Tips on how to improve creative writing for college essays and in general?

Parents Forum
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<p>I'm asking this query on this forum because I know there are many talented writers and academics who regularly read these threads. </p>

<p>I am a junior in HS. I can write "non-personal" items. Obviously there are areas where I can improve but I don't have a problem actually putting my thoughts to paper. </p>

<p>However, when I am asked to write "personal" pieces, I immediately get this mental block and as a result, my writing comes out as stilted and robotic. It sucks because that's not who I really am -- I am emotional and sensitive, perhaps too much so. I just can't communicate those feelings in writing.</p>

<p>I love to read; however, there is hardly anytime left for me nowadays. When I was younger, I read everything I could get my hands on. I think the written word is a very important art form. </p>

<p>This is rather frustrating for me and I would greatly appreciate it if any of you have suggestions on exercises or books. While I care about this in terms of college, it's also irritating for me on a personal level to not be able to "say" what I mean. Thank you so much! :)</p>

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<p>You have to step out of the quagmire of personaly insecurity which is the life of the high school student. Face your flaws and admit they exist. Admit that you’re not perfect and learn to laugh at yourself. Once you do, you can write about personal truth with humor and courage. GL</p>

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<p>Thanks sosomenza for the comment. That is a good point. I know I am silly and do stupid things pretty often; maybe it will be good for me to try and look at that idiosyncratic behaviour objectively and laugh at it. </p>

<p>That being said, my “block” is not restricted to writing about my experiences, only. Sometimes I am greatly affected by a book or movie or something and I can’t put those thoughts or feelings into words, either. Maybe it’s just because I’m a dramatic, over-emotional teenager :slight_smile: . </p>

<p>Obviously I can’t become a Dostovetsky or Fitzgerald or even just a decent writer overnight but I definitely want to improve in this “area” to the best of my ability!</p>

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<p>I recommend this book by Harry Bauld, On Writing the College Application Essay.</p>

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<p>This advice doesn’t apply to college essays, necessarily, but if you just want to improve your ability to write personal essays generally I think a good, fun way to do this is to listen to the Moth podcast. It is a storytelling podcast where the participants tell stories live without notes. After listening to a bunch of them you will get a good sense of what works in telling personal stories and you will likely think of anecdotes from your own life that would make a good story. It’s also really fun to hold your own “Moth” nights where a group of friends or family members get together to take turns telling stories in a formal manner. </p>

<p>The other, more obvious advice is to read as many personal essays as you can and pay attention to how the authors use detail. David Sedaris’ books are a good place to start</p>

<p>Again, none of this advice really applies to college essays, which really are their own genre.</p>

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<p>Op,
Usually a good college app essay tends to fall under the writing style of creative non fiction writing style whereas most HS essays tend to all under analytical or research type of essays. So it’s difficult for many unless they have had a class in this this style of writing.</p>

<p>I agree with the book above by Bauld. Another book that was pretty good is
[The</a> College Application Essay: All-New Fifth Edition:Amazon:Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0874479878/ref=mp_s_a_1?qid=1365140245&sr=8-1&pi=SL75]The”>http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0874479878/ref=mp_s_a_1?qid=1365140245&sr=8-1&pi=SL75)
Although I don’t like it as much as Bauld because it still has some analysis in the writing, which I personally don’t like to read as much. But readers’ tastes vary.</p>

<p>The best way to start is to just journal and brain storm. Thoughts, images, rambling.
Agree with another poster about reading similar style of writing like Sedaris “dress your kids in corduroy and denim.” You might consider taking a creative NF class on-line. Your creative NF essays explore people, places, and memoirs and often can be used as a basis for your college app essay.</p>

<p>Remember that the adcoms have to read 30-50 essays per day. Thus, it has to be a fairly quick read and fairly entertaining at some level (not necessarily funny, but interesting or intriguing). Also deep philosophical ideas, convoluted sentences or similes to other styles of writing just get too hard to wade through. A thin slice of life with vivid details is what works best. And it does not need to be tied up with a platitude at the end.</p>

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<p>I have worked with some students, facilitating their essay-writing for applications, and the biggest problem I see is that students try too hard to be “creative.” It is much better to stop thinking about how to write something impressive and unique, and just write in an honest, simple, straightforward manner.</p>

<p>One suggestion I have is to go back and look at photographs of childhood, or writings, particularly autobiographical, that you wrote in school over the years. For some reason, this kind of focus on memories has inspired all 3 of my kids’ essays.</p>

<p>You do not have to write anything dramatic. Sometimes writing about something very ordinary will work best.</p>

<p>Most of all, relax. Easy to say, but really, the essay is not usually a huge factor in admissions. Pretend someone is asking you the question, in person, and you are just writing an answer, conversationally. Focus on the goal of telling something about yourself, not wowing the admissions folks.</p>

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<p>You’ve received good advice. I would add, though, that you should read for pleasure. You are a different person now than you were in middle school. Visit the library. Choose a book you’d like to read from the adult section. If you search the web for “personal essays collection,” you’ll find lists of books you might like to read. Most personal essays published by established writers are short enough to fit into a busy schedule.</p>

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<p>Thanks everyone for the thoughts. I guess I want to get better at writing the college essay types of essays but also the more introspective types. I have lots of thoughts and lots of ideas and I just can’t make them work on paper. </p>

<p>@nottelling, I will certainly check out the Moth podcast. It sounds cool - I tried the premise out just now and its way tougher than it sounds. I will check out David Sedaris.</p>

<p>@sacchi, I have heard many people recommend that book. I don’t think it’s sold in stores here, so I will try Amazon.</p>

<p>@YoHo, that’s an intriguing idea for the online class. Do you have any recommendations? The only one I’m familiar with is CTY and I think I’m on my last eligible year. I get what you’re saying about the convoluted-ness and keeping it simple. I have a tendency to like convoluted writing styles a la “Mary Shelley”/ romantic era style of writing more than concise forms – it sounds so elegant. Maybe I can experiment with that on non college essay works, lol.</p>

<p>@compmom, that’s a good point. I’ve had people tell me just go with the “stream of consciousness” and edit afterwards. I guess in a sense, my mind and thoughts are not really organized, so that can be hard for me to run with. Unfortunately, I think I’m not in a position to take any part of my app “easy” as I’m coming from a disadvantaged admissions standpoint already. I think I saw some CC poster (JHS?) who wrote: 80% of essays are mediocre, 10% are truly terrible and 10% are actually good. </p>

<p>I guess it’s tough to understand what I should write about – why I’m passionate about my main EC and how its impacted me? How moving affected me? How I feel re: current affairs? How being part of a Diaspora has changed my life? </p>

<p>I don’t know what to say about myself or tell about myself that would make an unknown person like me because I don’t know who “myself” actually is. Like, I do feel very passionate about my EC or my policy positions or whatever because of various reasons, but it’s hard to explain that without being overly cliche. I don’t know… am I just overthinking this? I don’t really know. </p>

<p>@Periwinkle, that’s a good point. I will check some out. I read fiction and historical books when I can but the problem with me is that when I get into a book, I don’t want to stop which is no good when you have mountains of HW :frowning: . That being said, I’ll definitely try that.</p>

<p>Thanks so much, again! I really appreciate your advice. I’ll try some of the tips and let you all know how it works out.</p>

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<p>Great advice!</p>

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<p>To clarify my previous ramble: How does one select a “fragment” of his or her life to elucidate? Should you pick what made you who you are, even if it’s cliche? Or is the trick in writing it in a non-cliche manner?</p>

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<p>I think the trick is in writing in a non-cliche manner, but if you have something a little different it doesn’t hurt. My younger son started one essay with a discription of his ten year old self bored to tears at a museum devoted to paper in Japan, then went on to talk about how he later got interested in origami. He ended saying that while he would enjoy the museum much more now, he’s pretty sure he’d still want to leave long before his Mom did. Most of the essay was about learning to teach himself a skill and then teaching it to others, but it had this funny little self deprecating humor to finish it off.</p>

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<p>"I don’t know what to say about myself or tell about myself that would make an unknown person like me because I don’t know who “myself” actually is. Like, I do feel very passionate about my EC or my policy positions or whatever because of various reasons, but it’s hard to explain that without being overly cliche. I don’t know… am I just overthinking this? I don’t really know. "</p>

<p>This is the perfect example of what NOT to do. Everyone thinks that the essay has to be about some

  1. deep subject
  2. an epiphany
  3. a passion
  4. proving some “desirable” trait
  5. some life lesson
    IT DOES NOT.
    Because kids (and adults) think that it has to be some grandiose theme and because most kids have not had grandiose life experiences, the essays often tend to be carbon copies of each other (which is the point of Bauld’s book “On writing the college app essay”). (e.g. hard work and winning the game taught me the value of teamwork! Volunteering in foreign country was so “foreign” at first, but I learned that deep down, people are a similar and we like to connect with each other! My room says a lot about me…!)</p>

<p>It doesn’t have to be about something you are “Passionate” about, if you are not passionate about anything. You might not not even have the “answer” about the topic that you are talking about, but it’s good to explore it etc.</p>

<p>DD essay was what it was like to like in a 2-working parent household. She didn’t look at it analytically, but just described what it felt like and what it took to get thru a day. There are tons of kids who are raised in a 2 -working parent household. It’s so common, that as a kid, you might not realize that it does affect who you are and how you think.<br>
If you, as a kid, work, this affects you. If you take the bus, instead of get driven somewhere it affects you. Think small. These small things have been internalized by you; but they make you you!</p>

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<p>Off the top of my head, here are a couple tips for improving writing in general:

  1. use active rather than passive language (e.g., “is”)
  2. gradually increase your vocabulary. Those word-a-day calendars are useful.</p>
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<p>Op,
As for Creative writing NF, yes, I know that JHU CTY has one. There also may be one at your HS or nearby CC?</p>

<p>"I don’t know what to say about myself or tell about myself that would make an unknown person like me because I don’t know who “myself” actually is. "</p>

<p>You don’t have to get them to like you. You have to have them making through your essay without falling asleep or resorting to skimming.</p>

<p>And convoluted writing style will put the adcoms to sleep. Could you read 50 of these in 1 night? Ugh!</p>

<p>The fact that you can’t express your thoughts on, say, a movie that you recently saw, will make your writing more difficult. Just sit in a busy area, notice all of the sights, sounds, smells, and feeling and write about every thing that is affecting your senses. then try to see if you can capture just a small part of that in your writing. Read it back. By reading it, do you feel like you were there. You could also try to journal every day. It would help your fluency in thoughts and writing. Others have told you to write in “stream of consciousness”. Why haven’t you done that yet?</p>

<p>Lastly, the essay is very important at lottery type of schools where the stats are so clustered at the top end. For the majority of schools, it doesn’t really matter.</p>

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<p>Worry not - you are probably in good company. My own bright kids had the same trouble writing essays about themselves. After a few years of reading CC, it may be more common that I realized. </p>

<p>Hang in there!</p>

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<p>I teach literature, intellectual history, composition, and creative writing. I write fiction, creative non-fiction and poetry, and even occasionally publish some of it.</p>

<p>I tell all students the same thing: a writer has only two obligations. One obligation is to have something to say; the other is to say it clearly.</p>

<p>Once you’ve decided on what you want to see, just express yourself clearly and don’t worry about style. Every person has his/her own style, and this should develop naturally and not be forced or stilted.</p>

<p>If your a scientific person, a great essay can be based on facts and statistics provided they are put in service of something you want to say about yourself.</p>

<p>Brian Doyle began the most beautiful essay, “Joyas Voladoras,” with the words, “Consider the hummingbird.” We lists about 50 different varieties of hummingbirds, talked about their hearts, their physical frailties and then made a stunning point when he insisted, “We all churn inside.” He segued from hummingbirds and whales to the poignant life of human beings without every showing off or worrying about style, I wager.</p>

<p>Be yourself.</p>

<p>When my son was worried about college essays he asked me what to write about. I’m glad I didn’t steer him in any direction. All I said was, “Write about what you love.” He challenged me. “So, I love Star Wars the most. Maybe I’ll just write about that.” I told him to go for it, and he did! He had some very gratifying acceptances, including his dream school.</p>

<p>My daughter’s college essay began, “I am a dork.”</p>

<p>Play to your strengths as a writer and don’t worry about it.</p>

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<p>Op,
I found this link, but haven’t read things in it. Maybe it will help? On the last page, there is an “ask the dean” link as well</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/summer-programs/645318-creative-writing-summer-programs-35.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/summer-programs/645318-creative-writing-summer-programs-35.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;