Personal essay writing

Here’s What We Are Actually Looking For at Age of Empathy

Some clarity around ‘personal essays’; what we mean by ‘creative nonfiction’ and ‘personal narrative’, and how a personal essay differs from a memoir

From our “About” section:

We publish high-quality personal essays, humor essays, and writer interviews. Our goal is to provide a place for experienced writers to share authentic stories and connect with others…

In recent months we have had a lot more writers join us at AoE and the community has been steadily growing with strength, grace, and beauty.

We have a lot of fantastic writers on board and this is reflected by the high quality of the submissions that we publish daily.

However, in recent times, we have noticed the general understanding of what we accept at the publication slipping a little. For this reason, we felt it was important to address this and explain exactly what we want to see, and to clarify any misunderstanding about what denotes a personal essay, a personal narrative, and creative nonfiction.

What is a personal essay?

From Masterclass.com:

A personal narrative essay can enlighten and inspire an audience with information gained from real life experiences.

The personal part of your essay relates to your personal experience; a story from your life, a moment in time — either current or in the past — when something of significance took place.

The difference between a personal essay and a memoir

While a personal essay has a looser definition, a memoir is very specifically describing significant and/or life-changing moments from the past.

The memoir is, first and foremost, the story of what happened. Often this will be told in a mostly linear way but in our unique perspective, demonstrating how the events impacted you in a way that has kept the memory strong until now.

In the words of the wonderful Deb Groves Harman, “The memoir is the take-away from a specific incident, an incident so striking that it impresses the writer in an unforgettable way.”

Or, in the words of Martha Manning, Ph.D. in a recent essay in the publication, “What happens to us is the raw material.” What we then do with it becomes the story we relay to our audience.

A personal essay is more of a reflective piece that uses anecdotes from your personal life to demonstrate the lessons that you are sharing with your audience. A memoir will focus on a particular moment or series of moments in time, but within a short time span.

If your story is more of a memoir, please submit it to The Memoirist where we love to host these stories.

The ‘personal narrative’

The personal narrative relates to the way in which you are constructing your story. It isn’t just a series of events but a way in which these events have been of significance and become a good story. Your narrative is usually a theme, a perspective, or a lesson that brings these events together with meaning.

The personal narrative is a reflective response to the experience, and one that is personal to you. Not someone else’s ideas or discoveries being regurgitated.

The opinions and discoveries of others may be relevant and, therefore, shared within your essay. But the overall narrative that is being expressed is your own.

The universal lessons

There are reasons for sharing the lessons that you have learned or the conclusions you have come to: because they have a highly relatable quality about them.

They will have a significant relevance to your audience that they will be able to relate to and, thus, will read with fascination and a good deal of internal reflection.

The ‘creative’ and the ‘nonfiction’

We describe everything within Age of Empathy as Creative Nonfiction.

The nonfiction part is self-explanatory — it happened in real life.

The creative aspect is how you present the narrative you are bringing to your audience. It is not simply a series of events with a beginning, middle and end. Nor is it a list of ideas and thoughts.

The creative quality is the magic with which you weave the audience’s imagination and attention into the world you are describing. It is what beautifies it and turns it from a series of sentences that state the basic events and thoughts into a work of art.

What we don’t want

• A third-person narrative — that’s not personal.
• Listicles and “how I made 4K on one story” articles
• Rants — we want thoughtful, considered, reflective essays that examine rather than bitch.
• Family histories
• Stories that are too personal and may be off-putting to others — use your better judgment.
• Short-form stories. We are not strict here but personal essays involve more depth and are usually a minimum of 4 minutes of read time.

What we welcome

• Fun ways of storytelling.
• Humor/humour (sorry I had to write it both ways— I’m British, after all).
• Vulnerability — honestly, the more vulnerable you are with your audience, the more relatable and interesting your essay is.
• Anything that aligns with the personal narrative and creative nonfiction explanations above.

I hope this has helped to clarify any confusion.

Thanks for being here, for sticking with me until now, and for all you do to contribute to AoE community.