I would also add that the unique details of a personal experience that only you could possibly know will make personal stories really shine. I often write about difficult times with my daughter who has cerebral palsy. I try to avoid obvious generalized statements about it and instead get into the specifics about how it made me feel or what I saw in the moment.
For example, I once wrote a sentence like "No parent should ever have to see their child intubated once, let alone twice." While true, literally anyone could write that and no-one would argue with them. It's an obviously true sentence, but there's no emotional weight to it. After receiving feedback from a friend, I changed it to a few sentences describing what it felt like to see a plastic tube shoved down my two-day-old daughter's throat in a chaotic room filled with a half-dozen nurses and doctors barking orders at each other. Most people have no idea what that feels like, but the more specific version will make them feel closer to how I did.
This is such a great point Lyle and I fully agree. That agreeability factor really makes or breaks many essays. I see this a lot with the program/college applications I edit. There's a lot of "I love learning" type of statements. But no one applying is going to write "I hate learning" so you've effectively have said nothing by writing that.
Thank you so much Chevanne! Yeah, I think it's such a fascinating medium. There's this idea from Andre Aciman's How memorists mold the truth, that memoirists use conventions not of history, but of fiction. And in that context, it's pretty wild how much these small choices can affect how these events come across.
Fantastic advice in here, thanks!
I would also add that the unique details of a personal experience that only you could possibly know will make personal stories really shine. I often write about difficult times with my daughter who has cerebral palsy. I try to avoid obvious generalized statements about it and instead get into the specifics about how it made me feel or what I saw in the moment.
For example, I once wrote a sentence like "No parent should ever have to see their child intubated once, let alone twice." While true, literally anyone could write that and no-one would argue with them. It's an obviously true sentence, but there's no emotional weight to it. After receiving feedback from a friend, I changed it to a few sentences describing what it felt like to see a plastic tube shoved down my two-day-old daughter's throat in a chaotic room filled with a half-dozen nurses and doctors barking orders at each other. Most people have no idea what that feels like, but the more specific version will make them feel closer to how I did.
This is such a great point Lyle and I fully agree. That agreeability factor really makes or breaks many essays. I see this a lot with the program/college applications I edit. There's a lot of "I love learning" type of statements. But no one applying is going to write "I hate learning" so you've effectively have said nothing by writing that.
Thanks for engaging and for sharing this example!
Love that snippet from David Sedaris. I like personal essays and it was a great summation in very few words.
Thank you so much Chevanne! Yeah, I think it's such a fascinating medium. There's this idea from Andre Aciman's How memorists mold the truth, that memoirists use conventions not of history, but of fiction. And in that context, it's pretty wild how much these small choices can affect how these events come across.
Ooo… that’s a fascinating premise. Truth is stranger than fiction because that’s the way it’s recorded. 🤭