Writing Personal Essays
How Your Story Can Light the Way for Others
Our recent Story Summit Lunch & Learn featured Darcey Gohring, a writer, editor, and instructor who shared her magic formula for authoring personal essays that stand out.
What is a personal essay? Darcey defines it this way: “It’s a true story from our life where we reflect on its meaning and the impact it had on us as a person.” Through a personal essay, you capture universal emotions and truths, giving readers a greater understanding of how they fit into the world.
Darcey highlighted these questions to ask yourself when choosing a topic for a personal essay:
What did it teach you?
How did it change you?
How are you different as a result?
What is the life lesson?
What’s the growth point?
It’s also important to remember that personal essays focus on one event or experience. They are not your whole life story.
To write a successful essay—particularly when you’re pitching to a commercial outlet like the Huffington Post, Newsweek, the Today essay column, or Memoir Magazine—be sure to address these three key elements.
1. The Hook: How you bring readers into your story
The hook is the opening first line of the story, the opening first paragraph, or even the headline. In short, it's how you capture your reader's interest. There are many kinds of hooks, but they usually involve pulling the reader into dramatic action or immediately peaking curiosity. Whether you use emotion, action, or surprise, you want the reader to wonder where your story is going next.
Great hooks do at least one or two of these things, if not more:
Make the reader ask questions.
Build a sense of urgency.
Introduce new situations and characters.
Provide a vivid image and imply past or future events.
Share relevant backstory.
Set the tone of the story.
Create emotional connection with the reader.
Darcey explained, “It could be a medical diagnosis. It could be your wife saying, ‘I want a divorce.’ It could be the death of a loved one. The loss of a job. Whatever the thing is, it's the thing that kickstarted your change.”
2. The Cook: How you get the reader from one side of the river to the other
The cook section of your personal essay is the stepping stone. It's the contemplation portion of the essay.
Every detail, every bit of information that you're including in the essay, should serve a purpose. It should provide meaning in the story and greater understanding for the reader.
Once you’ve completed your essay, go back through all the details and elements and ask yourself these two questions:
Does what I am including here bring the reader greater understanding of the topic I’m writing about?
Does what I’m including here move the story forward?
3. The Takeaway: How you show the reader what’s in it for them
The takeaway is the use of story to illustrate a lesson learned in life and how it was learned. There needs to be a shift, an arc. The main character needs to be a different person in the end. Otherwise, you’re only sharing an anecdote.
Darcey shared two questions to help determine the takeaway:
What did I learn from this experience?
How did this experience force me to grow?
The takeaway doesn’t necessarily have to be a happy conclusion, or a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. It does need to capture meaning and growth.
In addition to providing specific examples from her own work and from writers she admires, Darcey shared what she believes makes personal essays so powerful: “Being able to put into words what someone else has felt but has been unable to express, or shedding new light on experiences that others may be going through—it’s magical.”
Join us for future Lunch and Learn sessions on a variety of writing topics. For just $25—which includes a $25 credit toward another Story Summit class—you can enjoy writing nourishment over your lunch hour, and gain inspiration and instruction to capture that same sense of magic and meaning in your own writing.
Join Us for Our Her Spirit Women’s Writing Retreat in Santa Cruz!
This year’s focus is on lofty goals: the big, brave intentions behind your stories. Your voice can change people’s lives, shift perspectives, and inspire movements!
You’ll take part in transformative workshops from today’s leaders in fiction, memoir, and all things publishing, along with opportunities for private consultations, pitch sessions, an open mic night, and unforgettable connections.
Her Spirit is designed to restore your soul, honor your inner voice, and tap into your creative flow.
Join us August 24-28. Only a few spots remain!
What’s Coming Up at Story Summit?
Here are a few of our upcoming classes and events. Check out the complete schedule at www.storysummit.us.
June 25: TONIGHT is the final evening of Substack Success
A hugely popular class—there is still time to sign up for the third and final evening of Substack Success. This evening will be focused on more advanced tools, analytics, and ideas for long-term success. You’ll receive access to recordings of the previous two classes.
During Covid quarantine, I decided to start a Substack column, just for friends and just for fun. All of a sudden, I had people that I didn’t even know who were subscribing. Then I turned on the paid component for Substack, because it was suggested I do so. To my surprise, people began paying for my column! I didn’t even have a paywall. It dawned on me that if people were willing to pay for my silly little Substack rants, they might pay for other writers. After all, this is a platform designed by a writer for writers. Now, I have helped over 85 individual writers build their presence on Substack and I am totally committed to helping you understand this platform and put it to work for you.
- Julie Gammack, journalist, columnist, founder of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative, and Story Summit’s Substack Success class co-instructor
June 27: Lunch & Learn: Introduction to the Story Summit App (Free Event)
A friendly hands-on session to help you discover all the ways that our new app can keep you inspired, connected, and in the know.
June 30: VIP Guest Speaker, Pamela Redmond (Story Summit+)
Spend an evening with this New York Times bestselling author of more than 20 books of fiction and nonfiction, including Younger, which was adapted into a seven-season television show by Sex & The City’s Darren Star, and is now streaming on Netflix.
Story Summit was founded by David Kirkpatrick, the former president of Paramount Studios and former chief of production for Disney. From the beginning of Story Summit, his dream has been to help make writers’ dreams come true. It’s happening in big ways, so from time to time we’ll feature Summiteers whose work is being published or produced and let you know how they did it.
We hope that one of those writers will someday be you. Please reach out, leave a comment, and check out our links. And most of all, please join us! We’d love to welcome you to our Story Summit community.