Crafting the Personal Essay: A Guide for Writing and Publishing Creative Nonfiction, by Dinty W. Moore, is about exactly what the title suggests—writing personal essays. Moore takes his readers through the many different kinds of personal essays—including memoir essays, contemplative essays, lyric essays, spiritual essays, gastronomical essays, humorous essays, nature essays and travel essays.
Not only that, but at the end of the book, Moore includes a section on reaching readers, establishing a regular writing routine, blogging, overcoming writer’s block and how to revise and why.
I enjoyed the examples that Moore wove into his instruction—examples from people like Virginia Woolf, Phillip Lopate, Henry David Thoreau and many more, including himself. Moore also provided a huge list of prompts that were included at the end of every section detailing what elements the specific types of essays should contain and that were also sprinkled throughout every section of the book.
I found those prompts one of the most helpful features of the book, because I’m brainstorming some essay books, and, eventually, I’ll come back to those prompts.
Moore also provided a list of resources in the back of the book, including paying magazines and publishers of personal essays, which, for those who are interested in making money off their writing—not much, of course—is a valuable addition to any instruction book. He also provides a list of essay books to read, which I’ll be checking out in the coming months—because improving your writing doesn’t just happen by reading instructional books. It happens by reading the type of writing you want to do. This book list was, by itself, incredibly helpful, because many books in today’s market are mistakenly categorized as essay books, when they’re really just regular old nonfiction books.
While I think this book was probably written as a guide for beginners in the world of personal essay, those who, like me, have spent a lot of time writing personal essays can still take away some tweaks to their process that will improve writing considerably. I’ll be applying all of the tweaks that I jotted down in my notes so that I can hone my process and write to the best of my abilities.
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