Personal Essays are Still a Hot Commodity

Don’t believe the naysayers. The long-form essay is not dead. It is alive and well, but you have to know where to find it. Long-form personal essays are a mainstay of publications such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s, The Sun Magazine, Creative Nonfiction Magazine, Dame Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, Slate, newspapers such as The New York Times and The Boston Globe, and too many other publications and websites to mention.

Reading long-form personal essays requires a patience and time commitment that stands in direct contrast to the itty-bitty nibbles we are served on social media and the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sounds bites of 24-hour television newscasts.

What is a Personal Essay?

I have written about personal essays before, in my blog article of July 23, 2019, “With Creative Nonfiction, Reality Meets Great Storytelling.” Truthfully, I dedicated one paragraph to talking about personal essays, because the article was kind of a scatter-shot look at the genres within CNF.

So then, what is a personal essay? It is notoriously difficult to nail down but here goes: a personal essay is a combination of a super-short memoir, a touch of biography or autobiography, a pinch of journalism, and a slice of compelling nonfiction storytelling. Got that? No? Alright, how about this—

A personal essay is about a topical subject discussed from a personal perspective, yours or someone else’s. A personal essay must have, at its core, a discussion of an event, person, or situation to which the essayist adds personal experience and a unique point of view.

Personal essay is related to the op-ed, too. I’ll go into that in another article.

Examples of Great Personal Essays

In the event that this definition has only muddied the waters, it might be best to direct you to some great essays written by some great essayists. These are in no particular order, no particular category.

After the Shooting: A Year in the Life of Gwen Woods, by Jaeah Lee, The California Sunday Magazine, August 3, 2017

My Family’s Slave, by Alex Tizon, The Atlantic, June 2017

A Rattle with Death in Yosemite, by Kyle Dickman, Outside magazine, June 20,2018

Everything You Know About Obesity is Wrong, by Michael Hobbes, Highline, September 19, 2018

I’ve randomly chosen essays that have been recognized for their outstanding quality. If you want to read others, visit longform.org. There you will find hundreds of quality personal essays. Categories include Health, Crime, Science, Politics, Arts, Business, Tech, and Sports. Don’t be intimidated. Get a feel for the purpose and intent of the long-form essay and give it a go.

A Good Length

The word count of the essay varies depending upon the publication. Suggested word counts for the top 20 magazines, newspapers, and websites that use personal essays span 800 to 15,000 words. The average is 800–1,200 words. Review the submission criteria of your target publications before you write. No need to construct a brilliant 3,000-word essay if the publication you have written for has a word-count limit of 1,000.

If you are an accomplished writer with name recognition, magazines and big-city newspapers will snatch up your essays. But if this is your first foray into getting published, Writer’s Digest suggests your chances of success are better if you submit essays in the 500- to 900-word range. A word count of 800–850 seems like the sweet spot for a newbie essayist.

Define to Impress

Tell your friends and colleagues that you hope to be a published long-form essayist. When they inevitably ask, “What is a long-form essay?” impress with the reply, “A universal truth with a personal perspective.” That’ll get their attention. Now, write!

In addition to working as a nonfiction and creative nonfiction editor and writing coach, I am co-author, with Dr. Terri Lyon, of the book Make a Difference with Mental Health Activism: No activism degree required—use your unique skills to change the world. Visit my website page Make a Difference and Dr. Lyon’s activism website Life At The Intersection to learn more about Make a Difference, including how to place bulk orders.

Smart Writers Seek Smart Editors for Their Best Work

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I want to talk about this issue of self-editing and the necessity of hiring a professional editor. Yes, I know! I have already touched on these topics at least twice in my blog, but honest to gosh, the writers’ pages on social media are still awash with writers fretting over how they can’t afford to hire a pro editor for their manuscripts. I always give them the same polite advice: if you don’t have the money right now to pay a professional editor, wait until you do.

That’s great advice, but it is unappreciated. Some bad advice I see offered includes:

“If you’re smart enough to write a book, you’re smart enough to edit it.”

“Just use lots of beta readers and let them catch the typos and mistakes.”

“Grammarly and spell checkers are all you need.”

Let a Pro Editor Read Your Work

I’ll stop here, because my head is starting to pound. Now look, I’m not saying that self-editing, beta readers, and automated grammar and spelling programs are bad. They’re great. Writers should self-edit, find beta readers, and use the latest writing-assistance technologies. But these are not replacements for experienced human editors.

And it’s tough to be in a profession where people are often telling you that you charge too much for what you do or “Your work could be done just as well by my next-door neighbor Charlie who reads a lot and my Aunt Margaret who was a substitute school teacher for 10 years.”

Even Editors Get the Blues

Everyone who writes needs editors and proofreaders. Editors and proofreaders need editors and proofreaders. I will give you a real-life, personal example I should be ashamed to share.

I sent an email to a small business in my town last week, noting that it creates training manuals and policy and procedure handbooks for its clients. When my career started, I did that work, I tell them. I’m an experienced writer, editor, and proofreader, I tell them. I crafted a compelling case for them to consider me for freelance writing, editing, and training. I read through it three times, tweaked it a bit each time, read it one final time, and clicked SEND. Immediately after I did, I stared at it as if for the first time and saw this:

My resume is attached but here some highlights that might interest you.

Holy s**t. Are you kidding me? Do you see it? I left out the word “are” after “here.” Each time I had re-read it before sending, I swear that word was there. Well, it was there—in my mind.

And that’s what happens with self-editing. You see what you think you wrote, not what you actually wrote.

I debated how to handle it and decided to acknowledge my faux pas in a follow-up email. I went for a humble, self-effacing approach and hoped I would get points for noticing the mistake and having the courage to point it out.

Face it, I’ll never hear from them. And I probably shouldn’t. I didn’t follow one of my own pieces of advice: step away from what you’ve written for a day or an hour or even a few minutes and come back to it with fresh eyes.

You Need an Editor? Hey, That's What I Am.

Like any area of business, editors have best practices and standard pricing. I can assure you, my rates are comfortably in line with other editors doing the same kind of editing and with the same amount of experience. I’m not the most expensive and I’m not the least. So it pains me when someone tells me that I get too much money for what I do, the implication being, editing and proofing are skills that can be done just as well by the average man or woman who can read and write.

Low water pressure, high water pressure, leaky pipes, clogged shower or toilet drains, and corroded pipes—these are the most common reasons people call a plumber. The cost of a plumber ranges from $175 to $450 for a typical job, with the average cost per hour ranging from $45 to $200. We have all complained about the cost of hiring plumbers. Yet we hire them anyway. Why? Because they can do something we can’t do that needs to be done.

I submit that editors are the plumbers of the written word. I might even have a bumper sticker made:

Clean the clogged pipes of your manuscript. Hire an editor.

I like it. What do you think?

Coping with Critique and Criticism: Part 2

Editors and writers are teammates.

In Coping with Critique and Criticism: Part 1, I revealed the painful truth—many self-published writers also self-edit. And self-editing has distinct limitations.

My greatest concern about this self-editing trend is not that editors like me won’t have any work before too long. Editing professionals will always be a hot commodity. Instead, my fear is that self-editing is creating a plethora of so-called published authors who have never subjected their writing to the scrutiny of a professional editor. And, should the time come that they are asked to do so by a publisher or editor-in-chief, they aren’t going to handle it well.

There are two ways to toughen your writer’s skin: one is by hiring an editor like me (please, do), but another way to learn to receive criticism well is by joining a writing group whose purpose is to offer critique to one another.

Fun fact: Someone who critiques the writing of another is referred to as a critter or crit. Yeah. Really.

So, if you are reading this and you have never had your writing critiqued, I would like to offer some guidelines, dare I say rules of conduct, to make the experience productive and relatively painless.

How to Receive Critique in Groups

If you have been writing and self-editing for a long time, accepting criticism of your writing can be tough. Remember this—it is the work that is being critiqued, not you. You must separate yourself from the work. Some will find this challenging, especially if they have been told for years by family and friends that they are great writers.

It’s hard to not take criticism personally. Let’s examine how to do it gracefully.

• If you show up to a group meeting expecting to hear applause and accolades for your work, you might be in for an embarrassing disappointment. The time has come to let your work experience scrutiny. By learning to differentiate helpful criticism from nonsense, you will grow as a writer. But you must be willing to let others put your work under their microscopes.

• Prepare yourself for negative comments. Think through how to receive less-than-stellar remarks about your writing. Remember, it is not about you, it’s about your work. Critique groups will always have their fair share of jerks who see only what they don’t like. Don’t fall into their trap.

• Don’t get angry or defensive, which is easier said than done. Remember, these are just the critters’ opinions. Take them for what they’re worth to you. More often than not, you will hear comments that are valid and helpful. Don’t let the sound of negativity drown out constructive criticism.

• You do not have to accept every piece of advice or make every suggested change. Your work will always be your work. If criticism seems to lean toward altering your tone and a bulk of your wording, you might be at risk for losing your writer’s voice. Accept the remarks politely and move on.

How to Work With an Editor

Since I am an editor, I assure you that all editors are perfect and they never say or do anything that is inappropriate, in error, or hurtful. And pigs can fly.

The fact is, editors are human. We are as flawed as any other human. Some are OK, some great, and some stink.

As with accepting criticism from a group, be open-minded when working with an editor and acknowledge that you might actually have something to learn. A good editor is a partner in the creation of your work.

What should you expect from an editor? Here are general guidelines. Follow them if you are asked to be a critter of the work of another writer. Treat other writers as you wish to be treated.

• If a passage doesn’t make sense to an editor, he or she should talk with the writer about it. Clarification stops the editor from spending time reworking a passage while guessing what the writer meant.

• The editor’s critique should be worded in a constructive—not accusatory—manner.

• An editor’s comments should never personally attack the writer, never belittle, and never, ever take an adversarial position.

• An editor should not indiscriminately rewrite large chunks of material. An editor who takes it upon him- or herself to do major rewrites has wandered from editing into ghostwriting. Do not let an overly zealous editor steal your voice.

Speaking for myself, as I said in my second blog article in May 2018, I ask that you receive my comments and suggestions in the spirit of fostering teamwork and allow my editing skills to complement your writing skills. Trust is a requirement of the editor-author relationship. You must trust that I want your work to be of outstanding quality and I will perform my services in your best interests.

I’ll end by quoting the wildly successful author George R. R. Martin, who said this when he was addressing an audience at CoastCon II in Biloxi, Mississippi, in 1979:

A good editor tries to figure out what the writer was trying to do, and helps him or her do it better, rather than trying to change them into something else entirely. A good editor doesn’t insist or make changes without permission. Ultimately, a writer lives or dies by his words, and he must always have the last word if his work is to retain its integrity.

In addition to my business Strike The Write Tone, I am a contract editor, writing coach, and ghostwriter for The Cheerful Word of Hendersonville, NC.