SHOWING AND TELLING: Every essay is a dance between narrative reflection and visceral scenes that convey your theme to readers. Essay readers want to know what you’re thinking. We’ve all heard writing instructors advise aspiring authors to show instead of tell. This essentially means that you should write most of your story as scenes with very few narrative passages. That’s terrific advice for many writing projects, but essays require a different balance. Moments of introspection—the necessary emotional reactions to your situation—can only happen in narration. These are the “telling” moments in your essay, and they are essential.
AUTHENTICITY: In your essay, you don’t need to be 100-percent accurate with your details, especially when you’re remembering something from your distant past, but you do have the obligation to be reasonably accurate. You are the only one who will remember certain events in your life, but don’t stray from what you know to be true. When you show your audience your most authentic self, you are facilitating a connection with your readers.
“It’s okay to have no clue what you’re writing about. You don’t have to know to start writing. Just choose a sentence, write it down, and follow it with another one. Writing isn’t about telling a story; it’s about discovering what the story is as we write it. For instance, a few years ago, I wrote a 19-page essay about different typefaces and how the look of what we write holds emotional meaning. I did rounds and rounds of revisions, and by the time I reached the final draft, it was a 25-page essay about the different kinds of violence my body has lived through. The only thing from the first draft that made it to the final draft was one ampersand. One. &.”
—CHELSEY CLAMMER
How to Choose Your Topic
Personal essays are often inspired by a moment that changed you in some way. Choose topics that spark emotion. Concentrate on obsessions, heartbreaks, and epiphanies. That doesn’t mean your essay needs to be about a terrible tragedy from your life. Great essays can be about small, intimate moments, too.
Your personal essay can be about your first day as a lawyer, that time your sister gave you pot, or the orange cat that’s always waited for you outside your local Dairy Queen. It’s the individual you that matters in essay writing, so be as honest as possible in your prose. If you aren’t completely honest, readers will likely pick up on this and question your authority. Therefore, when choosing a topic, ask yourself, “Am I willing to be vulnerable about this moment from my life? Am I willing to be exposed?”
To help you generate some essay-worthy material, I’d like to introduce something I call memory mining. Memory mining is the purposeful task of digging through your subconscious and finding moments that matter to you.
We’ve all had powerful moments happen in our lives. You’ve experienced some highs and some lows, some surprises and some defeats. You’ve felt ashamed, you’ve won awards, and you’ve fallen in love. Let’s explore some of the things that have happened in your life.
Begin with your eyes closed. Think of your childhood. What’s the first thing that comes to mind? It probably isn’t an entire day or an entire vacation; it’s more likely a specific situation. Perhaps you see yourself sitting on that wobbly rocking horse your father carved by hand.
This image has power.
This image pushed past all of the other choices your brain could have showed, and therefore, it could be used in your writing. This moment matters to you, and it’s now up to you to figure out why.
Dig deeper: What do you smell? Are you afraid? What year is it? How old are you? Are you happy? Do you know who else is nearby?
“Don’t dismiss the small moments. They reveal your obsessions. This will offer the best place to find a starting point for your essays. Let your senses guide you and incorporate what you feel, hear, see, taste and touch as a part of your narrative arc and epiphany. Using this approach will not only feel cathartic for you, but also make the person reading your work feel less alone.”
—RUDRI BHATT PATEL
You are the very best authority on what this moment feels like. You can infer anything you’d like from the images and your reactions. Maybe you’ll remember a loss or a victory. Maybe you’ll remember some specific rule you were bound to. Whatever comes to you, let it in. Jot it down. Mull it over.
Next, close your eyes again and think of the color green. What image popped into your head this time? Was it your grandfather’s farm? The taste of those peppermint candies your Aunt Dora loved? Or perhaps you saw yourself smelling a green scented marker.
This image is another piece of your history that can be used in your writing. How does your grandfather’s farm make you feel? Lonely or safe? Did your Aunt Dora give you permission to eat her candies, or did you steal them? Why are you holding that green marker? Were you working on a homework assignment or drawing for fun?
Each of your authentic moments matter because they’ve pushed up through your thoughts like the first tulips of spring. They are organic, original, important. Grab those moments, and use them in your essays.
Structuring Your Personal Essay
Essays contain a beginning, middle, and end, with a moment of transformation in there somewhere—a turning point for the narrator. The narrative arc of an essay looks like this: The writer examines an event from her life and has an epiphany. That epiphany informs a transformation.
That transformation is what makes a personal essay completely different from a diary entry. Essays are examples of us examining life and learning something from our experiences.
Essays are about a specific moment, but they are also about a larger idea. This idea is the theme (or log line) of the essay. Maybe you want to express “Don’t forget to say I love you” or “Divorce is hard.” Understanding the purpose of your essay will allow you to create a connection between the emotional journey of your story and the plot, enhancing the essay’s impact on your readers.
You probably learned the “introduction/body/conclusion” formula in school at some point. It looks like this:
Introduction Opening line: A moment that catches the reader’s attention.
Set the scene: Provide some relevant information that settles the reader into your essay.
Convey your point: State your overall theme in a creative way.
Body Supporting evidence: Tell elements of your personal story that relate to your theme.
Conflict: Give examples of increasingly difficult challenges. Increase tension further with the addition of internal or external struggles along the way.
Epiphany: Reveal a moment of clarity that signifies a change or transformation.
Conclusion The moral of the story: Conclude with some reflection or analysis of the events.
This formula is a perfectly acceptable way to write a personal essay, but it doesn’t exemplify how much creative freedom you’re actually allowed. Today’s published essays stretch the artistic boundaries more than ever. Examples include “Son of Mr. Green Jeans: An Essay on Fatherhood, Alphabetically Arranged” by Dinty W. Moore, an alphabetical collection of unusual fatherhood facts, and David Foster Wallace’s “Consider the Lobster,” which masquerades as a magazine article. Some essays read like a short story or poem. Some incorporate lists or use multiple subheadings. Some essays are mere fragments of thoughts that eventually add up to something wonderful. So instead of worrying about what goes where, focus all of your energy on your content.
“Essays are opportunities to pause and chew on the nuances of the human experience. A great personal essay is all about intimacy. The writer takes us on a literary walk through the landscape of the soul [by] sharing struggles or a humorous observation about life.”
—SUSAN POHLMAN
How to Begin Writing Your Personal Essay
Personal essays are always written in first-person point of view, which means they employ I, me, you, and us. Example:
In May of 1999, I visited my town’s annual carnival, where I met a me I’d fall into an abyss. I still don’t know if she meant my marriage
to Henry or that sinkhole that swallowed my Honda.
Personal-essay writing requires you to dig for the truth about the topic you’ve selected, so let your excavation process be whatever it needs to be. You might begin with a clear idea of what you’d like to say, but chances are, some other related idea will take over most of your paragraphs during the first draft. Let it happen. Follow that new idea without judgment, and see where it leads you. Essay writing is about exploring your truth. Don’t block yourself from making interesting connections. Let your most honest self speak up.
When you’ve finished your first draft, reread your prose and hunt for the most interesting descriptions and emotionally charged moments. These hint at what you really want to say on your subject. Ponder ways to deliver a relatable truth that will resonate with your readers. Zero in on repeated or related themes. Circle them. When you’ve got a tight grip on your theme, grab it and don’t let go. Revise your essay with this new, clearer focus in mind.
TEN TIPS FOR GETTING IT RIGHT
Be vulnerable. Personal-essay writing requires your most honest self on the page. Whenever you feel yourself hiding behind vague details or skipping the difficult parts, stop and reconsider. The hardest things to admit to ourselves make the best personal-essay material.
Offer a universal theme. Readers want to experience connection when reading personal essays. There’s something about your experience that will resonate with readers on a visceral level.
Let your voice shine. Individuality matters in essay writing. Showcase your cadence, your careful word choice, and your overall style on the page.
Tell the outer story and the inner story. The outer story is the event. The inner story is the emotional journey. Show readers something that happened and also how it changed you.
Show and tell. There is a need for narration in essay writing. These “telling” moments allow readers to watch you ponder your situation. Use both scenes and narration to write a great personal essay.
For creative nonfiction, include more showing than telling. If you intend to write a creative nonfiction essay, include more scenes than narrative in the overall balance of the piece.
Tell the truth artistically. A personal essay is your version of the events that happened, not an exact retelling. Rely on all of your storytelling skills to convey your truth, and edit where necessary.
Take care with characterization. You know the people in your own life, but your readers do not. Remember to present fully realized people with agendas, unique speaking styles, and backstories.
Layer to amplify meaning. Deepen the impact of important ideas throughout your essay by reinforcing them in a variety of ways. Mirror your theme in a song on the radio or through the description of the weather.
Read! If you want to write publishable personal essays, you need to read them. You’ll find hundreds of essays available online at places like The Huffington Post, The Sun, Narrative, and many other publications. Read notable essay anthologies like The Best American Essays of the Century and The Norton Book of Personal Essays. Study the style of well-known essayists in collections like Roxane Gay’s Bad Feminist and Leslie Jamison’s The Empathy Exams.
“I’m a lover of juxtaposition. I’m a fan of putting two words, two details, two images, or [two] events next to one another and let[ting] them tell my story. This isn’t necessarily a thematic approach but an intuitive one. Revising is an act of patience and observation. Before I can fully figure out an essay’s organization, I have to write out anything and everything, then take the essay apart, then puzzle [it] back together, then do more extractions, and then add in more writing. Once I think I know the best order for my essay, I let it sit for a bit, then do it all over again. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
“It’s a matter of testing things out and seeing what order creates a more powerful impact. … We experience and perhaps think about stories chronologically, but our understanding of them is not always linear. Our lives might march forward, but our brains loop around the past and create meaning. It is this narrative of meaning that we must go after in all of our writing because a killer story isn’t about what happened but how we tell the story of it. So write it all out, and then listen to what that writing has to say. Then revise accordingly. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.”
—CHELSEY CLAMMER
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FINDING YOUR WAY TO A BEST FINAL DRAFT
First drafts, final drafts, and the work done in between can be daunting, but to have the best chance at publishing success, you need to edit your short stories and essays until they shine bright. Employ every craft tool you have, and revise, revise, revise!
Take a moment to look at the writing projects you’d like to see published. Are they early drafts? Mid-drafts? Or are they fully formed, edited pieces of prose? Writers produce a lot of drafts, but not everything we create should go out the door. Be honest. Are your essays and short stories ready for an editor’s eyes? If not, keep working.
Why be so careful? Because most magazines’ editors won’t suggest an edit if your prose isn’t ready for print. They just don’t have the time to invest in the developmental process with writers, even if they’d like to. Their submission piles tower beyond reason. Instead of offering suggestions, editors will have to send you a rejection letter if your prose doesn’t yet meet the level of execution they require. So give yourself the very best chance at publishing success. Finish the piece to your best ability before you send it anywhere. Have someone else read it and give you comments. This way, you’ll have no regrets when you send your prose out the door.
A GREAT FIRST DRAFT
The best way to ensure a great final draft is to have a complete first draft. That doesn’t mean you need to have a beautiful first draft. It’s quite the opposite, in fact. To ensure a maximum dose of creativity in your prose, you must allow yourself to be messy with that first draft. Get your ideas on the page, no matter how rough they feel at the time.
Don’t stop and inspect your words until the writing slows down. Then look at your overall idea, and decide if you’ve completely explored your thoughts. If not, keep writing.
Many of my first drafts don’t actually make it past this early stage. Common problems include stories that sound more like character studies or essays that never find a focus. I write for a while before making any judgments about a piece, but eventually I consider my options: Should I keep writing or move on?
If I feel the prose is interesting, I stay with the work. I push past the narrative problems and explore thematic elements. I elevate my word choice and sensory details. I revise and revise, and then I revise again. And then I send the story to my critique partners and let them chime in. After that, you guessed it, more revisions.
If I don’t feel that an early draft has enough of a spark to support the amount of work it will take to achieve a final iteration, I tuck that piece into a drawer and walk away. Maybe I will come back to it after a few months and give it another round of editing.
Here’s something interesting: Every time I go back and read a piece that just doesn’t have what it takes to go all the way, I find something worth saving in those pages. It’s usually something small, a gem in the prose that I can use for a different project. Maybe I resurrect a quirky secondary character, or perhaps there are only a few good lines—a fabulous title, even. Revisiting and assessing your work is always useful. Those “almost drafts” have a purpose on our creative journey. Use them wisely.
Early drafts and midway drafts are necessary pieces of writing that can lead to publishable prose, but they themselves are not publishable pieces. Character studies are not short stories, and essays need to make a point. Don’t stop the evolution of your work before you’ve reached the very last draft. If you can’t push a piece to the finish line, set it aside.
Edit from the Outside In
When revising your short story or essay, the most economical way to approach your task is to tackle the big-picture edits like story arc and characterization first. Then m
ove on to items that require a narrowed focus, like word choice and dialogue. Edit for grammar and punctuation last. Here’s a list of things to consider while revising your prose.
Check the big-picture items first:
Is this the best setting for this story?
Is this the right focus character for this story? Is she interesting or flawed?
Is there a clear narrative arc, including a turning point and an epiphany?
Does every scene belong in this piece?
Do the secondary characters add to the overall story?
Next, move in closer:
Is the balance between narrative and dialogue appropriate for this piece?
Is the main character’s goal or desire clear?
Is the story paced to keep the audience invested? Is there rising tension?
Are the transitions smooth?
Is the setting clear and visceral?
Does each character’s dialogue sound authentic? Does the dialogue move the story forward?
In each scene, is the reader a fly on the wall? Can you see and feel these moments?
Does your voice shine through?
Last, zoom all the way in:
Is the first sentence a strong hook?
Can you omit any clichés?
How’s your grammar? Spelling?
Is every detail specific and visceral?
Do you have any repeated words in close proximity?
Are all of your adjectives and adverbs necessary?
Is your POV consistent?
Are your tenses consistent?
Are your dialogue attributions smooth?
Does your language evoke all five senses?
Writing & Selling Short Stories & Personal Essays Page 11
