Student Question #13: How do I start my essay?

Student Question

I want to write about my belief that everyone should be like a child, and I want to show how I implement that belief in my life. I want the beginning to be interesting. How do I do that?

My Response

Let's start with what not to do. You don't want to come out and open with, "I believe everyone should be like a child." Why not? There's no suspense. Now I know that the rest of the essay is just going to explain why you think this. Boring.

Remember, letting someone get to know you through an essay differs from someone getting to know you through a conversation. If you were sitting down to talk to me, then saying "I believe everyone should be like a child" would be great. I'd ask you for details, and you'd tell me more about your philosophy, and we'd be fine. In conversation, we rely on general statements because they're more efficient. I might ask you what type of person your sister is, and you'll tell me she's funny but careless. Perfect - I get what you're saying.

But the essay is different. We're no longer conveying information through a dialog. Instead, we're conveying information through a monologue. Because the reader doesn't have the chance to interrupt to redirect the conversation to points that interest her, the writer has the burden of keeping the reader entertained. To lure the reader in, we have to make the reader wonder what will happen next. We all know the idea of the cliffhanger ending, the one that leaves us in suspense. But we need cliffhanger openings, too. That first sentence has to give the reader some kind of puzzle, however small, to solve. That often means thrusting the reader into the middle of a scene.

So to write a cliffhanger opening, you can't use a general statement ("I believe X."). Instead, you have to choose a particular moment in your life to narrate. It could be a moment that led to the development of your philosophy, or it could be a moment when you tried to implement your philosophy. You're going to write details that let the reader experience everything you saw, heard, touched, smelled, and tasted in that moment. When you describe a particular moment with sensory information, you bring the reader into a scene instead of just talking at her.

After you've finished describing the details of your moment, then you can summarize what they mean. But the point is you do details first, then summary. If you do summary first ("I am childlike."), then details, your essay will be clear (like an English essay - thesis, then evidence), but also boring.

OK. So you're going to open with details of a particular moment in your life, not a general statement about what you believe or who you are. What next? That opening sentence must have an air of mystery. It should withhold certain details to make the reader wonder what will happen next.

"I had to get back." Get back where? And why? "I had to find out what she was doing here again." Who is she? Why is she there? Why does the narrator care she's there?

These are two examples I just made up. (More examples in my ebook.) You can see that concealing details doesn't require an amazing sentence. The technique of using vague words (back, she, here) to create mystery is simple. Of course, yes, you should try to do something more snazzy for your actual essay.

As you write, think of your reader as a passenger with a short attention span. If you drive that reader down a straight road, he'll get bored because he'll see exactly where you're taking him. That's like sitting through one of those awful Powerpoint presentations where the speaker just reads from the slides. But if you drive that reader around a bend, he'll start wondering where you're going. He'll start to look for clues. That's the reader you want - engaged.

To summarize, you can make your opening interesting by doing two things. First, figure out your cliffhanger opening by describing a specific moment with sensory information (not by making a general statement). Second, use vague words and phrases to create a mystery for the reader to unravel. That's it!

Good luck writing!

Jon

Jon Perkins holds a B.A. in English from Stanford University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He helps students with their college, law school, and medical school applications.

Student Question #12: Should I Avoid Overlap between Essays?

Student Question

"Should I avoid overlap between essays? My essays contain different information, but they both seem to highlight my passion for the same academic interest. Is that bad?"

My Response

Yes, you should avoid overlap between essays. When you're writing a sentence, you don't write 30 words when you can make the same point with 15 words. When you're writing an essay, you don't include 5 examples about how soccer made you a better person when you can make the same point with just 1 example. And when you're writing an application, you don't write 2 essays about the same part of your personality - like an academic passion - when you can communicate the same message with just 1 essay. Each word, example, and essay should reveal something new about you.

If you insist on writing two essays about the same topic, make sure each highlights a different part of who you are. For example, suppose your academic interest is biology. The first essay might focus on intellectual vitality - how you developed your interest, how you explored your interest, why biology fascinates you. The second essay might focus on teamwork - how you worked with other people in a lab, what surprised you about working with other people, how the experience changed your approach to working with people.

Remember, many of the "Is this a good topic?" type of questions miss the point. There is no golden ticket topic that will get you in automatically. As a wiser person wrote, "There is nothing new under the sun." Admission committees have seen every topic you can imagine. With rare exception, how you treat your topic matters more than what topic you choose. The topic is means to an end: revealing your personality.

Good luck writing!

Jon

Jon Perkins holds a B.A. in English from Stanford University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He helps students with their college, law school, and medical school applications.

Student Question #11: Does Everything Have to Be Explicitly Stated?

Student Question

"Does everything have to be explicitly stated? Is it bad to imply sometimes?"

My Response

To answer this question, let's look at how Ira Glass from This American Life divides a story into two parts: anecdote and reflection. Anecdote is the stuff that happened, and reflection is why you think that stuff matters. Whether you're describing anecdote or reflection, you want to be explicit. That is, you want to be detailed. For the anecdote, that means appealing to the five senses when describing the events. For the reflection, that means making sure you answer the "So what?" question so that the reader knows why he should care. So yes, be explicit.

The problem is that explicit is not always interesting. Think about the essays you write for English class. You start with a thesis statement, which is some argument about what something means. Then you follow up with evidence that supports your thesis. It's explicit, maybe scholarly, but not suspenseful. We all know the formula: thesis, then evidence.

In the application essay, your anecdote - the stuff that happened - is your evidence, and your reflection - why that stuff matters - is your thesis. If you write the application essay the way you write a normal English class essay, you will start with the reflection and follow with the anecdote. Thesis, then evidence.

But a reflection-anecdote structure kills all the suspense. If you open with your reflection ("Activity X taught me Ability Y"), then we all know you'll spend the rest of the essay sharing some examples that support your reflection. If your reflection is "Soccer taught me patience," then the rest of your essay will be some experiences you had playing soccer. Do I need to read the rest? I certainly don't want to.

To make the reader want to read more, you need to invert the reflection-anecdote structure. Instead of writing the reflection first, write the anecdote first. That way, you imply your main point because the reader has to wonder, at least for a few sentences, "Why does this matter?" Then you resolve the suspense by stating your reflection. For example, you might open with a scene from your soccer experiences and then, after letting the reader see what's happened, start to explain why it matters to you.

So, to answer the question, be explicit in describing both anecdote and reflection. But to maximize suspense, forget about your normal thesis-evidence structure. Forget about making everything clear in the beginning. Instead, turn the normal English essay upside-down by writing an anecdote-reflection structure. Start with the stuff that happened, and then explain what it means. That's how you write an essay that's detailed but suspenseful.

Good luck writing!

Jon

Jon Perkins holds a B.A. in English from Stanford University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He helps students with their college, law school, and medical school applications.

Student Question #10: Are All Metaphor Essays Bad?

Student Question

"Are all metaphor essays bad?"

My Response

First, a quick review. A metaphor is just an assertion that one thing is like another thing. In the college essay context, the usual approach is to try to argue that the student is like some object. For example, a roller coaster could be a metaphor for the student's life.

To answer the question, no, not all metaphor essays are bad. But all random metaphor essays are bad. A random metaphor is one that compares you to something outside your every-day experience. If you compare your life to a roller coaster even though you've never ridden one, roller coasters are not your best metaphorical option. I sense the attraction of random metaphors is the belief that if we could just find the right, clever metaphor, we'd win over the reader. But there's no such thing as a magic metaphor (or topic) that will, simply by appearing in your essay, stab the admission officer with wonder: "Oh my gosh! This applicant's a spork - multi-functional!" A random metaphor seems out of place, like an unattended elephant ambling down a city street.

For a metaphor to work, it has to be authentic, not random. But finding authentic metaphors is easy. Pluck them from the scenes - the particular moments - you'll be describing in your essay. If I'm writing about writing (my curse, apparently), then maybe the staple remover on my desk is a metaphor for my outlook on editing; I disassemble words and reassemble them in a better order. Or the aluminum Dr. Pepper can is a metaphor for my ideas: recycled. So long as you draw the metaphor out of your scene instead of imposing the it onto your essay, your metaphor will be authentic.

Good luck writing!

Jon

Jon Perkins holds a B.A. in English from Stanford University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He helps students with their college, law school, and medical school applications.

Student Question #9: Is a Sports Essay about Overcoming Injury Too Cliche?

Student Question

"If I write a sports essay, is overcoming an injury too cliche?"

My Response

Yes. As I describe in my ebook, one of your essay goals is to discern your point of differentiation. That's the aspect of your experience that differs from the experiences of other people. Almost every athlete everywhere has experienced and overcome an injury, so writing about that will not distinguish you as an individual. It will merely identify you as a member of a large subset of athletes.

When you're writing about any topic, especially about a topic susceptible to cliches, you have to ask, "How is my experience different from other people in similar situations?" You're looking for details that identify your story's unique fingerprint. The easy, generic sports story is injury-rehab-training-success!

To avoid this ho-hum narrative, start asking yourself questions. What surprised you about the injury/rehab process? Did you meet anyone you wouldn't have met otherwise? Did the injury spark a new interest in a person or idea? How did you spend the time you would have spent training? Did this injury bring out the best in you or the worst in you? How did you deal with your frustration? How, specifically, did your attitude and actions change after your injury?

There's no magic question to unlock your fingerprint details, but the more questions you ask, the more likely you'll discover that detail where you can say, without question, "No one else could write this detail!" It's a great feeling. Don't give up on finding it.

Final Thoughts

If you thought today's post was helpful, please share it with your friends. Good luck writing!

Jon

Jon Perkins holds a B.A. in English from Stanford University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He helps students with their college, law school, and medical school applications.