When writing a narrative essay as a direct response, you may want to frame the story portion of your essay explicitly. Introduce the topic in question and provide your thesis statement immediately. Narrate the anecdotal evidence to support and illustrate your thesis and conclude the essay by briefly explaining how the evidence relates to the topic and restating your thesis statement.
An author may want to build suspense, enticing readers into looking for the author's reason for telling the story. Using the explicit punchline method, the essay opens immediately with the narrative as if the author were writing a story. Continue developing the story to its conclusion. Directly upon concluding the story, address the readers directly with the thesis statement to finish the essay.
Similar to the explicit framing method, an author writing a narrative essay using the implicit framing method reveals the thesis statement in both the introduction and again at the conclusion of the essay. However, unlike the explicit method the author refrains from introducing and concluding the essay in an editorial tone. Instead, the narrative introduces and concludes the essay. The author can use implicit framing to distance himself from the thesis statement by allowing a different character to formulate the thesis within the story.
Rather than addressing the readers directly, as with the explicit punchline method, an author using the implicit punchline method reveals the thesis through a character at the end of the narrative. An author may choose to distance the thesis statement from himself for a variety of reasons. For instance, readers may be more inclined to accept an unpopular thesis within the context of a story that supports its formulation.