Last updated on Oct 31, 2022
10 Personal Narrative Examples to Inspire Your Writing
Personal narratives are short pieces of creative nonfiction that recount a story from someoneâs own experiences. They can be a memoir, a thinkpiece, or even a polemic â so long as the piece is grounded in the writer's beliefs and experiences, it can be considered a personal narrative.
Despite the nonfiction element, thereâs no single way to approach this topic, and you can be as creative as you would be writing fiction. To inspire your writing and reveal the sheer diversity of this type of essay, here are ten great examples personal narratives from recent years:Â
1. âOnly Disconnectâ by Gary Shteyngart
Personal narratives donât have to be long to be effective, as this thousand-word gem from the NYT book review proves. Published in 2010, just as smartphones were becoming a ubiquitous part of modern life, this piece echoes many of our fears surrounding technology and how it often distances us from reality.
In this narrative, Shteyngart navigates Manhattan using his new iPhoneâor more accurately, is led by his iPhone, completely oblivious to the world around him. Heâs completely lost to the magical happenstance of the city as he âfollow[s] the arrow taco-wardâ. But once he leaves for the country, and abandons the convenience of a cell phone connection, the real world comes rushing back in and he remembers what heâs been missing out on.Â
The downfalls of technology is hardly a new topic, but Shteyngartâs story remains evergreen because of how our culture has only spiraled further down the rabbit hole of technology addiction in the intervening years.
What can you learn from this piece?
Just because a piece of writing is technically nonfiction, that doesnât mean that the narrative needs to be literal. Shteyngart imagines a Manhattan that physically changes around him when heâs using his iPhone, becoming an almost unrecognizable world. From this, we can see how a certain amount of dramatization can increase the impact of your messageâeven if that wasnât exactly the way something happened.Â

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2. âWhy I Hate Mother's Dayâ by Anne Lamott
The author of the classic writing text Bird by Bird digs into her views on motherhood in this piece from Salon. At once a personal narrative and a cultural commentary, Lamott explores the harmful effects that Motherâs Day may have on societyâhow its blind reverence to the concept of motherhood erases womenâs agency and freedom to be flawed human beings.Â
Lamott points out that not all mothers are good, not everyone has a living mother to celebrate, and some mothers have lost their children, so have no one to celebrate with them. More importantly, she notes how this Hallmark holiday erases all the people who helped raise a woman, a long chain of mothers and fathers, friends and found family, who enable her to become a mother. While it isnât anchored to a single story or event (like many classic personal narratives), Lamottâs exploration of her opinions creates a story about a culture that puts mothers on an impossible pedestal.Â
What can you learn from this piece?
In a personal narrative essay, lived experience can be almost as valid as peer-reviewed researchâso long as you avoid making unfounded assumptions. While some might point out that this is merely an opinion piece, Lamott cannily starts the essay by grounding it in the personal, revealing how she did not raise her son to celebrate Motherâs Day. This detail, however small, invites the reader into her private life and frames this essay as a story about herâand not just an exercise in being contrary.
3. âThe Crane Wifeâ by CJ HauserÂ
Days after breaking off her engagement with her fiance, CJ Hauser joins a scientific expedition on the Texas coast researching whooping cranes. In this new environment, she reflects on the toxic relationship she left and how she found herself in this situation. She pulls together many seemingly disparate threads, using the expedition and the Japanese myth of the crane wife as a metaphor for her struggles.Â
Hauserâs interactions with the other volunteer researchers expand the scope of the narrative from her own mind, reminding her of the compassion she lacked in her relationship. In her attempts to make herself smaller, less needy, to please her fiance, she lost sight of herself and almost signed up to live someone elseâs life, but among the whooping cranes of Texas, she takes the first step in reconnecting with herself.
What can you learn from this piece?
With short personal narratives, there isnât as much room to develop characters as you might have in a memoir so the details you do provide need to be clear and specific. Each of the volunteer researchers on Hauserâs expedition are distinct and recognizable though Hauser is economical in her descriptions.Â
For example, Hauser describes one researcher as âan eighty-four-year-old bachelor from Minnesota. He could not do most of the physical activities required by the trip, but had been on ninety-five Earthwatch expeditions, including this one once before. Warren liked birds okay. What Warren really loved was cocktail hour.âÂ
In a few sentences, we get a clear picture of Warren's fun-loving, gregarious personality and how he fits in with the rest of the group.

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4. âThe Trash Heap Has Spokenâ by Carmen Maria Machado
The films and TV shows of the 80s and 90sâcultural touchstones that practically raised a generationâhardly ever featured larger women on screen. And if they did, it was either as a villain or a literal trash heap. Carmen Maria Machado grew up watching these cartoons, and the absence of fat women didnât faze her. Not until puberty hit and she went from a skinny kid to a fuller-figured teen. Suddenly uncomfortable in her skin, she struggled to find any positive representation in her favorite media.
As she gets older and more comfortable in her own body, Machado finds inspiration in Marjory the Trash Heap from Fraggle Rock and Ursula, everyoneâs favorite sea witch from The Little Mermaidâcharacters with endless power in the unapologetic ways they inhabit their bodies. As Machado considers her own body through the years, itâs these characters she returns to as she faces societyâs unkind, dismissive attitudes towards fat women.
What can you learn from this piece?
Stories shape the world, even if theyâre fictional. Some writers strive for realism, reflecting the world back on itself in all its ugliness, but Carmen Maria Machado makes a different point. There is power in being imaginative and writing the world as it could be, imagining something bigger, better, and more beautiful. So, write the story you want to see, change the narrative, look at it sideways, and show your readers how the world could look.Â
5. âAm I Disabled?â by Joanne LimburgÂ
The titular question frames the narrative of Joanne Limburgâs essay as she considers the implications of disclosing her autism. What to some might seem a mundane occurrenceâticking âyesâ, ânoâ, or âprefer not to sayâ on a bureaucratic formâelicits both philosophical and practical questions for Limburg about what it means to be disabled and how disability is viewed by the majority of society.Â
Is the labor of disclosing her autism worth the insensitive questions she has to answer? What definition are people seeking, exactly? Will anyone believe her if she says yes? As she dissects the question of what disability is, she explores the very real personal effects this has on her life and those of other disabled people.Â
What can you learn from this piece?
Limburgâs essay is written in a style known as the hermit crab essay, when an author uses an existing document form to contain their story. You can format your writing as a recipe, a job application, a resume, an email, or a to-do list â the possibilities are as endless as your creativity. The format you choose is important, though. It should connect in some way to the story youâre telling and add something to the readerâs experience as well as your overall theme.Â

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6. âLiving Like Weaselsâ by Annie Dillard
While out on a walk in the woods behind her house, Annie Dillard encounters a wild weasel. In the short moment when they make eye contact, Dillard takes an imaginary journey through the weaselâs mind and wonders if the weaselâs approach to life is better than her own.Â
The weasel, as Dillard sees it, is a wild creature with jaws so powerful that when it clamps on to something, it wonât let go, even into death. Necessity drives it to be like this, and humanity, obsessed with choice, might think this kind of life is limiting, but the writer believes otherwise. The weaselâs necessity is the ultimate freedom, as long as you can find the right sort, the kind that will have you holding on for dear life and refusing to let go.Â
What can you learn from this piece?
Make yourself the National Geographic explorer of your backyard or neighborhood and see what you can learn about yourself from what you discover. Annie Dillard, queen of the natural personal essay, discovers a lot about herself and her beliefs when meeting a weasel.
What insight can you glean from a blade of grass, for example? Does it remind you that despite how similar people might be, we are all unique? Do the flights of migrating birds give you perspective on the changes in your own life? Nature is a potent and never-ending spring of inspiration if you only think to look.Â

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7. âLove In Our Seventiesâ by Ellery Akers
âAnd sometimes, when I lift the gray hair at the back of your neck and kiss your shoulder, I think, This is it.â
In under 400 words, poet Ellery Akers captures the joy she has found in discovering romance as a 75-year-old. The language is romantic, but her imagery is far from saccharine as she describes their daily life and the various states in which theyâve seen each other: in their pajamas, after cataract surgeries, while meditating. In each singular moment, Akers sees something she loves, underscoring an oft-forgotten truth. Love is most potent in its smallest gestures. Â
What can you learn from this piece?
Personal narrative isnât a defined genre with rigid rules, so your essay doesnât have to be an essay. It can be a poem, as Akersâ is. The limitations of this form can lead to greater creativity as youâre trying to find a short yet evocative way to tell a story. It allows you to focus deeply on the emotions behind an idea and create an intimate connection with your reader.Â
8. âWhat a Black Woman Wishes Her Adoptive White Parents Knewâ by Mariama Lockington
Mariama Lockington was adopted by her white parents in the early 80s, long before it was âtrendyâ for white people to adopt black children. Starting with a family photograph, the writer explores her complex feelings about her upbringing, the many ways her parents ignored her race for their own comfort, and how she came to feel like an outsider in her own home. In describing her childhood snapshots, she takes the reader from infancy to adulthood as she navigates trying to live as a black woman in a white family.Â
Lockington takes us on a journey through her life through a series of vignettes. These small, important moments serve as a framing device, intertwining to create a larger narrative about race, family, and belonging.Â
What can you learn from this piece?
With this framing device, itâs easy to imagine Lockington poring over a photo album, each picture conjuring a different memory and infusing her story with equal parts sadness, regret, and nostalgia. You can create a similar effect by separating your narrative into different songs to create an album or episodes in a TV show. A unique structure can add an extra layer to your narrative and enhance the overall story.
9. âDrinking Chai to Savannahâ by Anjali Enjeti
On a trip to Savannah with her friends, Anjali Enjeti is reminded of a racist incident she experienced as a teenager. The memory is prompted by her discomfort of traveling in Georgia as a South Asian woman and her friendsâ seeming obliviousness to how others view them. As she recalls the tense and traumatic encounter she had in line at a Wendyâs and the worry she experiences in Savannah, Enjeti reflects on her understanding of otherness and race in America.Â
What can you learn from this piece?
Enjeti paints the scene in Wendyâs with a deft hand. Using descriptive language, she invokes the five senses to capture the stress and fear she felt when the men in line behind her were hurling racist sentiments.Â
She writes, âHe moves closer. His shadow eclipses mine. His hot, tobacco-tinged breath seeps over the collar of my dress.â The strong, evocative language she uses brings the reader into the scene and has them experience the same anxiety she does, understanding why this incident deeply impacted her.Â
10. âSiri Tells A Jokeâ by Debra Gwartney
One day, Debra Gwartney asks Siriâher iPhoneâs digital assistantâto tell her a joke. In reply, Siri recites a joke with a familiar setup about three men stuck on a desert island. When the punchline comes, Gwartney reacts not with laughter, but with a memory of her husband, who had died less than six months prior.
In a short period, Gwartney goes through a series of lossesâfirst, her house and her husbandâs writing archives to a wildfire, and only a month after, her husband. As she reflects on death and the grief of those left behind in the wake of it, she recounts the months leading up to her husbandâs passing and the interminable stretch after as she tries to find a way to live without him even as she longs for him.Â
What can you learn from this piece?
A joke about three men on a deserted island seems like an odd setup for an essay about grief. However, Gwartney uses it to great effect, coming back to it later in the story and giving it greater meaning. By the end of her piece, she recontextualizes the joke, the original punchline suddenly becoming deeply sad. In taking something seemingly unrelated and calling back to it later, the essayâs message about grief and love becomes even more powerful.