Crafting the Personal Essay

Creative Writing: Creating Personal Essays with Impact by Roxane Gay

This Skillshare course deals with the reasons to write, finding a topic from inward and outward sources, developing a relationship with truth and boundaries around personal issues, reading like a writer, researching, building a first draft, revising, and publishing.

Roxane Gay started a comic with Marvel about the Wakanda universe that was canceled after 6 issues. She is a New York Times bestselling author. She is 1 day older than I am.

[Gay, 2019]

Honesty and Vulnerability

By being honest and vulnerable, people connect with me as a writer and allow themselves to see what I’m showing them. Or, that’s an important part of it.

My story matters. I am someone with something to share, which is all that matters, so long as I do it well.

[Gay, 2019]

Finding my Why

Why write? It’s not about changing minds. What do I want to do today? What am I trying to communicate to my reader? Without purpose, I can write beautifully, but leave the reader without the confidence to move forward.

Sometimes I’m writing to increase awareness about my topic. This could end with a call to action, or change people’s thinking, or get people involved in the conversation.

Instead of being heavy handed, I can leave cues for the reader, ways they can get involved.

[Gay, 2019]

Rhetoric

With rhetoric, there is ethos, pathos, and logos. By including all three, a piece can create a wholeness for the reader.

[Gay, 2019]

Be Specific

By choosing to be specific, I can get the job done. Writing universally, I’m writing to everyone or I’m saying everything about a topic. I can talk about a specific experience or a very specific reason for the article.

To put this in action, select a story I wish to tell, consider why I want to tell it, and write down these reasons. To make it simple, only consider awareness, action, perception, or inspiration for the reason for the post.

[Gay, 2019]

My Voice Matters

My voice and experience always matters, but I have to find a way to express it. Why would someone care about this experience, my story, what I have to say? The only way I can figure that out is to look outward, at my readers, about what they need. Although most good writing starts by looking inward, the reader must be part of the conversation, must be included. Nobody wants to be talked at.

It is easy to include the reader in the conversation if I actually care about my reader. The readers are part of a broader set of circumstances.

[Gay, 2019]

Inward and Outward Balance

Am I saying too much about myself, about the outside world? If the tone reads like a cultural history or a diary entry, then I’ve gone too far outward or inward. Developing an instinct of this balance is critical for mature writing.

[Gay, 2019]

Cultural Awaress

Everything takes place in a cultural climate, meaning there are cues in the experience and in the time when I’m writing that hones my sense of what’s going on. I can enhance this by reading a lot, paying attention. Nobody lives in a bubble. By showing my awareness, by thinking about the socio-political themes, I can set the tone.

[Gay, 2019]

Emotional Tone

The emotional tone of an essay from lighthearted or serious, is an important element of the essay. How do I convey it? How do I control the emotional journey of my reader?

Humor is a deliberate choice. This is especially true with serious topics, with complicated ones. Some readers are not ideologically aligned with me, and humor breaks down some of the walls. This doesn’t always work, and if I’m not going to do it well, then tell it straight.

Narrative tension involves what I reveal, what I want to talk about. By focusing on anger, anger, joy, and happiness, I can hold the tension in the tone of a piece.

[Gay, 2019]

Instincts

As far as the writing, consider what my instincts tell me. I find this during revision, rather than in the original draft. I sometimes know what the tone is going to be, that’s easy, but don’t rush that. Once I work through a piece, I can make that choice.

Anger without purpose is unproductive. It does not support the reader in their lives, in the actions they can take, with only raw anger.

All together, there is a time, place, and cultural climate for every piece. There is a choice of emotional tone from humor, anger, tension, or joy.

[Gay, 2019]

Truth

Truth is treated as part of a story in creative nonfiction. Elements of story telling enhance it, but don’t lie. My truth is enough. Honesty is important because lies have consequences. People will find out. But I am not going crazy around trivial details, rather what happened. The details can be created—if I know when it happened, what happened, but also talk about the color of the drapes that I might not quite remember.

[Gay, 2019]

Boundaries

What are the boundaries with the people in my life? How is this going to affect our relationship? Am I willing to confront this?

[This is the premise of My Name is Asher Lev.]

Dinty Moore said, “Never be a hero or a victim of your own work.”

I have been wrong and been wronged in my life. Sometimes, being fair, people won’t take that well. There’s nothing I can do about what other people think, that’s their business. What I control is what I put on the page.

What boundaries will I honor? This is important with personal essays. Every intimate detail doesn’t need to be put on the page. Find them, stick to them. I can hold things back for myself. Younger writers tend to overshare to get attention. This is especially true of women and people of color. This is not necessary. Trauma is not the only thing I have to offer the writing world. I choose what I say and why.

[Gay, 2019]

Fact Checking

Fact checking happens a lot in publications that have a larger budget, but I can look at images from the time, by talking with people that were there, looking at my own diary or emails. sTrusting myself, I remember what was most important. Hold on to that. I may doubt my own memories, I come up against that. Certain kinds of memories are frayed over time. But the core truth is important. Most readers understand that we don’t remember everything, but we remember the gist of what was said.

Sometimes I remember it differently, especially when trauma was involved.

[Gay, 2019]

Learn from Writers

A great way to learn is from other writers. Every day there are essays published that could teach me. I should read was much as I write to grow. Reading and growing every day, finding what does and doesn’t work matters.

By taking an essay physically, annotating it, noticing what’s going on with the choices of the author, we begin to read like a writer.

[Gay, 2019]

Thanksgiving in Mongolia

Thanksgiving in Mongolia, published in The New Yorker by Ariel Levy, talks about being pregnant and having a still birth.

Inward, it’s her experience, but outward it’s the wanderlust and wanting to see the world.

She talks about ambition and how that compelled her to take the trip. The doctor assured her it would be safe to fly at this stage of her trip.

Women have the problem of being land locked and having children. She allows space for readers to enter the essay.

The emotional tenor, speaking of being alone in a hotel room while having the still birth, holding the baby, tiny, who can fit in the palm of her hands, and seeing the beauty—that takes a hell of a writer, and is a great place to look how she handles the emotional tension of the piece. It didn’t become maudlin.

[Gay, 2019]

What Fullness Is

What Fullness Is, by Roxane Gay, deals with “solving” the problem of fatness. It involves her research, and her personal journey, and the balance of inward and outward perspectives.

Research and personal narrative are balanced. Sections create some of this balance. Most of Gay’s essays are not as deliberate, but it seemed like a useful structure.

[Gay, 2019]

Craft Annotation

A craft annotation is like an autopsy. How did the piece come to life? How do they manage chronology, emotional tenor, point of view, setting, sense of place, scene, frame, boundaries, and research? Ask specific craft-based questions and answer them with the prose.

[Gay, 2019]

First Draft

Start somewhere. Come back to an inward/outward perspective later, if it doesn’t come out immediately. If you overthink it, you’re getting in your own way.

How will I bring the reader into the essay? Think about what I want to say, and how I want to say it. Start with a strong line, a scene, a broad context setting the stage.

Pull the reader in, maintain their interest. This is paper dolls. Everyone needs to be holding hands.

Transition from one idea to the next: both with prose and ideas. There is generally a structure there, how to begin and end, but how to link the two can be a narrative frame: start with a scene, come back to it in the end.

When I reach the end, end the essay.

[Gay, 2019]

Vivid

Create vivid scenes. Don’t just offer a summary. Let them see who was there, when this happened, what the room looked like when this took place, why things are there. This connects the reader emotionally to the piece.

Spend most of my time on the heart of the essay, the body of it.

Overwriting and overthinking the end gets in the way. Almost always we add too much.

[Gay, 2019]

Imperfect but not Sloppy

It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it can’t be sloppy. Do a good job, take it seriously, make and keep appointments with myself.

Once I have most of what I want to say on the page, I can come back to it and think about how I can do it better.

[Gay, 2019]

Revision

Revision is important, but it’s not the most important thing. Writing is writing. Some people say writing is revising. They’re wrong.

Just see it again, after giving it some time, to rethink about it, whether there is a better way to approach it.

Don’t overwork it. Nine drafts means I am afraid to let the work out there. Put in the work, but let it go.

Read the work aloud and listen for what is there, what’s working, what’s missing. Is the thinking sound? Is the detail there? Is the research there?

[Gay, 2019]

Feedback

Once I’m complete, get feedback. Join a writing group. Independent bookstores know where they are.

Most of what we do is receive feedback. The words are being judged, not the writer.

Learn how to listen to the suggestions, but figure out what works. If I have revised a piece once or twice, I have done enough.

If I’m sending this to a magazine, there are editors that will give the piece more revision.

[Gay, 2019]

Beginnings

We all start not knowing much. When I read something that I like, I can submit to those places.

Read the bio of something I’ve liked and submit where they’ve published—if I write like them, and they like their work, then they may like my work.

[Gay, 2019]

Find Publications

Duotrope is a good place for finding publications. Writer’s Market is another place to find magazines. New Pages, Poets and Writers are good places.

I don’t have to pay to submit my work, unless it’s a contest. Be judicious where I compete, only compete if I respect the judge. Always get paid for nonfiction work.

[Gay, 2019]

Cover Letters

A cover letter is a simple document. It can be one sentence.

Address the actual editor or the nonfiction editor.

Develop a writer bio. If I don’t have any publications yet, don’t worry about it, just write, “This would be my first publication.”

Never explain what my work is about. Ever.

[Gay, 2019]

Rejection

Rejection is an integral part of the writing process. Roxane Gay wrote on her blog every day she was rejected.

Even a personal essay must be handled professionally.

Persevere.

Take rejection in stride, and just submit to another place.

Personal Note: use Hydra for submissions.

[Gay, 2019]

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