Prewriting for Personal Narratives

Prewriting is your first step in writing a personal narrative. These prewriting activities will help you select a topic to write about, gather important details about the topic, and organize your thoughts before you begin a first draft.

Prewriting to Select a Topic

Explore topic ideas.

The goal for your narrative is to share a personal experience that taught you something or left a lasting impression. To help you think of topic ideas, complete as many of the sentence starters that follow as you can. Each complete sentence could become a topic for your narrative. Make a copy of this Google doc or download a Word template.

My friendship was tested one time when . . .
(Answers will vary.)
My worst day in school was . . .
(Answers will vary.)
I had to stand up for myself once when . . .
(Answers will vary.)
I remember the time I won . . .
(Answers will vary.)
I told a secret, and . . .
(Answers will vary.)
My most embarrassing moment in school happened when . . .
(Answers will vary.)
I wanted to be part of a certain group, but . . .
(Answers will vary.)
A neighbor helped me (scared me, surprised me), and . . .
(Answers will vary.)

Choose your topic.

Choose a topic for your narrative. Pick from the topics suggested by the sentence starters above, or choose another topic you have in mind.

Prewriting to Gather Details

Before you can share a story, you need to remember all the important things that happened. Asking and answering the 5 W’s and H questions can activate your memory and help you record important details about your experience.

Who was involved in the experience?
What exactly happened? (the actions or events)
Where did it happen?
When did it happen?
Why did it happen? (the background)
How did you change because of the experience?