How to Master the Art of the Essay
Or at least write a pretty good one
It’s officially Hot Word Summer around here — right? can we get that going? no? hm — what with our Summer Creator Workshops, The Medium Writers Challenge, and the ongoing Write Here prompts.
Somehow I feel like I’ve been through a lot in the past pandemic-and-a-half. And writing is how I process things — as E.M. Forster put it: “How do I know what I think until I see what I say?” If that’s true of you too, then all the better reason to write here, right now.
But what about when just writing-as-therapy isn’t quite enough, and you’re ready to share your work with the world? How do you make the leap from getting started to publishing something great? How do you get from, say, freewriting to — gulp — submitting that essay to a contest?
Honestly, I think there are really only two steps.
1. Write more than you think you need to write
When I was a baby writer in graduate school, my MFA thesis adviser told me that the novel I had been devoting myself to for years was probably not, in fact, my first novel. “It’s your training wheels novel, the novel that teaches you how to write a novel,” she said.
Obviously, I decided she was an embittered academic with a shriveled-up soul who had no idea what she was talking about. (No offense, Maria, I swear I only thought that for a few minutes.) I soon found, however, that she was, in fact, an expert novelist with a fully intact soul, and furthermore, was totally right.
Sometimes the way you learn to do a thing is not to study it, not to see how others do it, not to watch YouTube videos about it, not even to buy a mug with a sassy saying that expresses your intentions to do it (although honestly, I do love a sassy mug, especially if there’s a swear word on it, but I admit they are optional). I had to write two novels before writing any that were actually publishable. Because, annoyingly: The way to learn to do a thing is to do the thing.
The way to learn how to write is to write.
Write lists; keep a journal; write bad poetry you wouldn’t want anyone to read; write sort of okay essays that will teach you how to write better essays. Write, write, write. Write honestly and ruthlessly. In the wise words of Cheryl Strayed: Write like a motherfucker.
Then: Look at all the stuff you’ve written. What do you notice? What ties together all your blog posts, or newsletters, or contributions to your group chat? What about your writing is totally uniquely you? There it is, your voice. Now you can go about honing it, deploying it with a little more control. The more you write, the more natural this will feel. I promise.
Okay, so let’s say you’ve gotten the hang of this, and you wrote something. Great! Pat yourself on the back! But wait a minute, before you hit publish: How do you know if the piece is ready to be shared?
2. When you think you’re done, take a beat and revise
Not to be a buzzkill, but writing is only part of it. Even if you’re writing something quick (like a Medium post!), it’s worthwhile to let it sit for a day, or at least an hour. Let it simmer. Reread it with fresh eyes. Read it out loud. Obviously, this is the time to scan for typos, spelling, and grammatical errors. But this is also the time to see if your piece flows logically, if your sentences are a nice mix of long and short, if you’re both showing and telling where appropriate. Does each paragraph contain a complete thought? Is there a sense of movement in the piece? Do you end somewhere different from where you started?
As an editor for Human Parts, I read a lot of submissions, and here’s something I see pretty frequently: essays that have nice writing and an engaging voice, but that feel a bit thin, a bit one-note, more like anecdotes than complete stories. A great personal essay often has more than one idea, or a big story and a little story playing off each other.
From the essay-writing workshop my colleague Harris Sockel and I recently offered:
When we think of all the personal essays that have really made us feel, think, and get goose bumps, they almost always have a couple of different layers to them. Yes, there’s a personal story, but it connects to something larger, or else there’s some attention in the essay to what the personal story meant. Sometimes these are woven together in alternating sections. Sometimes the bigger picture only becomes clear in the last paragraph.
The big story is important because it often is the element of the piece that gives the reader something to really chew on.
That’s not true of every single essay in the world of course, but it’s a pretty decent rule of thumb.
Maybe another way to think of it is: Make sure you know what you want the reader to get from the piece. Remember that movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles? When I’m writing personal essays, I often hear the voice of Steve Martin’s character shouting at his boring friend: “And by the way, you know, when, when you’re telling these little stories, here’s a good idea. Have a point. It makes it so much more interesting for the listener!” It’s advice I really try to follow. After all, I am motivated not to anger the tiny Steve Martin in my head. Aren’t we all?
What do you do to improve your writing? Tell us in the responses! We can all use all the help we can get.
