Best of Miami Portfolios 2001 - Units.muohio.edu

A Narrative or Short Story
This piece can be based on personal experience as a non-fiction narrative or can be a
short work of fiction. Its aim is to communicate the significance of an experience or event
through description, dialogue, and/or narration. Put another way, successful pieces show
rather than tell. The writing can be personal and informal. This narrative or short story
should have a title.
Each of the narratives published here illustrates qualities that our readers were drawn to in
reading the narratives and short stories students submitted. As a group, they demonstrate a variety
of ways that authors can successfully and creatively write in this genre.
Anyone who has ever attended a high school prom will recognize the events described in
Nicole DiNardo’s “Beautiful Muddle.” Her narrative is more of a description than a story, but it
comes alive through its adroit use of specific detail and its amused tone as Nicole takes a long, hard
look at the prom and at herself. While the events of the narrative are the small ones of everyday
life, the writing brings such intense life to the narrator’s experience through the use of realistic
dialogue and recognizable emotions that readers’ interest remains high throughout, right up to the
narrative’s satisfying resolution.
Andrew McKenzie’s “A Different Religion” memorably employs a mock-heroic style to tell
his story of another familiar and ordinary encounter. His story amuses us as the protagonist reveals
just how important these events are to him through the use of exaggerated and inflated language.
While we read, we also realize that the story’s protagonist is an expert on the subject of his
“religion,” and we are informed as we read, as well as entertained. In this unorthodox way,
Andrew has found a lively strategy to present some strongly held opinions through story-telling,
making his narrative one to remember.
In “My Hardest Test,” Kristen Price shows readers a meaningful experience in her life,
using dialogue and interior monologue to great effect. Her narrative takes a traditional approach—
beginning at the start and working straight through to the climax—but does so with great efficiency
and skill. Note how the story plunges us into the events immediately, and how Kristen uses surprise
to keep readers attentive until the very end when they finally learn the significance of the events
and the title.
Unlike the other writers, Dana Sinopoli does not narrate a story about a modern teenager’s
familiar experience. Instead, “Price for Freedom: A POW Story” takes readers back in history to
bring readers the life of a teenager caught up in a terrible war. The narrative compels readers to
feel as if they were experiencing the events themselves through the startling use of second person,
a risky approach for a writer as readers often resist being positioned as a protagonist. However,
Dana brings history to life by using present tense to weave facts and feelings into the story, relying
upon an expert source for the historical information. And the narrative eventually wins us over,
convincing us that using second person writing to tell this story is indeed the best way to make its
point.
There is no formula to writing an effective narrative. These four examples differ from one
another in tone, structure, purpose, and style, and no single story or descriptive essay will contain
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