About the Personal Essay - Three Things to Keep in Mind
(This post originally published February 15, 2018)
The unexamined life is not worth living, Socrates said. He meant we should question the life we lead, the way we lead it, the forces and issues that impact it, whether it is worthy and what we want. That’s not something those of us accustomed to routines and pleasures and the safety of believing the stories we tell ourselves about who we are, want to do. It calls for the discomfort of self-examination and self-awareness we routinely avoid. And yet, when someone who has done this work gives us their perspective on the impact of racism on their children or how they live with what stopped them from saying goodbye at mother’s death bed, or the trip to a different place that taught them to truly hear another side, we are moved. Because it is this understanding of the human condition as it is reflected in our own lives that makes us more thoughtful, hopeful, ashamed, loving.
An ideal format for writing about the examined life is the essay. And while there are numerous types of essays like critiques, position papers, and learned arguments, the focus here will be the most popular version, the personal essay. By way of reference for the variety of topics, style and tone personal essays might use, take a look at these notable examples: James Baldwin’s "Notes of a Native Son" on race, Joan Didion’s “Goodbye to All That” on loving and leaving New York City, David Foster Wallace’s hilarious "Ticket to the Fair", and Virginia Woolf’s very brief "The Death of a Moth". If you want more, check out the annual “Best American Essays of (year)” collections.
Writing Your Own Essay
As you work on your own essay, remember this nonfiction short form of writing is told from the author’s point of view. It doesn’t have to be about grand themes of war and disease; it can be about anything that bears examination, like an ethnic grocery store or learning the route to your new job. But it does have to have a good dose of the personal, a clear point, and offer insight.
To get started, first consider what the question is you are worrying. A mystery to be solved? What a specific political policy means? The strength to give a damn? The suppressed #metoo incident? Turn it over on all sides and cover the full picture. Figuring out what you have come to say takes analyzing who you are in this piece, what you learned, and what it means, expressed within a tight word count publishers will give you. And while the essay is short, creating one takes considerable time, involving false starts, shaving away unnecessary trajectories, and lots of revision.
The process for constructing a good personal essay includes three key building blocks.
First is your lived experience, the personal aspect of a certain human condition at the heart of your topic. Be ready to expose yourself and give specifics. For my essays, I have detailed family secrets embedded in crossing America’s racial divide, secrets some didn’t want told. These essays examine personal pain, loss and identity confusion against a backdrop of laws against interracial marriage.
Secondly, to add credibility to your essay, add in authentic research. Not only is the audience looking for your subjective perspective and experience, but they want to know there’s more to your point than what you alone think. Read the political policy in question, quote what experts and affected citizens say about it, cite related articles or studies that look from different points of view. For my essays, I’ve studied and quoted US Census records and PEW research studies on race in America over numerous decades.
Thirdly, pull back from the particulars you’ve decided to include and find a universal point that draws a wider conclusion. One that provokes the reader to think. What does that political policy say about the intent of American governance, and how does it compare to an alternative intent? This expands the particulars of your life experience to a wider theme, of interest to many more. In my own essays, I have been able to draw attention to the growing trajectory of America’s interracial population and the browning of America, which concerns a lot of us.
Because essays are factual doesn’t mean they have to be as dry as an academic treatise. If you are targeting a general audience, think of a short fiction piece for the inspiration to write in creative non-fiction. Draw the reader into your piece with techniques such as description, scene, dialogue, place, and yes, imagination and colorful language, all applied to your factual account. Put emotion on the page. Pay attention to structure, arc and summing the point up at the end with something that pops. In other words, make your writing come alive as you build this essay, just as you would any story.
Just know that this essay writing can call for you bleeding over the keyboard. Bleeding from painful personal exposure, from diligently digging through research and history to clarify your truth, and facing readers who will disagree or be offended.
But for the writing that does involve all that, voila, you may be starting a meaningful conversation with audiences you haven’t imagined. And gaining understanding about the personal life you have examined, about you in the world. Something you can use and probably won’t ever unlearn.
Who knows where that could lead you, in writing or in life? Perhaps to your next question to examine, and then to write about. Or perhaps to a change in your life.
*** to listen to the interview conducted by our Elizabeth Solar with Johnson now available at embarkthepodcast.com, or read the three part transcripts published August on 7th, 14th and 21st at ActsofRevision.com on Spotify, Apple, and Stitcher. ***
E. Dolores Johnson is an essayist who focuses on inter-racialism. Her memoir: Say I’m Dead: A Memoir of Race, Secrets, and Love was released in June 2020 and has received tremendous praise. Johnson completed the Memoir Incubator at Grubstreet.org . Follow her on facebook at E. Dolores Johnson or on twitter @elladolo. https://www.edoloresjohnson.com To purchase Say I’m Dead you may find it at Bookshop.org or other online retailers.
