The Personal Essay – How to Write and Sell it
It is not uncommon to draw inspiration from other peoples’ experiences and obstacles which they overcame successfully. Personal essays are essentially personal accounts of experiences (good or bad) which we write and publish to share with the rest of the world. The aim is not only to share but offer valuable help to readers to go along the journey called life.
Personal essays, where you are recounting memories of an event, a situation or a person, can be of any type: serious, dramatic, funny, outrageous, sentimental, etc. Topics are not difficult to find – simply look hard at your own life and there are hundreds of situations which form part of your good or bad memories. There could be various trials and tribulations which you have crossed successfully or there could be similar amazingly funny incidents which still make you laugh. Look around you and you will find an outrageous neighbor who is irritating but helpful too. The things which your children would do years ago, some of which still make you laugh. Or, some sad events like the death or struggle for life of a dear one which affected you deeply. We are all the time absorbing experiences of our daily lives, which are engraved in our minds – why not take the trouble of sharing them with strangers? Who knows, you could make some one laugh or even change the way some one looks at life and its myriad ways.
The essentials of a good personal essay:
The first aspect of a personal essay is that it is not a chronological account of any event. It is a story and must be written as such. The style must be as if someone is narrating the event sitting in front of the reader, where every scene, is coming alive with its vivid imagery and description. Make the situation and its people come alive, where your reader can actually hear some one speak or visualize the train moving, or see the sun setting. Irrespective of whether you are describing a dramatic, tragic or a hilarious event, the same rule applies.
When you are describing an event, you do not have to give a ball-by-ball account of the flow of events. This might bore the reader; simply narrate the points which add to more color and spirit to the story you are trying to tell. This will give more impact to the first person narrative. Since it is a personal essay, you could change the names of the characters to retain the privacy of your family members if they are part of the story. Omit details which are not relevant to the story, like a description of a cook, who does not feature in the story at all. The golden rule of writing good personal essay is there should be good amount of drama, characterization, action and intrigue. These things keep up the readers’ interest while reading.
Give your readers a reason to read your personal essay: While writing personal essays can have tremendous therapeutic value both for the writer and the reader, never make your essay as if you are offering free counseling to your readers, as what to do in times of a crisis. Simply narrate your experience in the most interesting fashion and let the reader draw his lesson from your successful conquer of your personal adversity. Do not be condescending or even over-bearing and judgmental in your writing style. Let the readers come to their individual conclusions – your job is to tell a personal experience.
Who will buy your personal essays? There are several newspapers, journals and specialty magazines who are always on the look out for well-written personal essays. Appearing usually on the last pages, the topic would usually hover around what their individual philosophies of publication are. If you are targeting a particular magazine, read their past issues as much as possible. This will give you some idea about their approved style and topics. This research is necessary before you send your essays for publication for a particular magazine. While magazines and journals are looking for well-written articles do not try to send them something which is dramatically different. This might throw them in a bit of confusion whether to publish or not.
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