Anecdote-driven essays
My latest Writers on the Range piece (available to subscribers here) is an example of an anecdote-driven essay, a format that's proved both fun to write and popular with readers.
It strings together a bunch of little anecdotes, little stories about everyday life. The key is that they all have to be tied to a theme, and the theme has to lead to an insight people care about (in this case, what it's like to live in a small town in the 21st century).
To write an anecdote-driven piece, you have to acquire a lot of anecdotes. The only way I know how to do that is to live in a place for a long time. My first ten years in Montana, I couldn't write pieces like this. I'd have the insight. And I'd try to write essays that got there through analysis. But they'd be really boring.
It's funny: in a sense I had to unlearn much of what I learned in school. Our education system prizes analysis. And sure enough, analytic skills will help you succeed in business, medicine, or research. But analysis and storytelling come from near-opposite mindsets. And often the best thing a writer can do is tell stories.
Join the discussion at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/johnclaytonoutreach/
It strings together a bunch of little anecdotes, little stories about everyday life. The key is that they all have to be tied to a theme, and the theme has to lead to an insight people care about (in this case, what it's like to live in a small town in the 21st century).
To write an anecdote-driven piece, you have to acquire a lot of anecdotes. The only way I know how to do that is to live in a place for a long time. My first ten years in Montana, I couldn't write pieces like this. I'd have the insight. And I'd try to write essays that got there through analysis. But they'd be really boring.
It's funny: in a sense I had to unlearn much of what I learned in school. Our education system prizes analysis. And sure enough, analytic skills will help you succeed in business, medicine, or research. But analysis and storytelling come from near-opposite mindsets. And often the best thing a writer can do is tell stories.
Join the discussion at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/johnclaytonoutreach/
