Introduction to Personal Writing

Life writing, such as personal essays, autobiographies, memoirs, and biographies provide unique opportunities to build a relationship between you and the reader.  There is an intimacy that forms by sharing our experiences and feelings, both good and bad, and reflecting on our lives. This style of writing allows for you to remember important events in your life and create an understanding of how your experiences have made you who you are now.

While writing in any of these genres, it is important to remember a few key points:

• Have a clear purpose for your writing; it is a combination of storytelling and examination
• Include details but don’t get bogged down with unimportant information; elements and people should keep your story moving steadily along.
• Find a theme or pattern to help connect your narrative.
• Remember your intended audience; how you write to family is different than how you write to the public.
• Keep it honest and accurate as you can.

A good first step in writing life stories, whether it is your own or someone else’s, is to read a few memoirs, biographies, and autobiographies. Take note on how they organize the information, the detail they provide, and what insight you gain by reading about their experiences. Here is a list of some well-written memoirs, biographies, and autobiographies.

Night by Elie Wiesel
Anne Frank: A Diary of Young Girl by Anne Frank
One Writer’s Beginnings by Eduora Welty
Benjamin Franklin by Edmund S. Morgan
A Child Called “IT” by Dave Pelzer
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer
Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt

Introduction to the Personal Essay

The personal essay is a great place to start writing about your life.  It gives you the freedom pick a single moment or turning point that is open for you to explore the lessons learned or emotions felt that have changed or shaped you in some way. It can be a window to look into past experiences or a way to examine the present.  Your essay should capture your readers’ attention, provided inform, and give them a reason to reflect upon their own lives.

Writing a Personal Essay

• Review your past, including diary/journal entries, letters, mementos (concert ticket stubs, music, jewelry, etc), pictures, and photos for ideas and subjects that are important,  have changed you, caused strong emotions or hold some element you want to explore further.
• When you feel ready to begin. free-write for awhile by simply letting yourself write. Don’t worry about grammar or following a coherent path. Just write what comes into your head. If you write one idea and that causes you to think of something else, go with it. Push yourself to let your memories wander, you might think of something you hadn’t remembered in years, and it might just be the subject of your essay. When you find your topic, focus on it, getting rid of information that isn’t related or important.
• Don’t be afraid to let your personality and voice come through your writing. Hearing your genuine voice is one of the appeals of life writing.
• If you’re writing about an experiences that changed you, make sure your readers understand how and why you changed by the end of your essay.
  

Example of a Personal Essay:

“Working Cattle-We'd Hate to Love It” by Kevin Hoogendoorn

I grew up on a 400-acre farm five miles southwest of Inwood, Iowa. Our entire crop, and more, was fed to the 1,000 head of finishing cattle we kept on the place. One thousand cattle means a lot of work, especially when they need to be "worked." Working cattle consists of running them through a process of vaccination, deworming, and implantation. We worked two bunches of cattle twice a year. Four separate days out of the year were set aside for this. Usually it was a Saturday during one of our school vacations. It was a long, hard day.

We worked the cattle into our barn, and then from the small holding pen to another room where there was a self-catching headgate. First, all the boys went outside to chase cattle from the yard into the holding pen. We had a row of feed bunks that formed a wide alley through which we would chase the cattle. As soon as we rounded the corner of the alley, we had a straight shot to the holding pen in the barn. At the corner we would raise a ruckus by hollering, running, and siccing Smokey on the cattle. Smokey was a real cattle dog.

Once we got enough cattle (approximately 30 at a time) in the pen, we would all head to our prospective jobs. The jobs were divided according to age, responsibility, and danger. The oldest boy would chase the cattle, four at a time, toward the holding chute leading to the headgate. The next eldest injected wormers, the next moved along the alley to keep the cattle up and moving, and the youngest pulled the gate rope.

Since I was the youngest, I usually ran the gate. I would hold the gate open and let one steer into the chute. The steer, thinking it was free, would move through the chute and be trapped by the automatic headgate. Kent would slip a holding bar behind the other three cattle while work began on the first. Mom poured Dursban, a delicing agent, on the steer's back. Dave reached through the side and shot Levasole, a wormer, under the skin of the animal's neck. Mom would then hit the steer in the rump with a RednoseNirus Diarrhea vaccination. At the same time, Dad would be trying to catch the tossing head to put Ralgro, a steroid implant, in the ear.

As soon as everything was finished, Dad opened the headgate to let the steer out. I then opened the back chute gate to let another one in. Then the process began again.

It seems easy writing about it on paper; however, at the time, it seemed like a million things could go wrong, and they usually did. I would let two steers in, Dad would let one out before Mom was done. Needles broke, syringes had to be held in armpits to keep them from freezing, cattle would turn around in the alley, and so on. It was a long, hard day, and when things went wrong, we were further aggravated. Tempers grew short, words were exchanged, and verbal abuse was doled out equally to humans and cattle.

At noon we would all troop into the house and eat a huge plate of Mom's hotdish, which would have been cooking in the oven since morning. What a welcome break! After dinner we would try to sneak to the other room to read the paper only to be rousted back out of the house by Dad.

Working cattle changed as I grew older. I did different jobs, and more jobs, since fewer people were left to work. My last summer before college was really hard on my Dad. He asked me to work for him, but I decided to work for my uncle at Hoogendoorn Construction to establish my own reputation as a worker in the community. That left only my dad to do almost everything by himself. Eventually, he had to sell all of his cattle and retire into "crop only" farming.

It's been three years since I've worked cattle, and I feel an empty spot inside when I think of it. Never again will our entire family get together to do a job the way we did back then. It amazes me how quirky life is. The things we think we hate, if taken away, we begin to love again. I'm sure my father went through this feeling when he left Grandpa's home, I went through it, and my kids will go through it when they leave my home. As time moves on, we must move also. [8]

Example of Personal Essay of Experience:

“Fish Cheeks” by Amy Tan

I fell in love with the minister's son the winter I turned fourteen. He was not Chinese, but as white as Mary in the manger. For Christmas I prayed for this blond-haired boy, Robert, and a slim new American nose.

When I found out that my parents had invited the minister's family over for Christmas Eve dinner, I cried. What would Robert think of our shabby Chinese Christmas? What would he think of our noisy Chinese relatives, who lacked proper American manners? What terrible disappointment would he feel upon seeing not a roasted turkey and sweet potatoes but Chinese food? On Christmas Eve I saw that my mother had outdone herself in creating a strange menu. She was pulling black veins out of the backs of fleshy prawns. The kitchen was littered with appalling mounds of raw food: A slimy rock cod with bulging fish eyes that pleaded not to be thrown into a pan of hot oil. Tofu, which looked like stacked wedges of rubbery white sponges. A bowl soaking dried fungus back to life. A plate of squid, their backs crisscrossed with knife markings so they resembled bicycle tires.

And then they arrived-the minister's family and all my relatives in a clamor of doorbells and rumpled Christmas packages. Robert grunted hello, and I pretended he was not worthy of existence.

Dinner threw me deeper into despair. My relatives licked the ends of their chopsticks and reached across the table, dipping them into the dozen or so plates of food. Robert and his family waited patiently for platters to be passed to them. My relatives murmured with pleasure when my mother brought out the whole steamed fish. Robert grimaced. Then my father poked his chopsticks just below the fish eyes and plucked out the soft meat. "Amy, your favorite," he said, offering me the tender fish cheek. I wanted to disappear.

At the end of the meal, my father leaned back and belched loudly, thanking my mother for her fine cooking. "It's a polite Chinese custom to show you are satisfied," explained my father to our astonished guests. Robert was looking down at his plate with a reddened face. The minister managed to muster up a quiet burp. I was stunned into silence for the rest of the night. After everyone had gone, my mother said to me, "You want to be the same as American girls on the outside." She handed me an early gift. It was a miniskirt in beige tweed. "But inside you must always be Chinese. You must be proud you are different. Your only shame is to have shame."

And even though I didn't agree with her then, I knew that she understood how much I had suffered during the evening's dinner. It wasn't until many years later-long after I had gotten over my crush on Robert-that I was able to fully appreciate her lessons and the true purpose behind our particular menu. For Christmas Eve that year, she had chosen all my favorite foods. [9]