Like Seinfeld, my favorite essays are about nothing (and everything)
On takeaways and life writing for Salon
I never start an essay by jotting down a thesis. I don’t turn to creative writing to make arguments. I am drawn to it to explore a feeling within a narrative.
Here’s something I recently started working on. I began with these descriptions:
the syringes of bone broth my seven-year-old son fed our dehydrated dog.
the tornado sirens that blared outside.
the bubblegum toothpaste I stepped in on the hallway’s wood floor as I carried the dog’s dead weight to the car.
the baby crying through it all, pausing only when the dog gave a small tail wag.
What is that about?
(It’s not about that time my dog almost died while I was home alone with my small children in the middle of a tornado).
Aboutness is something universal that can be drawn from the particular.
That tornado, dying dog essay? It might be about close calls. Or about everything piling on at once. Or about the peculiar synchronicity of nature.
I usually don’t know what my essays are about until I’ve written at least a full draft. And even then, I often have to hand the essay to a smart reader to help me identify what I’m trying to do.
(This person is usually a trusted writer or friend. My husband is not a writer, but he always knows what my essays are about — even when I am still unaware. For instance, he might say oh, this essay is about why are you still so mad at me — and then he laughs because he knows he’s totally right)
Once you identify what your essay is about, that becomes your thru-line. Everything in revision hangs off that particular thread. This frequently involves chopping scenes that are asides — even ones you love (kill those darlings).
I’ve never found a way to shortcut this process. Anytime I try to rigidly control the trajectory of my essay, I end up writing boring, stale work.
One major difference between popular and literary essays is the degree to which the aboutness is explicit.
When you write an essay for a popular outlet, you nearly always need a direct takeaway. The takeaway is a statement of the essay’s aboutness. The reader doesn’t infer it. The reader is explicitly told.
I’m going to be real with you: writing a direct takeaway — even when I see the necessity of it — still makes me cringe. It feels like breaking one of the first rules you learn in an intro to creative writing class, show don’t tell.
Not all essays are meant to have takeaways. This means that not all essays are meant to find homes in popular outlets.
I feel pretty certain my almost-dying-dog essay could not have a takeaway (unless I really forced it, which might be unfortunate for both me and the reader). And because of this, should I ever finish my almost-dying-dog essay, I probably wouldn’t start by pitching popular outlets. I would most likely submit it to literary journals.
My December 2022 essay for Salon’s Life Stories was originally a piece I envisioned as a literary essay — but I eventually saw that the aboutness could be made more explicit without reducing the quality of the narrative. The takeaway for my essay is explicitly stated in the hed and dek online:
The hed: You can't resolve your way through New Year's grief | Salon.com
The dek: “the year my beloved Aunt Cathy died, I resolved to stay as healthy as possible. It didn’t make losing her any easier.”
Those are my takeaways. I absolutely did not have those takeaways when I first wrote the piece.
Some backstory: in nearly every undergraduate creative writing class I took, I submitted work about beautiful women dying young.
These pieces were all about the impact my Aunt Cathy had on my life. My aunt, who I admired more than anyone in the world, died at the age of 34 from stomach cancer. She died right as I was on the cusp of becoming a woman myself, and the events surrounding her loss colored the way I viewed growing older and becoming a woman.
I’d written a number of versions of the essay I ended up publishing at Salon. None of those essays had takeaways. They were all disparate scenes I’d pulled together to capture an emotional truth. I submitted versions of this essay to a dozen lit mags — all rejections — before I decided to pitch popular outlets.
I figured out a direct takeaway for the essay — and I also tied the piece to an upcoming holiday (New Year’s Day — the day my aunt passed away).
Here’s a takeaway for writers: evaluate your creative work and see if there’s anything timely you could connect to the piece. This could be an event on the calendar, or it could be something that’s occurred in the news cycle. I connected this essay to the New Year. If I were pitching this essay today (two years after I got it published), I might be able to peg it to RFK’s “Make America Healthy Again” campaign. Think about your themes in terms of current and cyclical events and work those elements into your pitch.
At the suggestion of a writer friend, I decided to pitch Erin Keane at Salon. Salon publishes Life Stories that still veer toward literary. Here was my pitch (and I sent the full piece, too):
Dear Erin Keane,
When my young aunt died of stomach cancer on New Year's Day, I realized that youth was not some guarantee against mortal pain. The world seemed capricious, without reward for good behavior or careful living. I believed that grit could solve the problem of grief.
I hope you will consider my 1,827 word personal essay (attached and copy and pasted below), "You can't resolve your way through New Year's grief" for Salon's Life Stories.
She wrote back a week later and said that she loved it. She offered $150. The piece ran on New Year’s Eve, and I was so pleased with the editing process (and with the opportunity to include a photo of my aunt holding me as a newborn).
Writing my short pitch forced me to figure out the takeaway for my essay. After writing the pitch, I revised a few paragraphs in the piece to make sure everything hung together — but I didn’t have to make major revisions to the essay.
The takeaway was there all along — I just had to find it.
Tell me in the comments: how do you approach writing essays? Do you start with a thesis or a scene?
And ask me anything you’d like about my experience writing for Salon’s Life Stories. Thanks for reading!
This is part of a monthly series called Path to Publication.
In it, I will unpack the story behind my stories. These reflections are part process, part strategy.
There will be clear takeaways for your own creative work. I will include sample pitches, along with editors’ names and rates (at the time my published pieces went live). I’m sharing the intel I’ve gathered in the hope that it can help you place your own work.
At the beginning of 2022, I had, essentially, zero bylines. Since then (in the span of two years), I’ve published nearly 50 short essays. It’s not like I became particularly prolific. I’ve always been a writer. I just became serious about learning the tips and tricks for placing a piece in a popular outlet. And that’s what I’m looking forward to sharing with you.
Anna, I love how you start (at least in this example) with bullet points; I'm going to try that. And this line is gold: "Aboutness is something universal that can be drawn from the particular." I've understood the distinction between a mainstream and a literary essay, but I never thought about it so clearly as this: "One major difference between popular and literary essays is the degree to which the aboutness is explicit." This post is going in my "keeper" file!
Anna, I love how you break down your work so we can take away valuable lessons about your process. I always learn something from these posts and come away inspired. Thank you! I remember your Salon piece well. Such a powerful tribute.