61 Great Sentence Starters for Narrative Writing

If your students are struggling to produce narrative writing ideas, use these engaging sentence starters for narrative writing to jump-start the process.

Story starters are writing prompts that help students generate ideas for a piece of writing.

It works as an opening line, creating an introductory framework for a narrative or story.

Students of all writing abilities can use sentence starters for narrative writing. 

That’s why they make a great addition to your collection of writing tools.

Here you will find a variety of engaging sentence starters for narrative writing that kickstart writing.

Sentence Starters for Narrative Writing

Even reluctant writers enjoy responding to these engaging sentence starters for narrative writing.

1. Last year, I went on a safari and injured myself after encountering…

2. I found an odd package sitting on my porch this morning…

3. Once upon a time, there lived an old man in a cave. After spending centuries in the cave, he was ready to…

4. Five of us stood together in the rain, waiting for the arrival of the first group from the land of…

5. On that fateful day last August, I finally realized that I had the power to stop…

6. I was born in Florida, raised in California, and made my fortune in…

7. Jack hadn’t planned for that to happen. It was now too late for…

8. “Greetings,” said the slender man holding the door open. I nodded as I stepped through the door and into…

9. A long time ago, a group of hunters stumbled upon an ancient secret in a cave. They discovered…

10. Steve had a lot of experience, but nothing could prepare him to deal with…

11. The narrow streets of the city created a maze for tourists, which is how I got lost in…

12. It was the best day of my life. It was the day that I finally…

13. John and Jasmine had three children. Each child had a different superpower…

14. I awoke in a dark room with no windows. Footsteps slowly approached. The door gradually opened and then…

15. Three years ago, Keisha uncovered the lost city of…

16. It was a sunny summer afternoon. The skies were clear as the alien ships descended.

17. Let me tell you the story of the time that I saved the world from…

18. Flight 545 from Chicago to Seattle was thousands of feet in the sky when passengers saw the gremlins climbing on the wings…

19. After years of practice, it was time to reveal my talent to the world. I was to become the world’s best…

20. I brought home a stray cat. Little did I know how much trouble that creature would cause…

21. “What did it say?” asked my sister. I handed her the letter. It was from…

22. Who knew that hamsters could be so much trouble? It only took them seconds to destroy my…

23. Chocolate was never my favorite food until I learned how to make magic chocolate cookies. Taking a bite of a magic cookie allows me to…

24. When I was little…

25. Twenty years ago, the small town in the valley flooded. Hidden under the water were hundreds of…

26. The door bell rang…

sentence starters for narrative writing
sentence starters for narrative writing

27. I was cycling to work one day when I found a dog in the middle of the road. What happened next changed my life forever.

28. Let me explain…

29. When I was in grade school, I saved a chipmunk. Years later, the chipmunk returned the favor. Here’s my story.

30. On a bright, sunny day…

31. I didn’t have much time left when the plane landed. I needed to hurry to claim my prize of…

32. There is a giraffe in my pool…

33. Dr. Smith loved his experiments. He especially loved the one where he…

34. Let me tell you about…

35. A dolphin once saved my life by taking me back to its underwater world of…

36. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing…

37. I was prepared for anything, except for dealing with the challenge of…

38. One hundred years in the future, a robot army is close to wiping out humanity. Our only hope is the warrior called…

39. One morning, I looked around and saw …

40. There is only one person that I hoped to never see again. The person who I dreaded seeing was…

41. It all began when…

42. It’s a lonely existence at the end of the galaxy. So, I jumped into my spaceship and headed for…

43. I’ll never forget his last words. My grandfather took my hand and said…

44. The strangest thing happened one day while taking my dog for a walk. He suddenly stood on his hind legs and said…

45. It is true that…

46. My father taught me how to travel through time. During one trip, we went back to…

47. Everything was happening so fast…

48. We spent years traveling the path only to find out that we were going in the wrong direction…

49. Tom received a special gift on his 18th birthday. He received a watch that could…

50. There once lived…

51. A received a strange phone call yesterday. A voice told me that I would soon become a…

52. I heard a strange sound coming from my backpack…

53. Last week, my self-driving car took me to a surprise destination. It took me to…

54. Many years ago…

55. I had attended this fair dozens of times. Yet, this time was different. I witnessed…

56. Last night…

57. I turned into an animal the other day…

58. Without warning, I became a…

59. I just found out that I won the lottery…

60. Zap! Just like that, my computer stopped working the night before my assignment is due…

61. I can’t believe my friend would do this to me…

Final Thoughts: Sentence Starters for Narrative Writing

Now you have a collection of sentence starters for narrative writing to use to jump-start students’ writing.

If you found these sentence starters for narrative writing helpful, you may be interested in … books that teach narrative writing.