PERSONAL ESSAYS: WHAT SHOULD I WRITE?
The most frequent mistake newcomers to nonfiction make is picking a subject that’s lackluster, self-congratulatory, or just a diary-like rendering of something mundane they went through. Sorry, but no editors I know want to publish a piece about how cute your cats, gardenias, or grandchildren are. I know it’s counterintuitive, but what makes you successful and lovable in real life might make you unlovable and unknowable on the pages of a short essay. So if you portray yourself as strong, wealthy, good-looking, and happily married, audiences might stop reading after the third line. I learned this the hard way when I first brought a piece into my writing workshop about an ex-boyfriend whose surprise visit rattled me.
“She comes off like a well-off, white, 40-year-old married woman with a good husband [but] who still has feelings for her old flame. I hate her guts,” one critic told me.
I was hurt and confused by the negative response, since I was the “she” being critiqued. Clearly something was wrong with the way I was telling my story. I wound up reorganizing the details and reframing the events, offering a deeper, more vulnerable context. In my revision, I confessed that I was going through difficult infertility treatments and rejections from a series of book editors my literary agent had contacted on my behalf. It was at this moment that the college beau who had unceremoniously
