How to Summarise a Narrative Passage

A narrative is summarised by its events, not its atmosphere. Keep who did what, in what order, and how it ended; drop description, dialogue and the writer's asides. Use the past tense throughout and the third person even if the original is in the first, unless the question says otherwise.

The format

Summarise events, not atmosphere

A narrative is summarised by what happened: who did what, in what order, and how it ended. Description, dialogue and the writer's reflections go, however good they are. This is the hardest instruction to follow, because the atmosphere is usually the most enjoyable part of the passage.

Keep the causal chain

Events in a narrative are connected by cause as well as by time. A summary that lists events without the links reads as a series of unrelated happenings, so keep the because, so and when that hold the sequence together.

• Keep: what happened, in order, and why one thing led to another.
• Drop: what the weather was like, what people looked like, what was said in dialogue.
• Drop: the narrator’s reflections, unless the passage ends on one that is the point.
• Keep names only if the story cannot be told without them.

Person and tense

Convert first person to third unless told otherwise — I set out at dawn becomes The narrator set out at dawn or simply He set out at dawn. Keep the past tense throughout. Reported speech replaces dialogue: "I will not go," he said becomes he refused to go.

End where the passage ends

Do not supply a conclusion the passage does not have, and do not explain what the story means. If the narrative stops without resolution, so does the summary.

Model answer

Worked example

Original passage (about 130 words)

I set out for the ferry before dawn, in a cold I had not expected in October, with my bag on my shoulder and no breakfast. The road was empty except for a milkman, who looked at me with the frank curiosity of a man who knows everyone on his route. "Ferry?" he said. I nodded. "It went at four." He said it without unkindness, and cycled on. I stood in the road for some time. There was no other crossing before evening, and the wedding I was travelling to would be over by then. In the end I walked back, and it was full daylight before I reached the house. My mother, who had told me the night before to check the time, said nothing at all, which was worse.

Summary (about 45 words)

Setting out before dawn for a ferry, the narrator met a milkman who told him it had already left at four. Since no other crossing ran until evening, he would miss the wedding he was travelling to, so he walked home, where his mother said nothing.

What was dropped

The cold, the bag, the missed breakfast, the milkman's expression and the exact dialogue all went — they are atmosphere. The causal links were kept: he walked back because there was no other crossing. The final observation that the silence "was worse" was dropped as reflection rather than event.

What earns and loses marks

• List the events in order on your rough sheet first. A narrative summary written straight through usually loses one event in the middle.
• Convert dialogue to reported speech rather than quoting it.
• Keep the connectors — because, so, when. They are what make it a story rather than a list.
• 🚨 Change first person to third unless the question says otherwise.
• Do not explain the moral. If the passage does not state one, the summary does not have one.