The Intersection of the Personal and Professional, or, Why My Attempts at Nonfiction Essays in Grad School Bombed
June 5, 2008 by J.C. Hewitt
Article by Tom Johnson
Literary nonfiction gets its energy, Richard Locke says, from the intersection of the personal and professional. The tension and appeal of literary nonfiction comes from the interplay between the writer’s personal experiences and the topic he or she is exploring.
Richard Locke headed the Literary Nonfiction Writing program at Columbia while I was there. As a creative writing student, I’d get all jazzed up about the infusion of personal elements into an essay. These personal elements breathed life into essay topics; they made otherwise boring subjects come alive.
I used to read personal essayists like Philip Lopate, Joseph Epstein, and Ian Frazier with reverence and awe. They perfected the art of carefully weaving personal experiences into the subjects they explored. They gave us glimpses into their lives. Their authentic voice was transparent, and showed meaning for why the topic truly mattered.
Last week I watched Scott Abel, who usually writes professional articles on his site, jump into the personal essay form. I’d criticized him in the past for avoiding the first person. Finally he published an article that had a much more personal style. The main focus was still on a professional topic (helping clients find what they need), but he integrated aspects of his personal life (finding what he needs in relationships) to give the topic more depth.
It was a big shift in his writing style. A number of readers left praising comments like -
- “I enjoyed the way you wove together the personal and professional stories so seamlessly.” (Lisa)
- ” It was a nice change of pace to read about your struggles and personal challenges.” (Chip Gettinger)
- “A little transparency about your background and experiences can go a long way.” (Anne Gentle)
For someone who avoided personal opinions and experiences in his writing, this shift was refreshing and welcome, especially amid the dry content management articles.
In grad school, I tried integrating my own experiences and viewpoints into my essays, but – like many aspiring nonfiction writers – I failed because I lacked substance. I didn’t have a professional framework other than my own life to apply a personal lens. As such, I often created memoir essays that had narrative arc and strong images, but in the end were boring, navel-gazing, and superficial.
I didn’t realize that the tension of literary nonfiction comes from the interplay between the personal and the professional. Overdo one or the other – especially the personal – and the essay falls flat.
Without professional substance, an essay lacks force and is empty. It can’t keep readers around too long. This is why someone like Oliver Sacks, who is a neurologist first and an nonfiction essayist second, finds so much success. And it’s why writers like Scott Abel, who focus mainly on professional topics, can pull off a successful essay with just a few simple personal flourishes.
Balance is what’s key. Scott Barney, commenting on Scott Abel’s article, summed it up best when he said:
“At the end of the day it is the personalities of the blog that cause me to return with any frequency. Having said that, I’m still looking for substance over style. As long as the postings continue to have valid content, I will be happy – personality-infused or not.”
In other words, make sure the substance is there first. With that in place, most readers will welcome the personal style.
If you are set on infusing personal elements into your nonfiction essays (or blog posts), exactly how do you go about it? When do you integrate the personal elements? How do you know if you’ve gone overboard, or haven’t done enough? Can you jump back and forth between personal and professional, or should you keep them in clearly different sections?
My answer is that it comes naturally if you begin with substance first. If you set out to explore a topic for the purpose of the topic itself (rather than as a device for injecting your own experiences), your own point of view naturally fills in the right gaps, naturally oozes into the right spaces of the essay. And when you add the personal – often subtly and in small amounts – it ignites what would otherwise put readers to sleep.
——————————
Tom Johnson has a blog and podcast on technical communication at www.idratherbewriting.com.
Related links
- Wrap Your Naked Statistics in a Warm Blanket of Meaning (0.500)
- Looking for Guest Bloggers -- $250 Prize (0.011)
- Site Update With Gusto (0.011)
- Tuesday Mini-Rants (0.011)
- Why PoeWar? (0.011)
Tom,
Thank you for a thought-provoking article. The balance you describe is important and delicate – and sometimes difficult to achieve.
Tom,
I really like your emphasis on balancing the personal and professional elements of one’s writing. You may be aware of the recent New York Times essay by Emily Gould (”Exposed”) and the concept of “oversharing” or “TMI (too much information).” You articulate why I have such a difficult time with writers who overshare: “I failed because I lacked substance. I didn’t have a professional framework other than my own life to apply a personal lens. As such, I often created memoir essays that had narrative arc and strong images, but in the end were boring, navel-gazing, and superficial.” You explain why, although I enjoyed Emily Gould’s writing, at the end of her article I felt like I had just binged on empty calories.
Years ago, in grad school, I had the opposite experience as yourself. For an article workshop, I wrote a book review on Lyndall Gordon’s biography of Virginia Woolf. I wrote in the typical academic, third-person style. I was quite proud of my essay until I saw the faces of my writing group the day they were to critique it. To my surprise, their biggest complaint was that I had left myself out of the essay. They wanted to know how I felt about the biography. (They were very courteous and took great pains not to say that they found the essay boring.)
I was devastated (I was also a mere master’s students and these were doctoral students), but I had to revise the essay in order to complete my assignment. I essentially rewrote it until the essay began with my musings on the concept of madness. The revised essay was a hit with my class and it was eventually published in a literary journal. I learned a great lesson that day, the same lesson that you offer with your article. The injection of myself in the book review let my readers know why the biography was so important to me, but the substance of my essay was still the biography, not my life.
Sorry for such a long comment, Tom, but you really provoked a lot of memories for me with your post. I really enjoyed reading it. Thank you for sharing your insights!
Marie Ann Baileys last blog post..Secrets to Successful Essay Writing
@ Tom, nice article. Between yours and Jeanne’s posts, I am getting some great tips on preparing my essay for the contest.
@ Marie, we discussed the same thing in a recent grad class of mine. Sometimes it can be hard figuring out how much of yourself to include in an academically -oriented article or paper and, of course, a lot depends on the professor and the discipline.
Morgans last blog post..To Paula Gunn Allen
[...] I’m writing to ask you, my dear readers, to go check out Dick’s guest post at Poewar.com. Dick, inexplicably writing under the name Tom Johnson, has a heartfelt exploration [...]
Tom, I finally figured out why my “What Belongs on a Blog, indexed” doesn’t fit your personal v. professional dynamic. What does it say about me that my “professional” is the personal work of mothering? There the only tension is between what should remain private and what can be made public. Are you saying I’m boring? (Am I admitting that?).
[...] guest blogger at the Writer’s Resource Center, Tom Johnson, offers a provocative post on balancing personal with professional content in nonfiction writing. On one extreme, there is [...]
I’m a mommy blogger (very proud of that title) who has to agree with Jane – when you’re blogging your viewpoints on life as a modern mom, it can be very difficult to find that balancing point between what is personal and what is public.
Overshare, and you’ll likely offend some readers as well as overstep the bounds of privacy for others in your life.
But if you hold back too much, your writing lacks an authentic voice of someone who’s been in the trenches of toddlerhood and lived to tell the tale.
The best writers – whether non-fiction or fiction – have an underlying resonance of truthfulness to their work.
Nice post!
[...] wrote a guest post at Poewar.com titled “The Intersection of the Personal and Professional, or, Why My Attempts at Nonfiction Essays in Grad ….” I described one of most significant things I learned at my nonfiction writing program at [...]
Tom, your post reminded me of a related concept that I think is an important key to interesting writing: “climbing and descending the ladder of abstractions.” (I wish I remember where I heard that phrase–maybe college?) Much in the way you aspire to appropriately balance the professional/substance with personal/experience, I find that great writers balance abstract ideas with concrete images. In a lot of ways, the “abstract” is related to what you describe as “substance,” while the “concrete” parallels what you term “personal.” Often, the core of a piece of interesting writing is abstract, but the author illustrates it with concrete images and sensory language–stylized descriptions, personal experiences, etc. I find that I get lost (in a despairing, overwhelmed way), in writing that is merely a collage of witticisms and cleverly paired words bound at the seams only by a thesis that amounts to the author’s excuse for writing. I once read a blog post that was very clever, full of fantastic images–almost intoxicating. But I couldn’t quite figure out what the author was talking about; it left me wondering if I simply wasn’t smart enough to understand (which is a legitimate possibility) or if the piece was lacking in substance.
When it comes to mommy bloggers, perhaps the issue is more appropriately labeled one of balancing the abstract with the concrete since it’s difficult to distinguish between the personal and the professional?
What thoughtful thoughts you have! I find your article very thought-provoking. It made me think. No really. I’ve been thinking lately about how I can become a more personal professional, and a more professional person.
Tom,
Excellent piece! Balance is so important! If we lean too much toward the professional, our work can be sterile, clinical, and dry. By the same token, leaning too much toward the personal can severely limit the usefulness and applicability of our content to a wider audience.
But, once we’ve managed to achieve that almost-magical balance–that professionalism with a personal touch–our work can really come alive. When we write in this manner, we not only convey valuable information that’s relevant to our readers, but we do so in a manner that’s engaging enough to capture their imaginations, helping them thoroughly enjoy the journey to greater knowledge.
This is the highest aspiration of the essayist!
Thanks for a very insightful post!
Jeanne
Marie Ann, thanks for the insightful comment. I can recall reading some essays that I thought were good in substance, but lacked the personal element, and so didn’t have the appeal and power that they could have had. Thanks for reminding me of that with your comment. It is really an art to find just the right balance.
Jane,
When you say that your “professional” is ” the personal work of mothering,” I don’t entirely agree. I could start a blog on mothering/motherhood that was dry and academic, without revealing any personal experiences. I think mothering is a topic in and of itself that doesn’t require any injection of the personal.
But you’re right — the focus on the personal does seem to blend in and come more naturally for a mommy blog than with other topics. Still, it doesn’t have to.
By the way, I think you do a perfect job of balancing the two. Your blog is simply awesome to read. I also like the touch with the pseudonyms because it does give you some distance with the personal.
One of these days a smart literary agent is going to realize that she should sign you up for a book contract.
Tom Johnsons last blog post..My First Guest Post — And Best Writing Tip
Marianne,
Thanks for commenting on my article. I agree with you that it is harder for mommy bloggers to separate the personal from the professional. The emphasis one way or the other really depends on what the audience wants to read. If a mommy blogger leans too heavily on the personal, I might find the details too scrapbook-like.
Tom Johnsons last blog post..My First Guest Post — And Best Writing Tip
Carolina, your comment is truly brilliant. Thanks for making that connection with the abstract/concrete. I wholeheartedly agree with you. You just took this entire discussion to the next level.
Tom Johnsons last blog post..My First Guest Post — And Best Writing Tip
Karin, thanks for leaving a comment. I like your turn of phrase — “personal professional, and a more professional person.” Nice.
Tom Johnsons last blog post..My First Guest Post — And Best Writing Tip
Spot on, as the Brits say!
I’ve been professional. I’ve been personal. I’ve held granddaughters in my arms. Give me the personal any time.
Tom, I’m glad your twhirl sent me here. I’m still trying to find my own voice that sets my blog apart from all the great ones out there. Your insight in this essay shows me I need to review each of my posts and determine if there’s an appropriate balance of the “personal” and “professional” me. So far I’ve written mostly personal posts with a light touch of professional thrown in. Very light.
@ mommy bloggers: I salute you all, regardless of how personal or professional you write it. You could write your blog as a how-to guide to parenting, but I’d rather join in your trials and frustrations than read about only the techniques that worked. I already own enough parenting books that think they know all that.
An anecdote about infusing “personal” style into my work writing, for instance, when documenting API references, or hardware/software design guides: I’m reminded of a recent application note I edited where the author wrote: “When the gc command blanks your screen before it returns you to the ‘#’ prompt, don’t worry….” After this talk about making things personal, I regret editing it out.
Tony Chungs last blog post..In adequacy
Great article, Tom. A touch of personal, the best way to entice this reader back to the same writer.
The Intersection of the Personal and Professional, or, Why My Attempts at Nonfiction Essays in Grad School Bombed : PoeWar.com Writer’s Resource Center…
This article perfectly explains what is at the heart of writing an appealing blog post or essay — learning to balance the personal/private with the professional/public….
Tom, thank you for your article–as someone who bombed in pedagologic writing (at least with a certain professor) in grad school, I can definitely empathize. However, I have found that my writing improved the more personal I got and the less academic (or professional), so to speak. Of course, that’s only my opinion, but perhaps it’s because I’m not in academe and because my chosen profession (editor first, writer second) already has an embarrassment of riches in terms of excellent writer-editors, to the point that it’s “why write about dangling modifiers when Bill Walsh (or William Safire or…) already does it much better!” I guess I’m really just echoing what Grampa said earlier regarding his preference for the personal. Or perhaps it’s because I started out in academe and moved into more personal writing?
I guess you kind of have to look at it in terms of your audience, too. Can I write an academic essay? Well, if hard-pressed, I could brush up on it and come up with something. Do I think a professional approach reaches more people than does a personal one? Depends on the audience, but in general I don’t think so. It’s the writing, which I think is what you’re getting at, that transcends the professional and moves into the personal that really remains with a person throughout his or her life.
Far fewer people will share my interest in T.S. Eliot’s “wrestle with words” (master’s thesis topic) than, I think, would be able to empathize with my struggle to soothe my infant daughter as her two, tiny front teeth erupt through tender gums.
That said, I can certainly see your point about wedding the two. As I said, it all depends on the audience and where you intend to go with the essay. And I’ve been out of college for so many years now, it’s very possible I’ve completely misinterpreted your essay; if that’s the case, my apologies.
Oh, just wanted to briefly respond to Carolina’s comments. I tend to go in the opposite direction. The writing I like some people (maybe a lot of people) would find too stuffy, too boring, too academic or “erudite” maybe. I can certainly understand what you mean–that maybe somebody is dancing around with his words saying “look at me” to flaunt his or her supposed brilliance. I guess it all comes down to personal preference and where we draw the line of separation. On one hand, I don’t like writing to be dumbed-down for me; I adore rising above the precious little that I know and trying to learn something I don’t (whether it means picking up a Roget’s thesaurus or Dorland’s medical dictionary). I just naturally like puzzles, ferreting out tough writing (well, what most people, I think, would consider difficult; I know I do!) by the likes of James Joyce, Faulkner, Eliot, and so on. However, at the same time, I certainly can become bored by the rigors of reading something incredibly difficult–just an unflattering impatience in me as a human being. I think it comes down to what your preference is in terms of writing: not necessarily a concrete vs. abstract battle but maybe even genre and/or school of writing or even subject matter. But what you hint at is spot on, Carolina; in the wrong hands, difficult writing is a nightmarish, poorly contrived collage of high-fallutin’ witticisms, half-hearted poetry, and so on.
A fine essay, Tom. Thanks for sharing it with us!
The Intersection of the Personal and Professional, or, Why My Attempts at Nonfiction Essays in Grad School Bombed : PoeWar.com Writer’s Resource Center…
I wrote this guest post for Poewar.com. While it’s one of my best writing tips ever (balancing the personal and professional in your writing), I’m really hoping tons of people click the link so that I win the most-trafficked guest post contest and ge…
Tom,
Thank you again for contributing this article. I wish you the best of luck with White River. I hope it grows into a tremendous resource.
Hey, you have a great blog here! I’m definitely going to bookmark you! Thank you for your info.And this is bookmark site / Blog. It pretty much covers bookmark related stuff.