Design Surface Patterns From Scratch
Bonnie Christine
How to Write a Personal Essay
- 21 video lessons
- 5 hours and 29 minutes of class content
- Streaming access on desktop and mobile browsers
- 100% satisfaction guarantee
Bundle this class with How To Write a Full-Length Memoir and save!
How many times have you read the Modern Love column in The New York Times and thought, “Wow, I wish I could write an essay like that!” If you feel you’ve got an incredible story to tell but don’t know how to transform it into a powerful piece that can win a prized spot in the Times or another major publication, this is the class for you.
Celebrated essayist and memoirist Joyce Maynard will take you on a guided journey through the process of writing a kick-ass personal essay that will get you noticed and published.
Maynard will go through the steps of figuring out your big theme, creating a strong outline, identifying the beats of your narrative and writing a compelling column. By the end of this course, you’ll not only have an amazing essay, you’ll have a whole new skill set that will make your writing the best it’s ever been.
In this class, you’ll learn how to:
- Identify a single big idea and weave it through your narrative.
- Focus on a small event or moment to make your abstract theme concrete.
- Build an outline so you can structure your story and identify the beats.
- Figure out the stakes, conflict, discovery, transformation and redemption.
- Create interesting characters and understand their motives.
- Wander off course but not too far—and only for a good reason.
- Add cinematic elements to your story, including a climactic turning point.
- Write a concluding scene that emphasizes your final discovery.
Course Instructor
Joyce Maynard
Joyce Maynard first came to national attention with the publication of her New York Times cover story, “An Eighteen Year Old Looks Back on Life”, in 1972, when she was a freshman at Yale.
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These ways to writing an essay opened up so many of my story ideas, and I made notes to begin. This Class is great, but I need exercises. If I wrote a short essay, would it be graded, like a school class? I thought there would be more interactive work for me. Are we able to write something for review? I am a 79 year old storyteller, and over the years, people has often said I need to write a book. My response is, it would be a series of books because of all the lives I have lived. I had written about myself in detail, until the age of 20, when I ripped up all the pages. Rape will do that.
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Highly recommend this class, not only for the insights about writing and some of the technical information as to why something does or doesn’t work—but I would recommend this for anyone who loves stories. There was so much depth to the participants stories and I loved how Joyce M gently takes them apart and asks probing questions, almost like a good therapist. Well. Maybe that is what good writing is all about anyway. Facing and getting at and then writing those emotional truths as she puts it. Joyce Maynard is the queen of making that happen. Take this course.
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WOW! I love Joyce Maynard! Incredible teacher and this course will no doubt change the trajectory of my writing and my life. Thank you Joyce!
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Wonderful high points from this class for me: - Very generous analysis of one critical scene in At Home in the World - super gripping and a good scaffolding of how the scene works - Lovely and generous live critiques of her students’ work - first sentences shown on a projected screen. Maynard does a great job procuring from the students why the information is important, what the material means, how they can stretch themselves as writers. - Helping the students to identify a theme that runs throughout their stories is very actionable and is certainly something I took away from this class as I could see how one susses it out from an ordinary paragraph full of sequential events and other information. - The way Maynard shows how she categorized themes for her memoir The Best of Us was an excellent tactical show-and-tell. The pricepoint for the class, roughly $150, seems more than fair given the material, the rare and intimate looks Maynard offers on her own writing and the coaching she does for several writers in various stages of memoir writing. The course contains 25 live lessons — that’s just over $5/lesson with a master teacher. The added benefit of being able to rewatch the videos makes CreativeLive such an excellent venue and I am considering purchasing Maynard’s Personal Essay course next.
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I love how Joyce conducted this class. While I have an English degree, it's not in writing. At least, not in creative writing. That said I've always toyed with the idea of writing a personal essay, or two, which lead me to take this course. Joyce gave a lot of excellent advice on how to winnow down an idea to create a story. I love the idea of white board. I should have been doing that years ago.
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Joyce is fabulous. She has freed me from some old rules about writing. I watch everything that she does. Now I believe I can successfully write the essay that I have creatively avoided in the past. Thank you Joyce.
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This was an excellent course on so many levels. Joyce's way of imparting her knowledge with such verve and humor really captivated all of us. Ii was so thrilled to work with her one-on-one and the way she helped me develop my story via her whiteboard really helped me see how I can get started on it. She is truly inspiring and I loved her insights and guidelines.
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Very engaging and informative class. Joyce Maynard shows us how to find the gems in our story., how to brave and narrow down the themes that come up for us and much more. This class is great for all levels of writers and storytellers. Thanks to Joyce, I'm able to find new ways *in* to writing a story that means so much to me that I've avoided it.
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A wonderful, content-packed overview of writing a personal essay. The well chosen writing samples from audience members, professional writers and Joyce's own work drive home the points in a pitch perfect, concrete way. Highly recommend this course!
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Excellent, well organized class.
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Joyce is an AMAZING writer AND Teacher AND Person! Rock on, Joyce!
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