Hey writers! Let’s continue our deep dive into personal essays with Andrea A. Firth! This workshop will run for 8 lessons, and arrive straight to your inbox.
See what goodies lay ahead in the next 4 lessons here and support us by becoming a subscriber here:
Today, we’re going to look at how a personal essay starts, ends, and what to call it. I’ve got some recommendations, and as always, we’ll learn from the writers we read.
“Defiant” by Kate Hopper
“what you love about new york” by Daisy Hernandez
Hook’em. You want to hook the reader right away. You need to get the reader connected to the narrator and the narrative immediately. The opening should drive the reader to read the next line, the next paragraph, and on.
Yes, that’s all true, but one bit of advice: when you write the first draft of your personal essay, don’t think about where to start—just start. When you reread your draft, look for the moment that the essay heats up and starts to take off—revise and start there. You can incorporate what preceded, maybe it’s back story, setting, or description, later in the essay, or if it’s information that the scene or essay doesn’t need, cut it out.
Don’t give it away. Be careful not to reveal too much too soon. (Again there are always exceptions.) Let the reader take the journey with you. Have the opening whet the reader’s appetite, like a good appetizer does, but don’t tell them what’s for dinner and definitely not desert, yet. A strong opening stimulates the reader’s interest and encourages them to read on.
Don’t tie it up in a bow. A personal essay has movement. There’s transformation. The narrator changes, they find answers, they come to an understanding, and this leads the reader to feel and learn something too. But as you close an essay, don’t “tie it up in a bow” and tell the reader what it all means, i.e., “The moral of the story is…” You want the ending to show the reader meaning through your personal experience. We’ll look at examples that demonstrate this well.
Bookend. If you are not sure how to end your essay, look back at where you’ve been. Circle back to the beginning. If you opened in a scene of the small, humble experience that this essay is built upon, consider returning to that scene and show how things wrapped up in real life. This is referred to as bookending. You can bookend with a scene or language. Remember the essay “Taste Test” opened and closed with the father and son eating sherbet, and “Strawberry Tongue” opened and closed with the same phrase, strawberry tongue, speckled throat, heat in the head.
Land on an Image. One of my favorite ways for an essay to end is with an image, an effective way to show versus tell. Plus, an image leaves an opening for the reader to take a closer look and to interpret meaning. Both of our Readings today use a powerful image in the ending.
Let’s look at how today’s Readings begin and end.
In “Defiant,” Kate Hopper opens with a poignant scene: She is with her father as the cardiologist tells him he’s dying. As we’ve seen before, scene is a way to hook your reader immediately into the story.
And, the first line gives the reader a clear image: Your pulse beats, defiant, in the tender crook between thumb and forefinger.
Hopper does two interesting things with writing craft in this scene. First, the image is counterintuitive. The father’s pulse beats between his thumb and forefinger. We usually feel a pulse on the inside of the wrist, on the side of the neck under the chin, on or under the left-center chest wall, or pounding at our temples. This crook where the father’s pulse beats is not what we expect, and this counterintuitive choice draws the reader in.
Look for the counterintuitive for your essay openings (and titles).
Second, Hopper uses the second-person pronoun, you, for the father. The essay is told in first-person, I, by the narrator. This is the daughter’s story about her father and his end of life. But she doesn’t refer to her father as he/him, or dad, or my father, she writes the essay directly addressing him using “you.” As we saw in Lesson 3, the pronoun “you” creates an intimacy, a connectedness. It’s an astute craft choice for this essay, to show the close nature of the relationship.
As “Defiant” ends,
So in the car that day, after your appointment with the cardiologist, I reach for your hand and give it a squeeze, feeling your pulse, defiant, in that crook between your thumb and forefinger, and I say, “He doesn’t know you, Dad. He doesn’t know your heart.”
Hopper employs a few craft techniques. The essay
Ends in scene, bookending with the opening scene.
Returns to and lands on the image of the pulse in the crook between thumb and forefinger, and now we get an explanation—the narrator holds his hand.
Uses dialogue spoken by the narrator to the father to show how she feels.
Let’s move on to Daisy Hernandez’s essay, “what you love about new york.” If you haven’t had the chance to read it, take a moment now. It’s only 480 words long.
The opening of Hernandez’s essay links through to the ending, because the essay is told in one sentence. I call this a freight train sentence. The essay barrels along with a single focus, as the narrator circles around what she loves about new york city, like a train on a track with one destination. The essay takes short pauses at commas and the white spaces between the three segments, but never comes to a full stop until the end.
Another important part of this opening is the dependent clause …city, which you never appreciated when you lived here, … These eight words point the reader to what the essay is about on a deeper level.
And as “what you love about new york” closes,
…and the city will never feel new again and somehow there you are still in love with this life, this city—the sparrow’s luminous black eyes set upon you.
Hernandez lands on an image! (Highlighted) Subtle. Maybe mysterious. Does the image invite you further into this essay? Does it show you what it’s about, deeper meaning?
Share what you think about Hernandez’s ending and what it means in the Comments.
The title of a personal essay should make us wonder and draw us in. In contrast to news and magazine article titles, the title of a personal essay hints more than summarizes, adds instead of mirrors, draws from instead of encapsulates. How? By employing the same literary craft techniques found in a good personal essay. Let’s see how the writers we’ve read do it.
Choose the right word. A single word or phrase, often one that repeats, from the essay can be a good choice for a title. The key is to choose well. Kate Hopper’s essay “Defiant” uses a word that is emblematic of what she believes and shares about her father.
Go for the counterintuitive. Hit the reader with what they don’t expect at the start. This can add another layer of meaning to the essay. Kimberly Elkins does this with the title of her essay “The Game for Winners” about a young person’s struggles with identity and feeling lost.
Create a new way in. In “what you love about new york,” Daisy Hernandez starts the essay in the title and carries it over to the first word, city. She re-uses this carry-over technique to segue to the second and third segments of the essay as well.
Use a metaphor. In “Whiting” by Deesha Philyaw, the fish serves as both a touchstone in the essay, a meal she returns to six times, and a metaphor for how she manages her relationship with her father. Some readers may not be familiar with this fish (she makes us wonder), so Philyaw defines and describes the fish in the opening lines.
Find an image. Danielle Harms’ essay “Strawberry Tongue” describes when she and her son come down with strep throat. The image bookends the essay and connects to the larger themes of family, illness, and caregiving.
Keep it simple. “The Sloth” by Jill Christman is about the time she saw a sloth, a unique experience. “The Sloth” says exactly that.
Punctuate for effect. The addition of an exclamation point to Eric Lemay’s essay title “Taste Test!” delivers a playful emphasis and creates a different meaning from “Taste Test” minus the punctuation.
Tips for titling your personal essays:
The title is the first thing the reader sees—grab their attention.
Short is ideal, four words or less. There are always exceptions.
The title and essay need to connect, but not in the way the writer might expect. Be counterintuitive.
Punctuation provides options. Consider what the emdash, colon, semicolon, and exclamation point can do.
Capitalize all words except pronouns, articles, prepositions and conjunctions. There are always exceptions.
Editors often like to put their fingerprints on titles. Be prepared to be flexible.
Here, I point to additional writing craft at work in today’s Readings. Let us know what else you find in the Comments.
“Defiant” by Kate Hopper
Uses a rhetorical question: Because what does that doctor, who met you in the hospital last winter, know about you and your heart? –to lead the narrator to explore her father’s past and character.
Paints a complete and loving profile of the father with a list of examples, which are concrete, specific, and varied.
Uses repetition with neither of us knows which moves the essay in time to the future, out of the opening scene.
“what do you love about new york’’ by Daisy Hernandez
Pacing—the single-sentence essay builds with each example, comma by comma, to the peak of conflict in recalling that urgent conversation, at which point the narrator realizes that she’ll never be in her twenties again, and the essay coasts to the close.
Keen observations and details. Hernandez zeros in: your big toe stops a second before; you could see the actor’s fingernails on stage; notice the sparrow at your feet and appreciate the short man with sad eyes.
✍️ Go back to the personal essays we’ve read so far. Two weeks into the course you will be actively reading like a writer now and identifying the craft at work. Look at the beginnings and endings of the essays and jot down what craft is used, why, and to what effect.
💬 Please share what you find in the Comments. And ask me anything!
Write On!
Andrea A. Firth
We’ve covered A Lot of essay writing craft. You now know what makes a good personal essay. Next week, which kicks off the paid portion of this workshop, you will learn how to Find Your Essay’s Heartbeat in Lesson 5—what it’s about and what it means. That’s the crux of the course, so please don’t miss it! In Lesson 6, you’ll put together everything you’ve learned and write an essay following a six-step guided prompt. I’ll be with you each step of the way. Easy and fun. Join us!
In May and June, I’m teaching a 6-week generative essay workshop, live on Zoom. Take what you learn about essay here and meet with me and a small group of writers (max 8) where you will write and workshop your essays. Get supportive, constructive feedback from your peers and a written editorial letter and line edits from me.
I’m offering a 20% discount to participants in WoD 101’s Finding Your Essay’s Heartbeat! When you enroll, insert the Discount Code Hearbeat20.
You can find the introduction post here if you’re new to this course.
If you enjoyed this lesson, please consider becoming a paid subscriber and sharing it with your friends.
I adore this essay by Daisy Hernandez ("what you love about new york"), AND I'm not sold on the ending. I would have been happy if she'd ended it with "you are still in love with this life, this city"; I might have been even happier if she'd returned to the motif in the first paragraph, with one of those (drop-dead accurate) descriptions of the unconscious adjustments a pedestrian's body makes on New York sidewalks. For me the sparrow is a great detail for the last scene, but it doesn't have enough weight to carry the end. Would love to hear what others think.
Daisy Hernandez essay: I'll start by saying that the one-sentence story is challenging for me as a reader. I like more stopping points so I can take a breath. But this is a great piece with lots of amazing imagery. I'm right there with her. This is interesting to me: "...you know that these conversations are never actually urgent, and you will never again be in your twenties and feel about love the way you did then, which is why you can now stroll into central park and sit on a bench with your coffee and notice the sparrow at your feet..." It made me think about how as you get older you're not ruled so much by your romantic emotions, which leaves space and time for you to notice and appreciate what's going on around you. And paying attention is a form of love, in this case, her love for NYC. Then we get to the end with "the sparrow’s luminous black eyes set upon you", which almost feels ominous. But maybe it's more like she is noticing (witnessing) and being noticed back. Sparrows are common, people are common, but both are worth noticing.