Writing Life
Tackling the Essay
by Margie Goldsmith

Before Irish writer Brendan Behan had ever published anything of note, his father told him: "Son, everyone in your generation has created something except you, so you just sit down on your butt and don't get up until you've written something."

And that is exactly how you write an essay. Sit down and spit it out, then polish it. Sometimes.

Sometimes, it's more the way Nobel prize-winning Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda wrote: "The work of writers, I say, has much in common with the work of Arctic fishermen. The writer has to look for the river, and if he finds it frozen over, he has to drill a hole in the ice. He must have a good deal of patience, weather the cold and the adverse criticism, stand up to ridicule, look for the deep water, cast the proper hook, and after all that work, he pulls out a tiny little fish. So he must fish again, facing the cold, the water, the critic, eventually landing a bigger fish, and another and another."

That's the way it is with essay writing – you just keep casting and probing, delving deep, going to where you feel it. Unlike third person stories, the essay is always first person, based on your own personal experience, perhaps something that has in some way changed your life or your perception. One way to find a topic is to dredge up a memory from your past. Christopher Buckley had resolved not to write a book about his famous parents until he realized that "when the universe hands you material like this, not writing about it seems either a waste or a conscious act of evasion."

If you've heard that essay writing is the hardest kind of writing of all, it's only because an essay can expose those deep dark places inside you, things you've never before revealed or even admitted to yourself. But you don't necessarily have to tell your secrets. An essay tells a personal story in a unique voice; it offers a universal truth or at least something that resonates with its readers. A good essay usually leaves the reader saying "aha."

I think of some of my essays as my way of resolving incidents of the past. So far, I've written about my divorce, my father, and my sister; one of these days I will tackle writing about my complicated relationship with my mother. When Gay Talese was asked whether his marriage book was an attempt to analyze what happened all those years ago, he responded, "Yeah, I have never dealt with it."

The good news is that when analyzing yourself through an essay, instead of paying for an outside shrink, you're the one who gets paid! But be careful when dealing with personal material – even though it might be cathartic to you, your material must resonate with your reader.

Your opening has to grab the reader's attention. Get a hook in there on the first line; make your reader sit up and take notice. Then, you must tell the story in such a compelling way that the reader never wants to put down the book but will continue reading it to the end. Your unique voice tells the story, and your point of view makes your essay unique. If four writers go skiing and are all caught in the same avalanche (and all survive), it's obvious they will probably each write a story about facing death.

But every one of them will tell the story a different way. The first writer might start off by saying he dreaded coming on this trip, dreaded coming, but was coerced into it in spite of his vibes that told him something terrible would happen. His story might be about never doubting his intuition. The second writer's message might be a wake-up call to enjoy life more thoroughly. The third might write about how this near-death experience caused him to quit his job and change his life while the fourth writer might take the experience and write a funny story. The point is, each of the writers had the exact same experience, but each arrived at a different truth.

The most important part of an essay is the ending. For many editors, unless the closing is spectacular, they won't publish the essay. Your story should not fizzle to a resolution, nor should it be preachy-teachy. The ending must give your essay a raison d'etre and if possible, evoke an "aha."

So who's going to publish it? Despite this terrible economy, many magazines and newspapers still publish essays. Go to the bookstore and look through the racks—there are essays everywhere. Or, sit at your computer and go to mediabistro.com to search their three-part article listing the personal essay outlets including lengths, pay, and even the assigning editor's name:

http://www.mediabistro.com/articles/cache/a10009.asp
and
http://www.mediabistro.com/articles/cache/a10022.asp

But maybe I'm putting the cart before the horse. First, as Brendan Behan's father said, you have to sit down on your butt and write it.

Margie Goldsmith won the first person essay ASJA Outstanding Article Award both in 2009 and 2008. Her essays have been published in O the Oprah Magazine, The New York Times, MORE, Islands, National Geographic Traveler, Christian Science Monitor, and others.