Three Big Tips for Writing A Personal Essay

EVERY YEAR OR SO, I read another high-minded piece on how the personal essay is dead. And every year or so, I get to have the same, good-hearted laugh. The personal essay, that manageable, distinctive delivery system for something that is in one’s head or heart and gets put down on the page, will never die. Long live the personal essay. But what are they and is writing a personal essay a difficult thing to do? Let’s take this on together, shall we?

What is a Personal Essay?

A personal essay is a short piece of writing from you that illuminates us on one of your areas of expertise. It is what you know after something you’ve been through, and if that phrase sounds familiar, it’s because I use that phrase a lot when defining memoir.

All non-fiction is an argument. So, too, the personal essay. These are mighty little creatures and they come in several forms, varying in length as well as in power of argument, in which you may be arguing something as simple as the fact that gardening enriches one’s soul, as spiritual as that simple human kindness can bind old wounds, or as complex as something in favor of an entirely new world order.

Within the category of the personal essay is short form, long form and the Op-ed.

How to Construct A Personal Essay

Let me start off with what I call The Three Rules of Three, specifically three sets of rules of three rules each for how to write the personal essay. Print these out, tack them to your wall and follow them and your essays will flourish. My hope is that reading them will convey to you the need for structure in your writing. Structure is required to write well. Structure, as we say here in The Memoir Project House of Writing, is Queen.

The Three Rules of Three

The Three Essential Pieces of a Personal Essay

• Your lede
• Your cosmic graph
• Your kicker

Three Rules for Writing a Personal Essay

• Write What You Know
• Show, don’t Tell
• Don’t make your personal essay kicker a couplet

Three Things You Edit For

• Space
• Argument
• Proof of that argument

The First Rule of Three

As these lists indicate, these are building blocks no personal essay should lack. Let’s define them.

The Three Essential Pieces of a Personal Essay.

The lede: Though this is also spelled “lead” by some – it rhymes with reed — this is your opener. It takes its name from when newspaper headlines and type were set in lead – rhymes with bed — and should start the piece off by sweeping us into your tale. Quick tip: We will not be swept in with a list of names, dates and places, as in “My uncle, Charlie Smith, was thirty-four years old in 2018 and living on West 125th Street in Manhattan.” Nope. Little interest there.

There are two types of ledes when writing a personal essay. The first is the direct lede, where in no more than 30 words, you make the point of your essay. This is mostly seen in the Op-ed, a type of essay in which you try to persuade us toward some specific action.

The other type of lede is the anecdote lede which tells us a story by relating an example, delaying the point of the piece until the cosmic or nut graph.

Cosmic graph: No matter what kind of lede you write, your reader must know what is at stake by paragraph four, called the cosmic graph or the nut graph. With direct ledes, your intent will be clear from the first sentence. With anecdote ledes, this intent must be established, frequently stated right here, in paragraph four.

For example, in an Op-Ed extolling the virtues of Father’s Day, using your dad as the example in the lede, paragraph four might simply read, “This is a love story.”

The kicker: This wraps up your argument – not by restating what you’ve written, but by tying up any lose ends or simply finishing your point. No flourish necessary here.

Want more on your lede? Got it right here. Despite spelling it the radio (instead of the newspaper) way, this NPR piece on how to write a good lede is excellent, as is this piece in the Utne Reader on how to write the personal essay. Perhaps I love the latter because it covers your infant son’s inevitable future worries about how much trouble his penis will be. Honestly? Who has more fun than someone who works that into a writing 101 piece on how to write a certain form? Hats off to Utne. Nicely done.

The Second Rule of Three

Three Rules for Writing a Personal Essay.

• Write What You Know
• Show, don’t Tell
• Don’t make your personal essay kicker a couplet

Write What You Know. This is probably the most overused phrase in writing. What does it mean? In terms of memoir, this great phrase should serve as a fine reminder for what you are doing at the desk when you write memoir. You are writing about what you’ve learned after something you’ve been through. For that is how to define memoir.

If I have a Golden Rule for Writing Memoir, it’s this: Memoir is not about what you did. Memoir is about what you did with it. Live by it.

Show, don’t tell. As to show, don’t tell, it means exactly what it says. Do not tell me it was the saddest day of your life. Show me you being unable to zip up your own dress while dressing for your spouse’s funeral, illustrating that how, for 32 years, you’ve had that dress zipped for you and now, today, you melt down trying to zip the damn dress. Now that’s sad. Show me sad.

And that couplet? Do not make that last line of your essay like those two last lines of a Shakespeare sonnet, where he sums up for us what he just told us. It works wonderfully for him. Not so much for you. Get out gracefully and let us come to our own conclusions.

The Third Rule of Three

Three Things You Edit For.

• Space
• Argument
• Proof of that argument

Editing for space. Read up on the website, magazine or radio program in which you want your work published or heard on the air. What are their space limitations? Write to those.

All pieces of non-fiction are an argument. Even memoir. Even a short personal essay argues something, even if it is as simple as that gardening will enrich your soul. You are going to edit for making that argument loud and clear without ever actually stating it. How? By showing it, remember?

How do you argue something? By giving us a scene that illustrates your argument and letting us make our own conclusions. They are scenes from your life, so you’ve already got these on you. Just go mining for them. What best illustrates what you learned about grief? What moment in that grief taught you what it is you are writing about now? What instant got you thinking about changing your own relationship to that grief? Show it to us and we’ll learn the lesson you learned. But do not beat us over the head with it. A nice, light touch is at the hallmark of a great essay writer. Want to convince me that fly-fishing for trout will delight me? Take me onto the stream via the page. Show me what it does for you.

That proof of your argument? Leave in only scenes that show us your argument, heightening and adding to that argument along the way through the piece.

What is an Op-Ed?

As I mentioned above, an Op-Ed is a form of personal essay in which you present a strong, persuasive set of facts to get us to vote your way, abandon all hope your way (just kidding), or otherwise act. It should be written from your own perspective and in the area of your expertise. It takes its name from its position in the newspaper — literally opposite the editorial page.

The websites of most newspapers offer guidelines on length of the pieces they publish, but most expect work to range from 600 to 800 words. It should include facts marshalled to support your views. At better newspapers, an editor will work with you to help you shape your piece, but every editor expects clean copy and adherence to the newspaper’s length and style guidelines. Your work must be timely, quickly following a news event or coinciding with a prevalent idea.

Op-Eds are great ways to attract publishing attention. When writing non-fiction, particularly memoir, consider what you might like to say to the world on your topic. Can you argue something about your parents long-term care or your child’s battle with addiction? Can you say something short and definitive about the status of the American racehorse, whose rehabilitation and retirement you’ve devoted your life to improving? Have you got a stream you fish on that you’ve noticed is reverting to its former polluted state? A well-written, well-placed Op-Ed might lead to that book contract.

Two of my four books originated with pieces I published that attracted attention. Test your material, people. It’s a great way to find an audience, as well as a publisher.

Interested in Writing an Op-Ed? I teach a class on that. In fact, I co-teach an online class on how to write an Op-Ed that with someone who has written hundreds of opinion pieces, who is the editor and Vice President of a metro newspaper and who has both a weekly newspaper column, as well as nationally-syndicated weekly public radio show. Join us.

Where You Can You Read Some Personal Essays

The best place to read the long-form personal essay is in publications that publish them in that long form. Not everyone does. For instance, The New Yorker features a column called Personal History. These are the best of the best long-form personal essays, though the form does come in far longer lengths than these. But start with those. And you may send me a thank-you note after you read a few because yes, these are great. It is here that you will find authors such as Nora Ephron, David Sedaris, Ariel Levy and Jonathan Franzen. These pieces run several thousand words and are as good as the long-form essay can be.

Where to Submit Personal Essays

There was a golden time when National Public Radio published lots of personal essays on their marvelous show, All Things Considered. I wrote some for them and you can read some of my NPR All Things Considered essays here. You will also see a good number of personal essays in my irreverent little book, The Memoir Project. However, do not despair that NPR has given up the form. Your local public radio may love the personal essay and would run yours — if only you’d write and submit them. Here is a link from one of my students’ essays heard on WAMC, Northeast Public Radio. They — and I say this with all the disappointment in them I can muster — have stopped running these essays. Perhaps your station has not made such an unwise decision. Locate your own local station and find the place online for instructions on how to submit.

As you may well know, the single most-read and most-submitted-to essay these days in the Modern Love column from the Sunday New York Times. Running at about 1,700 words, it is longer than many essays, meaning it is neither a short essay nor anywhere near the length of what is considered long-form memoir. Some of the latter may run as long as seven or eight-thousand words. Here is a short piece by the column’s editor explaining what the Modern Love column does. What are the most memorable of these columns? Easy. Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s, “You May Want to Marry My Husband,” and the one that produced marriages worldwide when strangers started asking each other the 36 questions in Mandy Len Catron’s essay “To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This.”

But never discount your local newspaper for being without places to learn. As my father used to say about the newspaper we all read growing up, “It’s an affordable education, every day.” He was a sportswriter and he loved the paper for all of its great qualities, but particularly when a fine piece of writing came under his nose. For instance, he would have adored this, a marvelous essay from the Times Union, of Albany, New York, by Casey Seiler that might be the best thing I’ve ever read on a common parental shift.

And there you go. Now write. The world is waiting.

Want more? Come see me in class. I obviously love to talk about the personal essay and will be glad to teach you more. Start with Memoirama, my live, 90-minute online memoir class that will get you going. Hope to see you there.

Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash