Phil Email Phil
Tape a Cheetah to Your Back
Even with great examples, it’s difficult to finish a long essay in 25 minutes. Getting off to a quick start is crucial. Make it your goal to finish the intro in the first five minutes. Work urgently. No lollygagging. Tape a cheetah to your back. Be like a fighter jet catapulted off an aircraft carrier not like a commercial plane taxiing down a runway. You get the idea.
Your 3-Sentence Introduction
So how do you write a quick and effective intro? First, don’t get hung up on crafting a clever hook. The intro only needs to accomplish three things: state your position, state why, list your examples. Three sentences and you’re done. As with all things, practice makes perfect so find some sample prompts online and practice writing a few five minute intros. You’ll find that as you get better at it, you’ll be able to add little touches of sophistication to the template.
Sample Prompt and Intro
Sample Intro: "Has the emphasis on individualism in our society caused people to forget the importance of belonging to a community?"
Sample Prompt: "The emphasis on individualism in society has not caused people to forget the importance of belonging to a community. Focusing on individual actions actually reinforces the idea that individuals cannot thrive apart from community. This trend is evident in the Puritan community of The Scarlet Letter and in the virtual community of Facebook."
Phil
Today, we'll be discussing The Secret Life of a Rock Dad by Clay Tarver.
Phil's Take
The Best Writing Comes from Shame
Essayist and short story author Steve Almond writes, “Most writers, at a basic level, are trying to wring some beauty from the neck of shame.” The beauty comes from attempting to unravel and understand those complicated feelings through a story. In The Secret Life of a Rock Dad, Clay Tarver, in the guise of a story, unravels the conflicted feelings he has about his rocker past.
Initially it seems as if the primary conflict in Tarver’s essay is telling his children about his other life as a guitarist for the band Chavez. He has noble intentions, declaring that he doesn’t want to be “one of those parents” who force their kids to like what they like. Who hasn’t judged parents who dress their kids in jerseys of their favorite sports teams or sweatshirts from colleges they attended or even worse didn’t attend? Tarver even repurposes his therapist’s words “nothing has a stronger influence on their children than the unlived life of the parents” to justify his secret-keeping. But these are just excuses.
External Want v. Internal Need
Tarver in real life works as a screenwriter, and he employs a common screenwriting technique that juxtaposes external want versus internal need. Superficially, Tarver wants to figure out how to tell his kids about his rock life. But his deeper need is coming to terms with his past and figuring out his identity as a musician and a dad. The turning point of the essay arrives with the eloquent sentence: “That’s when I realized I’m an idiot.” After all the arguments with his wife, the surreptitious Vegas gigs and the therapy, Carver finally owns up to the truth that he’s a “conflicted mess” about his past, and that’s why he doesn’t tell his kids.
No Neat Resolution
The problem of telling his kids about his alter ego is humorously resolved by the end of the essay, but Tarver’s transformation is still a work in progress. Real life rarely includes neat resolutions and neither do effective essays. Tarver’s therapy doesn’t come from visiting the shrink but from writing. The fact that Tarver doesn’t have it all figured out by the end makes the essay more relatable and fun.
Phil
Jon's Take
I'm having trouble matching Phil's level of insight. Let me focus on some of the stylistic elements I think you can borrow from Rock Dad for your essay.
"What's this article about?" I wondered. I had never heard of Chavez. "Did you even read it?" Phil asked me. He knew I had not gotten to it yet. There was nothing I could say. That's when I realized I had to do my homework if I wanted to avoid asking dumb questions.
I see three simple techniques you can adapt:
- Open with dialogue. Dialogue brings your reader into a specific setting. Too often, I see students writing about activities without getting into the who, what, when, why, or where. Without these details, the essay can and often does sound as if anyone could have written it. Dialogue forces you to bring the reader into a specific time and place. Those details help distinguish you.
- Think about sentence length. If you read the article closely, you'll notice that Tarver relies on short, declarative sentences. It's more Hemingway than Faulkner. He writes one thing. And then he writes another. And another. This is not the "right" style, but it is a clear style. The reader never gets lost in a thicket of long, confusing sentences.
- Save the realization for the end. If Tarver were being "efficient," then he would lead with his big realization about being an idiot. But this is a story, not a research abstract. If the writer engages us, we'll gladly sacrifice some efficiency. Let your story build, and then hit the reader with your realization at the end.
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.
Phil Email Phil
This is a short film of David Foster Wallace's 2005 commencement speech at Kenyon College. At least watch the first 30 seconds.
Watching this film made me wonder, "Wait, why aren't more speeches or essays made into films?" Most essays don't have enough images - enough things. Without things, you have no images. Without images, you have no film.
If students aren't writing essays about things, then what are they writing about? They're writing about thoughts. Thoughts might be adjectives (frightening, grateful, overwhelmed!) or concepts (leadership, justice, respect!). Whatever the case, these abstract thoughts share a common flaw: invisibility. I have no idea what a thought looks like.
Yes, I know, your essay must have some thoughts. It just can't be only thoughts. Tether your thoughts with things. Think of your essay as a kite. The sail is your profound thoughts about your topic. The line is the things that are the images for your topic.
If you've ever flown a kite, you know you need tension between sail and line to fly it where you want it to go. And to write an essay that stands out, you need to explore the interplay between thoughts and things. Writing an essay with all thoughts and no things is like cutting the line to your kite, setting it adrift on the wind. When you write about both thoughts and things, however, you create images that distinguish you from your fellow applicants who have written invisible thought essays.
By all means, write your deep thoughts. But don't forget your things!
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.