I hate writing essays. In fact, I dread writing essays. I don’t hate the essays themselves. I enjoy reading essays. And I enjoy the final product of an essay I’ve written. It’s the process that I can’t stand.
As Paul Graham notes in his article ‘The Age of the Essay’, we are almost forced to hate writing essays from our high school days. The subjects were irrelevant and outdated and often would result in a final piece that would be a mere imitation of an English professor’s work. The formulaic manner in which we are taught to write them is also enough in itself to make the brain bleed.
I, still, am a serial offender of formulaic essay writing. I plan like crazy and need to know exactly what I am writing about before I start my introductory paragraph. I am bound by structure – Introduction, paragraph, paragraph, paragraph, conclusion, which each paragraph containing a number of supporting arguments, and the conclusion re-writing the introduction.
This is going to stop now. Paul Graham’s piece has opened my eyes to how I should really be writing.
Graham suggests that (unlike we are told) an essay is not about forming an argument. WHAT? An essay should instead, ask a question, and answer it, to search and find truth. And, simply, tell the reader something he didn’t already know.
The paragraph, ‘The River’ stood out above the rest. Here, he conpares writing an essay to The Meander River in turkey. At each step, flow down – flow interesting. Know GENERALLY what to write about, but let the ideas take their course from paragraph to paragraph. And, although this may not always work, when running against a wall, backtrack, as a river would do. This part in particular rendered a paradigm shift.
I look forward to taking this, as well as Graham’s other points and advice into consideration and practice when I take on my next essay. If this helps to make the essay writing process even the slightest bit less strenuous, this reading has been entirely worth it.
