels like a list. Mix your links, and sometimes let the first words of a paragraph do the job without a link at all:

The kiosk owner shook her head before I had finished asking.

We know we have moved to the kiosk; no "Next I went to the kiosk" is needed.

Try this

Here are three paragraph starts. Rewrite each with a different kind of link: Then I went home. Then my mother asked me. Then I told her.

Rising action: making it harder

The middle of a story is where many students lose their way. The secret is escalation: each attempt to solve the problem should fail in a way that makes things worse, or raise the stakes.

For Kofi and the shop:

1. He tells himself he locked it. (Easy attempt: ignore it.)
2. He cannot sleep and asks his sister; she laughs and threatens to tell Papa. (Now there is a witness.)
3. He creeps out at midnight, past his parents' door. (Now he is breaking a rule to fix a mistake.)

Each step costs more than the last. By the time he reaches the shop, the reader is as anxious as he is.

Two or three steps is right for a short story. One is too few; five is too many for the word count.

Try this

Take the wallet story. List three attempts your character makes to find the owner, each harder or riskier than the one before.

Building suspense

Suspense is the reader's wish to know what happens next. You create it by slowing down at the key moment and holding back information.

Techniques:

• Short sentences. The door was open. I stopped.
• Questions in the narrator's head. Had I really left it like that?
• Sensory detail that delays. Describe the sound, the smell, the dark, before revealing what is there.
• A clock. The first trotro would pass at five. I had twenty minutes.

Compare:

I went to the shop and found the door open and a goat inside.

The shop door should have been a flat black shape against the wall. It was not. A thin line of grey showed down one edge. Something inside was chewing.

Same event, but the second makes the reader lean forward.

The climax

The climax is the moment the story has been building towards: the discovery, the decision, the confrontation. It should be the most vivid scene in the essay, and it should be shown, not summarised.

Rules for a good climax:

• It happens because of the main character's choice or action, not luck.
• It is slowed down: more detail per second than anywhere else.
• It answers the problem, even if the answer is "no".

Weak: Finally, Kofi found the goat in the shop and chased it out.

Strong:

I pushed the door and the smell of warm bread and goat hit me together. It stood on the counter, one hoof in the tray of sugar bread, chewing, looking at me as if I were the intruder. "Hey!" My voice came out thin. The goat did not move. So I did.

The climax of a 400-word story is usually one paragraph of 80 to 100 words.

Endings: the resolution

After the climax, the reader needs a moment to breathe and see what has changed. This is the resolution, usually one short paragraph.

Good endings:

• Return to the beginning. If the story opened with the keys, end with the keys.
• Show the lesson; don't preach it. Not I learnt to be responsible, but Now I check the lock twice, and then once more.
• A line of dialogue. "You were out," my father said. It was not a question.
• A quiet image. The goat stood at the end of the road, still chewing.

Avoid these:

• …and then I woke up and it was all a dream.
• …and we all lived happily ever after.
• The moral of this story is…
• Introducing a new character or problem in the last paragraph.

If the question gives you ending words, the whole plan must lead to them, and they must be the last words on the page.

Endings: making the given words fit

Many questions end with …ending with the words "…". Those words are a target; the story is an arrow.

Take: "I never made that mistake again."

Weak fit (the words are stuck on):

I chased the goat away and locked the shop. The end. I never made that mistake again.

Strong fit (the story earns them):

Papa did not shout. He took the keys from my hand, looked at them, and gave them back. "Twice," he said. "Always check twice." For a week I checked three times, and the shop girls laughed at me. I did not mind. I never made that mistake again.

Notice that the final sentence follows naturally from the one before; nothing is "The end".

Try this

Write a last paragraph of 50–70 words for the wallet story that ends with the words "and that was how I met my best friend."

Recap: openings, middles, endings

Opening sentence – start in action, with dialogue, with a striking detail, or with a hint. Never Once upon a time.

Opening paragraph – who, where, when, what is normal; 60–90 words.

Paragraphs – new one for a change of time, place, speaker or action. Six to nine in 400 words. One very short paragraph at the key moment.

Rising action – two or three attempts, each harder.

Suspense – slow down, short sentences, questions, a clock.

Climax – caused by the character; the most detailed paragraph.

Resolution – show the change; return to the beginning; no dreams, no morals; hit the given words naturally.

Quick check

Write the five-box plan for a story that ends "…and the lights came back on."

A full model story: part one

Here is a complete narrative of about 420 words, answering: Write a story that ends with the words "I never made that mistake again." Read it, then study the notes on the pages that follow.

The Keys

The goat was already halfway through the bread when I opened the door.

It was six in the morning, and Papa's shop on Asafo Road should have been dark and locked, exactly as I had left it. Or as I thought I had left it. I was thirteen, and that week, for the first time, I had been trusted with the keys.

The evening before, Yaw and Kobby had been waiting outside with a ball when I pulled down the shutter. "Hurry, Kofi!" Yaw shouted. I remember the padlock in my hand. I remember the ball bouncing past my feet. I do not remember the click.

At supper I told myself it was fine. Of course I had locked it. By nine, lying on my mat, I was less sure. By ten I was certain I had not.

A full model story: part two

"Just go and check," my sister Ama whispered from the other mat. "Or I'll tell Papa you're not sleeping, and he'll ask why."

So at midnight I crept past my parents' door, lifted the latch of the compound gate with two fingers, and ran. Asafo Road at night was a different place: the kiosks shut, a dog barking somewhere, the streetlight outside the shop flickering as if it could not decide. The shutter was down.

I almost went home. Then I saw the padlock, hanging open on its hook like a mouth.

I did not have the courage to go in alone in the dark. I sat on the step until the sky turned grey, and at six I pushed up the shutter and the smell of warm bread and goat hit me together. It stood on the counter, one hoof in the tray of sugar bread, chewing, watching me as if I were the intruder.

"Hey!" My voice came out thin. The goat did not move. So I did.

A full model story: part three

It took ten minutes, a broom and most of the sugar bread to get it out. I swept, I counted the loaves that were left, and I wrote the number on the chalkboard the way Papa did. Then I locked the shop. I checked. I checked again.

When I got home Papa was at the gate.

"You were out," he said. It was not a question. I told him everything, even the part about the ball. He did not shout. He took the keys from my hand, looked at them for a long moment, and gave them back.

"Twice," he said. "Always check twice."

For a week I checked three times, and the shop girls laughed at me. I did not mind. I never made that mistake again.

That is the whole story. Count the paragraphs: fourteen, several of them one line. Notice where the story slows down (the padlock, the goat) and where it speeds up (the week afterwards, in one sentence).

Notes on the model: structure

Let us map "The Keys" onto the five boxes.

Opening (paragraphs 1–2): hook in the middle of action; then who (Kofi, 13), where (Papa's shop, Asafo Road), when (6 a.m.), and what is normal (trusted with keys).

Problem (paragraph 3): a flashback to the evening before. He may not have locked up. Notice the three I remember sentences, then I do not remember the click. The pattern builds doubt.

Rising action (paragraphs 4–8): telling himself it is fine; his sister's threat; creeping out at midnight; the open padlock; waiting until dawn. Each step costs more.

Climax (paragraphs 9–10): the goat on the counter. The most detailed moment, and it ends in action: So I did.

Resolution (paragraphs 11–14): clearing up, Papa at the gate, the keys returned, the final line.

The ending words arrive naturally because the whole story is about checking a lock.

Notes on the model: technique

Look for the tools from this book inside the story:

Setting through senses: the smell of warm bread and goat; the streetlight… flickering as if it could not decide; a dog barking somewhere.

Show, don't tell: we are never told Kofi is scared. We see him sit on the step until dawn, and hear his voice come out thin.

Strong verbs: crept, lifted, ran, pushed, swept.

Dialogue that reveals character: Ama's whisper is both help and threat; Papa's "Twice" says everything about him in one word.

Short paragraphs for impact: The shutter was down. So I did. When I got home Papa was at the gate.

Return to the beginning: the keys open and close the story.

Specific Ghanaian detail: Asafo Road, the compound gate latch, sugar bread, the chalkboard count, the shop girls.

Flashback: bending time

Most stories run in order: morning, afternoon, night. But a short jump backwards, a flashback, can be useful, especially when you open in the middle of the action and need to explain how we got there.

"The Keys" does this. It opens with the goat at 6 a.m., then paragraph three steps back to the evening before. The signal is a time phrase: The evening before, Yaw and Kobby had been waiting…

Rules for a flashback that does not confuse:

• Signal it with a time phrase: the night before, two days earlier, when I was eight.
• Use the past perfect (had been waiting, had left) for the first sentence or two, then slip back to the simple past.
• Keep it short: one paragraph. Then return to the present of the story with another time phrase: Now, standing in the doorway…
• Use one flashback at most in a short story.

Try this

Write an opening sentence set at the climax of your wallet story, then a one-paragraph flashback explaining how the morning began.

Choosing a title

If the question gives a title, use it exactly. If it does not, you may add one; it is not required, but a good one shows control.

A strong title is short (one to four words), concrete, and connected to the story's key object or moment, often with a second meaning the reader only sees at the end.

• The Keys – the object that opens and closes the story, and the "key" to Kofi's growing up.
• Twice – Papa's one-word lesson.
• Sugar Bread – what the goat ate; small, odd, memorable.

Weak titles explain too much: The Day I Forgot to Lock the Shop and Learnt a Lesson. Weak titles are also too general: A Mistake, My Story, An Unforgettable Day.

Write the title last, once you know what the story was really about. Then check it does not give away the climax.

Try this

Write three possible titles for the model story's cousin: a story in which a girl loses her mother's phone at Kejetia and finds it in the last place she looks.

Common mistakes

Examiners see the same errors every year. Check your work against this list.

1. Ignoring the question. Wrong ending words, wrong time span, a report instead of a story.
2. No plan. A long opening, a rushed ending, a climax in the last two lines.
3. Too many characters. Six names, none of them real.
4. All telling. I was sad. She was angry. It was scary.
5. Tense slips. I walked to the shop and I see the goat.
6. Switching narrator. From I to Kofi in the middle.
7. Dialogue not set out. No quotation marks, speakers sharing lines.
8. Tired openings and endings. Once upon a time… and it was all a dream.
9. One giant paragraph or a paragraph for every sentence.
10. Not reading it through. Missing words, repeated words, a name that changes spelling.

Most of these cost more marks than a spelling error. Fix them first.

Editing your draft

Writing is rewriting. If you have five minutes at the end, spend them like this.

Read it once for the story. Does it answer the question? Does it reach the ending words? Is there a clear climax?

Read it once for the sentences.

• Cut any sentence that does not move the story or show character.
• Find a weak verb plus adverb and swap for one strong verb.
• Find one telling sentence at a key moment and show it instead.
• Check every paragraph starts for a reason.

Read it once for the mechanics.

• Tense: all past?
• Narrator: all first or all third?
• Dialogue: quotation marks, new line per speaker?
• Capitals for names and places; full stops at the end.

Reading aloud in your head, slowly, catches more errors than reading silently and fast.

Vocabulary for narratives

Keep a page in your exercise book for words that earn their place. Some to start with:

Movement: dart, trudge, stumble, weave, hurtle, edge, slip

Sound: hum, clatter, hiss, murmur, screech, thud, crackle

Light: glare, flicker, gleam, dim, blaze, shadow

Feelings shown through the body: heart hammering, palms damp, throat tight, knees unsteady, a smile tugging at the corner of the mouth

Time links: at dawn, by noon, as the lights came on, long after midnight, before the first cock crowed

Ghanaian texture: trotro, mate, kiosk, compound, kenkey, waakye, harmattan, chop bar, the mosque's call, the church bell, the ice-water seller's cry

Local words make a setting real. Use them as you would in speech, without explaining them to the reader; a confident writer trusts the context to carry the meaning.

Writing to a word limit

Most questions ask for about 350 to 450 words. Here is how a story of that length divides:

Part	Words	Paragraphs
Opening	60–90	1–2
Problem	50–70	1
Rising action	120–150	3–4
Climax	80–100	1–2
Resolution	50–70	1–2

Too short, and the story feels thin and the climax rushed. Too long, and you run out of time to check, and the examiner's patience runs out with it.

A practical method: a line of your handwriting is about 8–10 words. Four hundred words is roughly 40–50 lines, about a page and a half. Mark where your climax should begin before you start writing, and aim for it.

Timing in an exam

If you have 45 minutes for a narrative essay:

• 5 min – read the question twice, underline, draw five boxes and fill them.
• 30 min – write. Do not stop to perfect a sentence; keep moving. If a word will not come, leave a gap and go on.
• 5 min – write the ending with care; check the given words are your last words.
• 5 min – read through for tense, narrator, dialogue, paragraphs.

If time is short, the resolution can be two sentences; the climax cannot be skipped. A story with a strong climax and a short ending beats one with a long middle and no climax.

Never write a story you have memorised and squeeze it to fit. Examiners spot it immediately, and the fit is always poor. Plan fresh every time; with the five boxes it takes five minutes.

Your turn: full practice

Choose one of these and write a complete story of 350–450 words. Plan first in five boxes.

1. Write a story that begins with the words "The lights went out just as…"
2. Write a story about a day at the market that did not go as planned.
3. Write a story that ends with the words "…and that was how I met my best friend."
4. Tell the story of a time you had to choose between a friend and the truth.

Set it somewhere you know well: your street, your school, a beach, a farm, a lorry station.

When you finish, check:

• One main character with a want and a weakness?
• Setting through at least two senses?
• Two or three steps of rising action?
• A climax that is shown, not summarised?
• Ending that returns to the beginning or earns the given words?
• Past tense throughout; one narrator; dialogue set out?

Reading like a writer

The fastest way to improve is to read stories and notice how they are made.

Ghana has a great tradition of storytellers: Ama Ata Aidoo, Kofi Awoonor, Ayi Kwei Armah, Amma Darko, and the Ananse tales your grandparents told. When you read, ask:

• How does the first sentence hook me?
• Where is the problem introduced?
• Which details make the setting real?
• Where does the writer slow down? Where do they speed up?
• How does the last line connect to the first?

Try copying out one paragraph you admire by hand. You will feel the rhythm of the sentences in a way reading does not give.

Try this

Find a short story or an Ananse tale. Draw its five boxes. Then write down the single sentence you liked most and say why.

Glossary

Narrative — writing that tells a story: events in time with a narrator, characters and change.

Plot — the chain of events: opening, problem, rising action, climax, resolution.

Setting — the place and time in which a story happens.

Character — a person (or animal) in a story. The main character is the one with the problem.

Narrator — the voice telling the story; first person uses I, third person uses he/she/they.

Dialogue — speech between characters, set out with quotation marks.

Show, don't tell — giving actions and sensory evidence rather than naming a feeling.

Suspense — the reader's wish to know what happens next.

Climax — the most important and detailed moment, where the problem is decided.

Resolution — the ending, showing what has changed.

Paragraph — a unit of thought; in a story, a new one for each change of time, place, speaker or action.

Linking words — words such as later, meanwhile, but that connect paragraphs.

Learn more

• TED-Ed — search for the writing lessons in this book and many more short animated videos on storytelling.
• ReadWriteThink — free story-planning tools and narrative writing activities.
• Khan Academy: Grammar — practise tenses, punctuation and sentence structure.
• Scratch — try turning your finished story into a simple animated scene.

Watch more

Think about it

1. Why does a story need a problem? What happens to a reader when nothing is at stake?
2. Think of a story your family tells again and again. Where is its climax? How does the teller build up to it?
3. "Show, don't tell" takes more words. When is it worth it, and when is telling the better choice?
4. Why do examiners dislike "and then I woke up"? What does that ending take away from the reader?
5. Which of the five senses do you use least in your writing? How could you use it in your next story?