On Essays – Notes from a class by Alexander Chee

From an afternoon spent talking about writing fiction and essays, these are some of the thoughts that held with me. There are many ways to write essays, many forms, and as such there is no right or wrong way. In my opinion that is. Here then are some questions and suggestions to help you as you write your own.

• Research your home town, when was it founded? Why? Famous for? Population? Changes in demographic? Architecture?
• Your life in that town was within the life of that town, they affect each other
• Context, know the context of each essay, story
• Place your experiences within the historical context of place and time
• Treat yourself as a subject, step outside and look from that perspective
• Forensics of self: dig deep, ask others, interview people from that time or event
• Memory is shaped by words so look for emails and letters you wrote at the time
• How much do you want to open up and risk in the essay?
• What are your obsessions?
• Are you writing about what you read about? Are passionate about?
• Examine your verb choices, circle them, make them dynamic, specific, detailed
• Write in response to what you search online
• Write in response to your dreams
• What moves you? Angers you? Delights?
• You will unconsciously know what form it will take on the page, trust the essay and subject
• Read things that will explode your sense of possibility
• Don’t hold back.
• Dialogue, sit in a café and write down verbatim random conversations to notice the variety of rhythms, cadences, syntax unique to each person
• Face your inner critic, deal with it, and carry on.
• Trust yourself. Write.