Tips for Writing a Narrative Essay
By Victoria Fortune
I recently told a friend that I love writing essays, and he looked at me like I had two heads. He was not thinking of the narrative essays I had in mind, but of the five-paragraph formula that generations of schoolchildren have learned to write, which has sadly, given essays a bad rap. Most people think of them as dry and predictable when in fact, the essay may be one of the most open-ended, elusive forms of writing to define.
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592), the first to describe his work as essays, characterized them as "attempts" to put his thoughts into writing. Author Ann Hood describes the essay as “a literary device for saying almost anything about almost anything.” Such breadth of possibility is enticing yet intimidating. With relatively limited space (generally 500-3500 words), an essay needs a limited focus. It can be easy to get lost in the weeds.
At the January residency of Newport MFA program, Joyce Maynard, one of the guest lecturers, gave a talk on “Writing the Container Essay.” This type of essay, she explained, entails taking a big theme from your life and locating a small story that allows you to explore it. “It should be about something small and something enormous at the same time.” As an example, she shared her essay about the jars of her mother’s chutney she kept after her mother passed away, which represented coming to terms with her loss. (To learn more about Maynard’s approach, see her online class, The Container).
No matter the form you choose, Maynard’s presentation, along with Ann Hood’s great session on “How to Write a Kick-Ass Essay,” offered some excellent tips for writing a successful narrative essay:
• A narrative essay is about finding the story in something that happened to you. In Vivian Gornick’s classic text on writing memoir, The Situation and the Story, she explains that “the story” is not simply what happened—that is the situation. “The story” is the significance of what happened, or the meaning you ascribe to it. A narrative essay cannot just be an anecdote—a funny or sad or interesting thing that happened to you; it should be about what you made of what happened.
• How do you know what is worth writing about? Ann suggests writing about what keeps you awake at night, what you obsess about, what you find great joy (or agony) in.
• Focus on something specific that represents something much bigger, as in Joyce Maynard’s chutney story. Ann provided another example in Jonathan Letham’s Alone at the Movies, from the New Yorker, in which a trip to the movies reflects how the author dealt with his mother’s terminal illness.
• Use an objective correlative to help guide and focus your writing. It can be a good way to approach a topic that seems too big or emotional, or one you are likely to be sentimental about. Both of the essays cited above use objective correlatives to address traumatic loss.
• Don’t write with an agenda, such as to mythologize or exact revenge. This will draw the curtain between you and the reader. A good essay draws the curtain around readers, pulling them in.
• Write in order to understand. You likely won’t know what the story is when you begin. As Ann put it, “dig so deep that you discover the essay is about something you didn’t realize it was about.” Writers are often told to “write what they know” but should rather “write what you don’t know about what you know,” as Grace Paley said.
• Write your essay first, then figure out where to submit it. Forget about where you want it published as you write.
• Above all, tell the truth. Be vulnerable. Readers will be able to tell when you’re leaving things out. You can’t hide when writing essays, Ann says. “Your heart, your mind, your soul must be open.” If you are willing to “confront the dark parts of yourself . . . your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.” --August Wilson
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