Don't Drive the Desert Bus

Awesome. Here's part of Wikipedia's description of the Desert Bus video game:

The objective of the game is to drive a bus from Tucson, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada in real time at a maximum speed of 45 mph...The bus contains no passengers, there is little scenery (an occasional rock or stop sign will appear at the side of the road), and there is no traffic. The road between Tucson and Las Vegas is completely straight.

That sounds just like essays I endure. The student is taking me somewhere, but I don't know why. There is nothing memorable to see along the way. When I arrive at my destination, everything still looks the same as when I started. The essay is a desert bus.

Before you start writing me onto your desert bus, ask yourself these 3 questions:

1. Why are you driving the bus? Tell me what happened to make you want to take the wheel. Maybe something shook you up. Something angered you. Something humbled you. Something enlightened you. Whatever it is, something triggered your decision. You didn't just wake up on the bus. You decided to drive it. Tell me what motivated you.
2. What happened on your trip? Maybe you encountered an obstacle, like your car breaking down. Maybe you faced an opponent, like a drunk driver cutting you off doing 85. Maybe you failed at something, like not remembering your candy bar would melt in the summer heat, leaving you with nothing to eat unless you squeezed it out of the wrapper like toothpaste (fun!). Don't drive me down a straight road where nothing happens. Tell me about that one time that, dude, you're never going to believe this, but...
3. How did your trip change you? After you reached your destination, then what? And so what? How did the trip shape you? Did you realize something along the way? But wait - don't end your essay with that lesson learned. Keep going. Tell me how you applied the lesson. Applying the lesson is proof that your trip transformed you. That's what I want to hear about.

Maybe you can't drive a party bus. But at least step off the desert bus.

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.

Inspired by Iron Man: 3 Ways to Use Images in Your Essay

What Techniques Can We Borrow from Iron Man?

Fast cars, expensive suits, private jet, hot girls, Malibu mansion. Tony Stark is cocky, glib and vain, and money, status and partying are high on his list of values. A few carefully selected images and we get a good idea of the type of person Stark is.

While the images you’ll be using in your essays probably won’t be as flashy as those in Iron Man, they can be just as effective in revealing who you are. Here are three image-incorporating techniques you can borrow from the movie.

1. Associate tangible objects with abstract traits or feelings. For example, fast cars equal need for status.
2. Use external landscape to mirror internal state of being. When Stark is kept hostage in the dark cave in the middle of the desert, that reflects his inner state. Stripped of his material possessions, Stark is stranded externally and internally. I know, pretty deep stuff, huh?
3. Use a talisman. A talisman is a significant object that the main character attributes power to, but paradoxically it can also represent his major weakness or fear. In Stark’s case, this would be the arc reactor that represents his heart (or lack of one).

Incorporating images into your essays will make them vivid and interesting, like Iron Man. Without images, your essay will be as fun to read as an SAT reading comp passage.

By the way, I used Iron Man as an example because it rocks, but these techniques are used in all movies. And in all novels too. Think of The Scarlet Letter or The Pearl. Talk about obvious use of images!

Phil

What's in the Safe?

I was spending (wasting) time on Reddit last week when I came across a post with a title like, "Found this safe. How do I open it?" The post had over a thousand comments. What was going on?

It's just like the box at the end of Se7en, or like some TV special where the host does a live reveal of a tomb or treasure chest. We need to know what's inside.

Let's think about how to apply this idea to your essay. As I mentioned in a previous post, your essay needs more things. You cannot just come out and say, "My hometown is very important to me." That might be true, but thousands of other people could make the same statement. The truth is not enough.

If you're writing about how important home is to you, you need to present the reader with a thing that represents your home. I might write about my Dodgers cap.

The white threads of the LA logo have faded to off-white and started to fray. The sun has bleached the Dodger blue several shades lighter than it deserves to be. Sweat and grime have yellowed the inside, even after the toothbrush scrubbing I give it very occasionally. The bill is curved, not new-school flat, and the sticker is long gone. I wear this hat wherever I go as a reminder of where my home is.

Blah blah blah. You get the idea. A Dodgers cap is not as thrilling as a safe, but it's more thrilling than just saying, "I like L.A." The cap is a thing, so it's visual. And it's my thing, so it's personal.

Sometimes, I wonder if writing these application essays isn't that different from "Show and Tell" in kindergarten. You show something to the class and tell what it means. In terms of writing your essay, the show part includes all the details a reader needs to be able to picture what's going on with her eyes closed. The show part is all about "what." Then you tell why that thing matters to you. The tell part is all about the "so what."

So if I wanted to talk about home, I might bring in my Dodgers cap for show and tell. I would show you my Dodgers cap (the "what"). Then I would tell you why it matters (the "so what").

As you think about your essay, figure out what the main "thing" is in each paragraph. And remember, things appear in various forms. A thing could be by itself, like a Dodgers cap. It could appear in a scene, like in a photograph. Or it could appear among several other things over time, like in a video clip. Whether your thing appears in isolation, in a photo, or in a video clip doesn't matter. What matters is that you hand your reader a thing that makes her wonder, "What's this?"

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.

Essay Time Machine Horror

My dad's favorite day of the year is bulky trash day, the one Saturday morning each May the garbage trucks haul away over-sized items from the curb.

Bulky trash day, however, is but one weapon at his disposal in his war against garage clutter. Now I suspect he has enlisted a more fearful one yet: my mom.

I don't blame my dad. For years, he has been telling me, "So, JP, I have some of your boxes of old stuff. Would you like to take them?" And for years, I have been telling him, "Sure, Dad, but I don't have the SUV today" or whatever other plausible excuse I could invent.

So long as my sisters still have boxes in the garage, I am not the sole obstacle between my dad and his dream of un-clutter, and I figure my stuff is not in danger. This strategy has worked well since I graduated from Stanford. In 2001. My parents are endlessly patient. I really should go pick up those boxes.

A week ago, my mom induced me to accept one of the boxes by teasing the contents: "I found your old college applications." Great! I wanted to see the essays I wrote. I wasn't expecting much, which is fortunate, because, as you will see from UC essay, I didn't offer much. Though I couldn't find the prompt, I infer it was something like "What qualities and accomplishments do you have to offer?"

UC Berkeley

I hope two things happen when you read this essay. First, I hope you don't think any less of UC Berkeley. Back in the day, and luckily for me, admission there was based on a GPA/SAT formula. Essays didn't matter as much in the waning years of the last millenium.

Second, I hope you become convinced that an English essay is a poor template for an application essay. You can see the structure I used: intro paragraph with thesis, body paragraphs with transitions (first, second, third, fourth), and conclusion paragraph. It's clear but dull. Don't do it - there are better ways.

When you write an application essay, your predicament is not unlike that of parents trying to hand off boxes of old stuff to their kids. The recipient knows the contents are probably junk and is rightfully skeptical. Enticement is required. Creating anticipation is the whole purpose of the Organization and Paragraph sections of my ebook, The Essaywise Pyramid. If you understand the elements that make a story a story, and if you understand how an application essay paragraph differs from an English essay paragraph, then you might manage to make your reader to accept your essay with excitement, not dread.

In the meantime, I hope you  enjoy the horror. I did.

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.

How to Construct a Story

Sunday just before midnight, I drove home through the desert under a full moon rising, past the mountain silhouettes. I jabbed the seek button on my radio to find some sound and then waited in silence, save for the hum of the engine. The radio skipped over all the channels from 88.0 to 107.9 and then looped through them again, and again, like a roulette wheel not yet come to rest. And then, a clear voice, female, accented. On the empty freeway by my childhood favorite Zzyzx Road, the BBC burst into my car. The topic: Why Do We Tell Stories?" I wondered about the odds, but only briefly. After a few minutes of listening to screenwriter John Yorke describe his new book "Into the Woods," I realized I had won radio roulette. As it turns out, the "woods" occupy a central location in every story.

Before We Depart, a Word

Before we set off into the woods, let me clarify my goal. It's not to give you useless theory. It's to help you construct an appealing essay.

A good essay is like a good chair. A good chair unites function and style. Folding metal chairs excel in functionality, but there's a reason you won't find them at anyone's dining room table. Except mine, where they slide nicely beneath their cousin, the Costco folding table. A throne bejeweled and bedazzled is, arguably, stylish, though cordoned off behind the museum ropes and cautionary signs also, arguably, useless.

Your essay should be less like a folding metal chair or a throne and more like a La-Z-Boy recliner. Functional with a little style. Not too much, though.

Story Tools

When you sit down to build your La-Z-Boy essay, you'll need some tools. One of those tools is a little knowledge about what makes a story a story. That brings me back to what I heard on my desert drive on Sunday.

Yorke contends that every story consists of three parts:

1. Home. "I exist." I start at home.
2. Woods. "I confront my opposite." Something "explodes," and I venture into the woods, where I discover something.
3. Return. "I assimilate my opposite and am changed." I bring my discovery home.

He also draws a distinction between 2-dimensional stories and 3-dimensional stories:

2-D Story: Hero pursues a goal and doesn't change. For example, James Bond. 3-D Story: Hero pursues a goal, discovers (in the woods) that the initial goal is wrong, and then changes. What the hero wants is replaced by what the hero needs.

Um...So How Do I Use These Tools?

Good! Let's get to the important part: figuring out how to apply this information to your essay. When you're outlining your essay or even a paragraph of your essay, consider the following structure:

1. Home. Your ordinary world.
2. Explosion! The event that changes everything.
3. Want. The desire or goal you have right after the explosion.
4. Woods. Internal or external obstacles.
5. Need. "That's when I realized..." You discovery that what you wanted was all wrong. What you really needed was...
6. Return Home. After your new insight, you came home, and your actions and attitudes shifted.

This structure is not "The Secret" or "The Template" or "The Formula" or The Anything. It's one tool to give your essay some pizzazz. Don't make the admission officer sit in another metal folding chair. Better a La-Z-Boy.

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.