Analyze what works and what doesn’t and determine why the author was able to catch an editor’s attention.

Here are some reflection questions to consider when reading a personal essay:

• Why does the piece speak to you?
• Why did you read all the way to the end?
• How did you walk away from the essay a little bit different than you did before you came into it?

Then dissect every paragraph, every sentence, every word and apply what you’ve learned to your own work.

6 Excellent Personal Narrative Examples 

While there are fantastic examples of stellar essays lurking in nearly every corner of the Internet—and I’m thinking beyond the usual suspects like The New York Times, Oprah and The Washington Post—when I teach my personal essay writing course, I frequently turn to the following examples for the reasons cited below.

Here are six must-read personal narrative essay examples.

1. The Fateful Discovery a Woman Made After the Sudden Death of Her Infant Child by Rebecca Gummere

Few essays have gutted me to the same degree as Rebecca Gummere’s essay in O, The Oprah Magazine. This is an example of a powerful story—one that is truly unique—and that’s what kept me reading.

Admittedly, when I read the first two paragraphs of the story, I glazed over. But Gummere used metaphor beautifully, with passages like, “the multiplying cells begin a right-looping arc, developing in the form of a spiral, as would a rose, or a seashell, or a galaxy.” She also uses dialogue that provides just the right pacing, intermixed with those brilliant metaphors:

“Are you ready?” asks the pathologist.

I nod, making a chalice of my hands, and he reaches down into the plastic bucket and lifts my son’s heart and lungs out of the water. I feel a slight weight, as if I am holding a kitten or a bird.

I blink and the world turns sideways beneath me.

In the paragraphs that follow, she describes her experience, quite literally blow by blow (and I typically avoid clichés; you always should in your writing). The pacing pulls the reader in to the point where it’s impossible to look away. That is good writing. That is putting the reader in a scene with you. That is how you sell an essay.

There are many other passages I yearn to share, but alas, I don’t want to give too much away. This is an essay you should experience in the moment with the author, just as I did the first time I read it.

2. In Marriage, Beware of Big Boxes by Cindy Chupack

For me, this is a “Modern Love” column favorite. And yes, there are many when it comes to Modern Love submissions. In fact, two of the essays I’m providing as samples appeared in The New York Times’ “Modern Love” column. The opening declares a truism that many are afraid to utter aloud:

In any marriage, even the best marriage, there will come a day when you wonder why you married this person…This handsome, tuxedoed man is publicly binding his life to yours, and you think, ‘It would have to snow inside my house before I would ever feel anything but love for this man.’

Well, it snowed inside my house.

Cindy Chupack’s writing is witty, concise and laugh-out-loud funny at times. It’s also honest. Equally important, nearly every woman who has been married to a romantic can find herself inside that story.

Admittedly, while I read this essay, I was thinking more about my parents’ marriage than my own (my hubby’s gift-giving style is decidedly understated), but the point is, there are universal themes scattered throughout this essay. It boils down to this: Snow, even inside your house, can be quite beautiful.

3. Mother Rage: Theory and Practice by Anne Lamott

I had a hard time reading this essay. I wanted to look away, to deny Anne Lamott’s experience, to pretend I can’t relate. But then, I had to press pause and bow down. Lamott’s bravery in this piece, well, it’s almost unparalleled.

After all, it takes guts to admit this:

One reason I think we get so angry mad at our children is because we can.

Who else can you talk to like this? Can you imagine hissing at your partner,

“You get off the phone NOW! No, NOT in five minutes …”? Or saying to a

friend, “You get over here right this second! And the longer you make me

wait, the worse it’s going to be for you.” Or, while talking to a salesman at

Sear’s who happens to pick up the ringing phone, grabbing his arm too hard and

shouting, “Don’t you DARE answer the phone when I’m talking to you.“

 But underneath the fear I keep finding resiliency, forgiveness, even grace.

This essay is more of a rant or even a journal entry than a personal essay, but it works because it’s real. It works because her readers see themselves in her words. It works because she doesn’t shy away from the shame or the pain—and she invites her readers to do the same. 

4. Your Brain’s Response to Your Ex According to Neuroscience by Amy Paturel (Me)

I frequently share this essay as an example of a reported essay, not because I wrote it, but because my editor said it was a monthly traffic top 10 for Discover Magazine.

The reason: People can relate to it—and there are scientific reasons behind our shared experiences.

Seeing him instantly reactivated the networks my mind encoded 15 years before. Throw a bear hug into the mix—and the accompanying flood of oxytocin—and that old brain circuitry lit up like fireworks. Justin Garcia, the associate director for research and education at the Kinsey Institute, says that’s no surprise. Just like a recovering alcoholic craving a drink after decades of sobriety, we can still be drawn to an old lover.

“It doesn’t mean you still want to be with that person,” he says. “It doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you. It means there’s a complex physiology associated with romantic attachments that probably stays with us for most of our lives—and that’s not something to be afraid of, particularly if you had a great run.”

In a sense, this piece gave readers permission to feel all the feels with a former lover, even if there are good reasons why the flame stopped burning.

5. Connecting My Children to Their Heritage in Mandarin by Connie Chang

In this piece, Connie Chang transports us into her experience as both a child and a parent, in part by sharing specific details.

As the daughter of first-generation Chinese immigrants, Chang brilliantly explains what it was like to straddle two worlds—the one that her parents emigrated from and the one where she landed as a young girl. 

The message was clear in the media and popular culture of the 1980s: It was better to speak English, exclusively and without an accent; to replace thermoses of dumplings with hamburgers. My father’s college classmate, also a Chinese immigrant, proudly boasted that his kids knew no Mandarin, a claim confirmed when his son butchered the pronunciation of his own name while my parents looked on with unconcealed horror.

The piece is rife with conflict. Chang not only shares her experiences as a young Asian girl trying to assimilate to American life, but also as a parent who wants to preserve her Chinese heritage for her children. The kicker: She realizes how little she remembers of her once native Mandarin.

Throughout the piece, Chang also educates her reader about the growth in Mandarin immersion schools, the seemingly increasing interest in learning Mandarin, and perhaps most important, how teaching her children Mandarin has resulted in a deeper bond between her children and their grandparents. 

Buried in Mandarin’s rounded vowels and tones, in the whimsical idioms that pepper our speech, in the Tang era poems every child knows, are irrevocable pieces of me, of my family.

And there’s the redemption!

6. Now I Need a Place to Hide Away by Ann Hood

Ann Hood’s essay is not only a great example of transformation (i.e., I used to…. But now I…), but it also beautifully illustrates how an adept writer can contain a really big story—in this case, the death of a child. Instead of trying to tackle everything from point A to point B chronologically, Hood contains the story with a small piece of the larger puzzle using The Beatles as a vehicle.  

For Grace’s fourth Christmas, Santa brought her all of the Beatles’ movies on video, a photo book of their career and “The Beatles 1” tape. Before long, playing “Eight Days a Week” as loud as possible became our anthem.

And this:

As parents do, I had shared my passions with my children. And when it came to the Beatles, Grace had seized my passion and made it her own. But with her death, that passion was turned upside-down, and rather than bring joy, the Beatles haunted me.

In this way, The Beatles becomes almost like a character in Hood’s story, a way to illustrate Hood’s tremendous bond with her daughter. It also ensures that each time we hear The Beatles, we recall Hood’s tragic story.

This is an updated version of a story on personal narrative examples that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they’re useful for our readers.

Photo via GuadiLab / Shutterstock 

But even after all of these years, and some would say a dogged pursuit, I have yet to crack The New York Times’ wildly popular “Modern Love” column. The upshot: I’m in good company. 

Many writers I admire and respect have penned Modern Love rejects. Nearly every writer I know who has placed a piece in the column says they have been rejected there, too. And for good reason.

The publication receives somewhere around 8,000 submissions each year, according to the column’s editor, Dan Jones. Dan, widely acclaimed as a super nice guy, has said the odds of landing a Modern Love column is about 1% — and that’s being generous. 

Quick tips for getting published in Modern Love

So how do you snag one of those coveted slots?

We’ve got some advice for Modern Love submissions, along with some great tips for how to write a personal essay. 

Connect to readers with a universal message

A salable essay serves a greater good — it isn’t just about you. Yes, it may start with your experience, your journal entry and eventually the lesson you learned, but the essay is a way of connecting your unique perspective on something universal that your reader understands from their own experiences. 

Study previous columns

Modern Love columns have a sort of formula. The crux of the piece usually appears in the first line. The author changes/transforms as part of their journey, the sort of “I-thought-this-but-learned-this” structure. The best columns use humor and evoke emotion. 

Tell a compelling story

A great essay hooks you from the very first sentence. The experience doesn’t have to be life changing, but it does have to involve some sort of personal transformation. It helps if there’s some mystery and intrigue built into the first few sentences, too. 

Be vulnerable

Susan Shapiro is famous for her “Make me worry you’re not ok” exercise. Some people call it the “humiliation essay.” Others dub it a “confessional story.” No matter how you label it, the idea is to be vulnerable — and authentic — with your storytelling. 

5 writers spill on how they got published in the New York Times’ Modern Love column

Since I’m not yet qualified to dole out advice about this particular column, I consulted five Modern Love authors for advice. Two of the six authors featured here have won the lottery twice! 

Here are their tips, stories and insights.

1. Kerry Egan

Essays: Married to a Mystery Man and My Husband Wore Really Tight Shorts to the Eclipse Party

First sentence of essay #1: On the drive from the Calgary airport to the hotel for our honeymoon, my new husband casually mentioned that he would need to find a criminal defense attorney when we got home.

First sentence of essay #2: My husband, Alex, strode across the football field and toward me wearing a white undershirt, black dress shoes and socks, and a pair of skintight, blaze-orange nylon shorts that fit like hot pants.

How many times have you pitched the Modern Love column: Twice; both essays were accepted.

Date you pitched your accepted essays: Essay #1: March 8, 2017; Essay #2: May 10, 2019

Date Dan accepted your submissions: Essay #1: July 20, 2017. Essay #2: May 15, 2019 (The speedy response time may reflect the fact that Egan delivered it straight to Dan’s inbox since she’d placed a Modern Love story before.)

Length of the pitch portion of your submission: The pitch portion of both was two sentences. “I’ve written an essay I hope you’ll consider for Modern Love. Thank you, and I hope to hear from you soon.”

Tell me a little bit about your editorial experience. The editorial process was quick and painless. He tightened up a couple of sentences, cut some extraneous words, and did not ask for any changes. I okayed his edits, and that was it. I’d heard he likes a little bit extra to cut, so I sent in about 1650 words. He edited both essays to 1500 words exactly! I thought he was a great editor, extremely easy to work with.

Share a little bit about your experience in the days, weeks and months after publication. It was really fun to see the response to the essays. Some people loved them, some hated them, some loved me, some hated me, some loved my husband, some hated him. 

If you realize that people’s reactions to your essays have nothing to do with you as a person it can be a funny experience to read the comments. I find writing to be really lonely work, so connecting with readers (even if they disagree with or hate what I wrote!) is what I like best. Modern Love got me a lot of connection with readers. I’m grateful for that. 

Any words of wisdom for writers who aspire to write a Modern Love essay? With my essays, I tried to reach people outside my own personal romance to try to explore something more universal. My Modern Love essays were about my husband, but they were also about big, eternal ideas — and the anecdotes I chose to anchor the stories were funny. So my advice would be: 

1. Use your romantic story as a jumping off point or an example to explore universal ideas that allow you to connect to the reader, so that the essay isn’t just navel gazing.
2. Find the humor. It can still be a sad story. But funny makes the sad sadder, the romance more romantic, the heartbreak more heartbreaking.

2. Caren Chesler

Essay: Alexa? Please Ignore My Husband

First sentence: They say never threaten divorce unless you mean it.

How many times have you pitched the Modern Love column? Two, maybe three times.

Date you pitched the accepted essay: January 17, 2018

Date Dan accepted your essay: April 26, 2018

Length of the pitch portion of your submission: One sentence: Please consider the following essay, which is pasted below and is attached.

Tell me a little bit about your editorial experience: Dan Jones wrote: “I like this piece. It’s funny and moving and contemporary. It’s a little too short for the space; Modern Love runs at 1500 words, meaning this needs another 250. One place that could use an explanation or follow up is the stroke at the end … Interested?” I told him, with forced muted enthusiasm, that I was interested. Actually, I responded, “Hot diggedy dog!” And then I forwarded Jones’ email to friends and loved ones, with the message, ” Surely, this is someone else’s life…(see below)…”

I wrote another 250 words, which he really liked. He said they not only expounded on a point, but they actually enhanced the essay. I was walking on Cloud Nine. I felt I could do no wrong. He then wanted to have a phone call, to chat about the piece. I got the impression, or he told me, they always do this, in part because they want to make sure everyone named is on board.

Share a little bit about your experience in the days, weeks and months after publication: Publishing the piece did not change my career. No book deal. No assignments were doled out because of it, as far as I know. It did, however, change my confidence level. In the weeks and months after, I thought I was a great essay writer. But as always happens, after a year, I began to slide back into my old insecure ways and convinced myself that the main reason I got in there was because they had another piece fall through, and they needed something with a fast turnaround to fill the space (Jones did mention that another piece fell through, and they needed something quickly).

Any words of wisdom for writers who aspire to write an ML column? Read the publication. I went through numerous columns and tried to crack the code, the formula, going through each one and writing notes in the margin of whether it was present moment action or reverie, and I’d look at how many graphs of present moment action would they have before going into reverie, and then how many graphs of reverie would they have before back to present tense action. I looked at how much dialogue versus paraphrase, and I’d look at endings, to see how they wrapped everything up. But the truth is, when I wrote my piece, it was something that just spilled out onto the paper after mentioning my situation to some writer friends over breakfast, and one or two of them said, “You should write an essay on that!” And so I did.

3. Melanie Bishop

Essay: I Would Have Driven Her Anywhere

First sentence: When my mother was booted from an assisted living facility in North Carolina for being “too high maintenance,” my husband, Ted, and I agreed to have her live near us in Prescott, Ariz.

How many times have you pitched the Modern Love column? Three times. The third time I submitted, it was accepted.

Date pitched: September 1, 2018

Date accepted: October 26, 2018

Length of the pitch portion of your submission: My cover letter was super brief. I think people should keep the note so brief. It’s never the note that’s going to win them over. They read all submissions. So the best plan is to say the bare essentials, and then get out of the way so they can read the essay.

Tell me a little bit about your editorial experience. Dan starts with a phone call. Then he follows up within a few days with his edits, via email. It was a very kind, cooperative process. One thing I remember learning is that the title of your essay, while it matters at the time of submission and should be carefully thought out, that title will rarely be the one it’s published under.

Share a little bit about your experience in the days, weeks and months after publication. The whole experience was as exciting as everyone says it is. There is just no greater exposure for a writer. Thousands of hits to my website, 70-something emails from fans of the essay, and deep connections with so many readers who’d also lost a parent. For me, having an essay in Modern Love was way more exciting than publishing my YA novel. 

I’d already proven myself as a college professor of writing and lit for 22 years, and as a founder and editor of a literary magazine for 17 years, and as a freelance editor/coach/retreat mentor for five years, but landing in Modern Love gave me a different kind of credibility. I started teaching a Modern Love essay class for Stanford Continuing Studies (on hiatus now due to COVID) and I have mentored some Modern Love retreats at Playa Summer Lake in Oregon. I also have many clients hire me to help them with an essay aimed at Modern Love. It has been a great addition to an already very satisfying career.

Any words of wisdom for writers who aspire to write a Modern Love column? Study the column. Read both books by Dan Jones — the anthology of Modern Love essays and Love Illuminated. Read the compiled tips from Dan Jones, which originally appeared on the column’s FB page, and have since been compiled. Take advantage of all the helpful advice he has offered up. Print it out. Read it and reread it.

4. Hannah Selinger

Essay: Friends Without Benefits

First sentence: I MET him when I was 22 and squandering a year of my life (and liver quality) working as a waitress in my Massachusetts hometown.

How many times have you pitched the Modern Love column? “I submitted to Modern Love twice before, in 2005 (when I was 25), and in 2007 (when I was 27). Both times, I was rejected. The piece that I ultimately sold I wrote without any appreciable revision. I remember writing it around Thanksgiving, at my brother’s computer. It took me all of a half hour, and I just sent it into the ether thinking, Oh, what the Hell.”

Date pitched: November 25, 2012

Date accepted: January 2, 2013

Length of the pitch portion of your submission: It was just a bio paragraph. No pitch. I included a few sentences as an author bio.

Tell me a little bit about your editorial experience. Dan schedules a phone call and then goes over the details. I had included the name of the person I was writing about, so he said that he would have to get permission from that person. I knew that was not going to work, so I changed my piece to pronouns, and removed a few obvious details. He did say on the phone, however, that my piece was not going to require any line edits, apart from one specific edit, which he discussed on the phone.

Share a little bit about your experience in the days, weeks and months after publication. This was my first national byline, so it made it much easier for me to get freelance work afterwards. I was also selected for the podcast, where a celebrity reads your piece and you speak about your experience. That was a nice moment. The reader response was a bit crazy. Against Dan’s suggestion, I did not tell the person about whom I had written this, but, naturally, he found out, so my phone was ringing nonstop. I received thousands of emails, both directly and forwarded from the Times. It’s a very kind and loving type of response. People really want to connect and tell you about their stories.

Any words of wisdom for writers who aspire to write an Modern Love column? It’s incredibly competitive, and has gotten more competitive since I was lucky enough to land it. It’s kind of the Holy Grail of the Times, as far as the personal essay is concerned. But if you aspire to get there, you need a story that’s compelling, that has a narrative arc, that’s both universal and unique (I know that’s not necessarily helpful, but it’s a truth), and you need to know the vertical. I had read just about every Modern Love column there was before sending my piece in. Familiarity with a publication is always a good key to landing work, so read it, love it, and hope for the best.

5. Susan Shapiro

Essays: A Visit, and What Really Happened and Making Room for My Junk Man

First sentence of essay #1: HIS e-mail read: “Here for one night. Giants game tomorrow. Buy you a drink?”

First sentence of essay #2: THREE months before our 13th wedding anniversary, my husband announced he was ready to move in with me. For decades he’d kept an apartment as both an office and storage unit.

How many times have you pitched the Modern Love column? “I had 12 Modern Love rejects before my first acceptance.”

Date you pitched the accepted essays: Essay #1: June 15, 2009; Essay #2: March 19, 2012

Date Dan accepted your essays: Essay #1: August 26, 2009; Essay #2: April 23, 2012

Length of the pitch portion of your submission: I always do very short cover letters. Two lines with the title and pitch. Dan has told my classes he likes them short, to the point and mysterious.

Tell me a little bit about your editorial experience: Working with Dan is a dream. He’s a brilliant editor who instantly makes all of the pieces much better. (Aside from my own two, I’ve seen most of the 50+ originals by students and colleagues and then read their revisions in the paper.)

Share a little bit about your experience in the days, weeks and months after publication: Both of my Modern Love essays boosted book sales. Several of my students who published Modern Love essays sold books based on their pieces. Aspen Matis got a call from the VP of Harper Collins right after her piece ran, which led to her memoir Girl In the Woods. Of my 50 students who published Modern Love essays, 5 led to books, a dozen were in the podcast, several wounds up in the Modern Love anthologies and one former student’s wound up in the TV series.

Any words of wisdom for writers who aspire to write a Modern Love column? Of the Modern Love pieces my students published what stands out is: the vulnerability, humbleness,  originality of the story (from getting toes sucked the first time, to learning wisdom from a younger millennial lover to sharing plane tickets as the significant other of a brother who works for the airline.) I don’t think there is a formula. He has to fall in love and that’s not necessarily tangible. I think Dan and his smart assistant Miya want to be moved by a new fresh, special, original love story and know what it is when they see it.

Cracking the Modern Love Code

If it isn’t clear by now, there’s no “Modern Love” code, but there is tremendous satisfaction if you’re lucky enough to land a column. 

Today, the Modern Love franchise extends far beyond a slot in the New York Times paper to live reading events, anthologies, a podcast and an Amazon Prime TV show. Dan is very generous in terms of sharing submission tips and advice. He has appeared at writer’s conferences, been interviewed for podcasts and provided an online space with submission tips. 

Here are a few avenues to help you get up to snuff:

• Modern Love’s Facebook Page (search submission tips)
• Dan Jones’ tips on Reddit
• A fun read from WBUR (the podcast)
• Dan Jones’ Write About Now podcast appearance

Want more insight about how to break in? Check out our guide about where to submit personal essays and my course on writing personal essays. 

You can also take a look at Laura Copeland’s Google Doc of tips, and Nicole Whitaker’s Modern Love column analysis in the February 2020 issue of The Writer Magazine.

Do you have any favorite Modern Love examples? Share them in the comments section below.

This post contains affiliate links. That means if you purchase through our links, you’re supporting The Write Life — and we thank you for that!

Photo by Judit Peter from Pexels

Despite this sobering stat, not all publications that run personal essays are this competitive. Out of every 15 essays I draft, I usually sell about 10. Not a bad ratio.

While I’d like to believe each of those 10 is a masterpiece, the truth is, I’ve learned to avoid the common essay pitfalls. Plus, when I know an essay is good, I never give up until I snag a sale.

Common mistakes while writing an essay about yourself

Don’t feel bad if you’re making one of the mistakes outlined below. I came up with this list after years of not only writing my own essays, but critiquing essays by other writers.

In fact, these mistakes are so common that I teach a essay writing course to help writers avoid them — and get published in their dream outlet.

So let’s help you get an editor’s attention and land a coveted spot in your favorite publication! Avoiding these mistakes each time you write an essay about yourself is a solid starting point.

Here are eight common mistakes you should avoid when writing a personal essay:

1. Using essay to vent

Writers often use an essay as an opportunity to express a moralistic stand, rant about a controversial issue or vent about a family member. Don’t.

If you take a stand on an issue — and run it into the ground — chances are, you’ll lose your reader the moment she (or he) gets your point.

Instead, challenge the reader to adopt his own stand without stating it outright. Give your reader a new way to look at the issue by sharing part of yourself and showing him your experience, and you may, indirectly, change a viewpoint.

Need an example? Christine Gross Loh’s piece on toy guns is one of my favorites.

2. Clearing your throat on the page

Most first drafts I critique come with at least three lines of superfluous throat-clearing that can easily go without impacting the piece.

See how your essay sounds if you start out with the fourth or fifth sentence instead.

Essayist Jody Mace tells a story about an essay she wrote about her kindergarten-aged son who kept feeling women’s breasts. “I started with a discussion about raising sons to be gentlemen, and eventually said, ‘My son is a breast man.’ A friend said, ‘Cut everything before ‘my son is a breast man.’ I did, and it was a great opener.”

3. Writing long… way too long

Don’t be afraid of the butcher knife.

When you’re revising and polishing an essay, make sure what you’ve written is tight — there are no unnecessary words, no superfluous anecdotes and no nonsense!

If you need to trim your piece so it will fit into a particular column, try cutting extra words or even extra graphs, and see if your piece still works. And don’t be so pleased with how you’ve turned a phrase that you keep it in your piece even though it doesn’t add to or support your takeaway.

4. Overlooking day-to-day life as essay fodder

An essayist’s job is to extract universal meaning from the mundane facts and experiences of life.

I’ve written about my husband’s toy collection, my son’s rare congenital heart condition, even my attempts at selecting the perfect wine to pair with a dish.

No matter what your story is about, it should involve some sort of personal transformation that allows you to see the world differently. Will your story make readers feel something, or think about an issue differently? Will it motivate them to act (by calling their mom, for example)?

If your piece makes readers recall an event or life experience of their own, chances are you’ve crafted a great essay.

5. Using lazy language

Many writers tend to use words and phrases repeatedly.

Try this self-editing experiment: Circle or highlight all of the adverbs and adjectives in your piece. Are they the best words for the job? Can you come up with better, richer or more meaningful words? Or do you find that you’ve used the same adjectives and adverbs over and over again? Each description should only appear in your piece once.

Next, look at your verbs. Are they action verbs? Picturesque, hard-hitting and precise? Or do you have a lot of “to be” verbs that don’t impart any meaning?

6. Being afraid of dialogue

Using direct dialogue is often more effective than telling the reader what someone said.

Instead of saying, “The pediatrician told us to get rid of our son’s thumb-sucking habit,” write “’If you don’t put a stop to his thumb-sucking before he’s three, his teeth will be set and the damage will be done,’ warned our pediatrician.”

Using dialogue is another way of showing the reader your story rather than telling them.

Worried about the fallibility of your memory? Quotes don’t have to be exact; they just have to be exactly how you remember them. Unlike a reported piece, essay is about your personal experience — your perception of events.

7. Holding back

If you’re determined to stay safely on the surface of your story, essay might not be the right form for you. To write essays, you have to put your whole self into them — your biggest hopes, greatest fears and deepest regrets. You have to be vulnerable.

If you feel yourself censoring aspects of your experience, stop. Maybe this isn’t the right time for you to write this piece. Maybe you need more distance from the situation so you can uncover deeper truths. Here are some personal narrative examples to guide you.

You have to be ready to let yourself go and know that the more of yourself you bring to your writing, the better essayist you’ll be.

8. Taking rejection personally

Personal essays are deeply intimate, so it’s painful when editors reject them.

But good writers know there are countless reasons why an editor might reject a piece. Maybe they ran something similar recently (or have something similar in the works). Or maybe that particular editor didn’t connect with your piece. That doesn’t mean it won’t resonate with someone else.

If you get a rejection, find another publication to pitch! The Write Life offers ideas of where to submit personal essays. And if that list isn’t enough, my online course comes with a list of 130+ editors who publish (and pay for!) this genre.

Most importantly, don’t forget to have fun. Writing is a deeply personal and challenging pursuit, but it should be an enjoyable one, too.

This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they’re useful for our readers.

This post contains affiliate links. That means if you purchase through our links, you’re supporting The Write Life — and we thank you for that!

Photo via GuadiLab/ Shutterstock 

So where do you start?

How do you market your essays to magazines? How do you choose the right market? Package your query? And introduce yourself to the editor? And what do you do when it gets rejected?

Tips for (finally!) publishing that personal essay

Before we go into this three-step plan, if you’re really keen to publish (and get paid for!) your personal essay, you might consider enrolling in my personal essay writing course. (That link will take you to The Write Life’s detailed review of the online class.)

In addition to helping you write a compelling narrative, I offer a unique parting gift: a list of 130+ editors who accept personal essays, plus their contact information.

But even if you don’t enroll, I want to help you get started… because your story deserves to see the light of day.

So here’s a simple, three-step plan for selling your personal essay to magazines and other publications:

Step 1: Identify your target markets

Long before you think about submitting your essay, create a list of potential markets for that particular story.

You might be tempted to focus only on magazines, but there are some great websites (like YourTango, Skirt!, and Salon) that run essays. The Write Life also offers a list of magazines and websites where you might pitch your personal essay.

Review several back issues of each title on your list, paying close attention to the types of stories they’ve run in the past. Are the essays long or short? Do they run humor, or are the pieces more serious? Are they written in the first person? Do they include quotes from experts? Have they recently covered the topic you’ve written about?

Keep tabs on your target pubs and get familiar with what they’re running. Tear out the essays you like and study them. Do they follow a particular formula? Is there a subject matter they cover regularly? Is the tone snarky or straight-laced?

Look at the language they use. Pay attention to the adjectives and adverbs in their stories.

Make sure the story you’re submitting matches essays your target publication has already run in terms of style, length, tone, and subject matter. Then — and only then — are you ready to hit “send.”

Step 2: Pitch your completed personal narrative

Start with the first publication on your list of target magazines and hit Google with the publication’s name and the term “submission guidelines.” The publication’s guidelines may include submission info.

Other sites, like MediaBistro and Freelance Success, sometimes disclose editor contact information.

No luck? Hit the bookstore and check the publication’s masthead. There’s usually a phone number listed for the editorial department. Call the magazine and ask which editor handles the column you’re targeting. The receptionist may or may not give you that person’s email address.

If not, don’t worry. There are countless ways to get the information – trial and error being one of them.

The advertising page usually has email addresses, since after all, publications want advertisers to contact them. You can use the configuration listed for the advertising manager (e.g., michelle.sanders@publication.com) and address it to the appropriate editor using that format (firstname.lastname@publication.com). If you receive a bounce-back message, it’s time to turn to outside sources for help.

Unless I know an editor well, I typically start my email submissions the same way: In the subject line, I write “Column Name Submission: Essay Title.”

Once you have the subject line, demonstrate that you have read their publication and call out one or two of your favorite pieces. Then come up with a short introduction about you, your publication credits, and your story — no more than three or four sentences. Finally, paste the entire essay in the body of the email.

If there’s a news hook to my piece, or there’s a particular reason why I think it’s a good fit for that particular publication, I’ll write another sentence with those details. Something like: “The story is particularly relevant to your readers because it involves prescription drug addiction – a growing concern for women in your target demographic of [insert statistics].”

Step 3: Don’t take rejection personally

If your essay hasn’t sold, you have to face the reality that either it’s not that good, or that you haven’t knocked on enough doors.

It doesn’t mean you aren’t a talented essayist, it just means you might have to rework your story, try to explore the topic further, or find new markets that might be interested in your piece. Writers who publish a lot of essays submit a lot of essays!

Another reason essays get rejected is simple supply and demand. Most editors have an influx of essays waiting to be read, especially since fewer publications are running essays. And if you’re an editor who has 12 essay slots a year and you receive 1,200 essay submissions a month, well, you do the math.

Your job is to increase your odds by doing your homework and making sure your piece is a good fit for the magazine you want to pitch.

And before you send, be sure your essay is in the best possible shape. So triple check for typos, superfluous words, and your clear take-home message.

This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they’re useful for our readers.

Photo via GuadiLab/ Shutterstock 

Even if you’ve spent weeks crafting the perfect personal essay — and friends and family have declared it brilliant, compelling, powerful prose — that doesn’t mean it’s a shoo-in for publication.

On the contrary. Editors have limited space for personal essays, and often the only way to snag that real estate is to touch them with your story.

In 2005, I wrote an essay about coming to terms with my flat breasts and boyish shape. It was rejected five times, but I kept up my relentless pursuit to find a published home and before long, Health Magazine snapped it up. Since that first sale, I’ve continued to publish essays (and get paid!) in print and online pubs including Newsweek, The Los Angeles Times, Spirituality & Health, Parents and Women’s Health.

While I’d like to believe every piece I write is essay gold, the truth is, I never give up on my pursuit of a sale. And that’s more than half the battle when it comes to personal essays.

Think you have a salable piece? Here are five key questions you need to ask yourself:

1. Do I have a great story?

The experience you’re writing about doesn’t have to be life-changing, or even a huge event, but the story should involve some personal transformation. Maybe you survived a pit bull attack, received flowers from a stranger or trashed your wedding dress.

No matter what the event or experience, it should result in you seeing the world differently than you did before. If your story is something your reader may have experienced (like feeling your baby kick for the first time), you have the extra burden of saying something profound, funny or otherwise important, so you’re not revisiting old territory.

2. Is this the right time to tell my story?

If you have an essay that’s relevant to current events or an upcoming holiday, you have a better chance of making a sale.

Due to publication lag time, if you’re going to claim something is newsworthy, it should have happened within the past few weeks. On the plus side, unless you’re dealing with a newspaper, local magazine or weekly news magazine, timing may not be as critical.

If you’re looking for a sale though, it doesn’t hurt to send your essay about your relationship with your mother four to six weeks before Mother’s Day (convert weeks to months if you’re targeting a national newsstand magazine).

3. Does my story have a universal theme?

A salable essay isn’t just about you! Sure, it may start with your experience, your journal entry or memories and eventually the lesson you learned, but the essay is a way of connecting your unique experience to something your reader can relate to.

Bottom line: People don’t want to read about your uterus — or your favorite little black dress — unless it means something to them.

Ask yourself whether your story will touch readers or make them think about an issue differently. Will it motivate them to act (by calling their moms, for example), or change in some way?

Good essays aren’t just about the first time you fell in love; they’re about the first time I fell in love, too. If you can make your readers recall an event or life experience of their own, then you’re on your way to a great essay.

4. Does my story have great characters?

The best essays have identifiable characters. Readers can visualize them, hear them and feel them. They might even recognize the character as someone in their own lives.

Whether you’re painting a picture of your best friend, a lover or a giant stuffed Elmo, your essay should contain vivid characters. And vivid characters create conflict — either within themselves or with those around them — and that promotes change.

In personal essays, the character who changes and evolves is you. So in your essays, strive for conflict, both within yourself and with other characters.

5. Does my story have a clear take-home message?

Write one sentence describing your take home message. If you find that difficult, you might need to re-work your piece.

Once you know what the “take-home message” is, re-read every paragraph in your essay and ask yourself if it supports your point.

It’s tempting to throw in funny anecdotes that are related to your story but don’t apply to the bigger message or theme. Avoid the temptation. After reading your story, readers should be able to clearly state what it’s about. If they can’t, chances are you don’t have a salable piece.

Even if your story has all of these components, you might not make a sale. The truth is, essay markets are dwindling and the real estate for essays is slim.

But writing essays isn’t just about making a sale. The practice is also a journey in self-discovery. It allows you to experience your life events twice — once in reality and the second time on the page.

Think of writing essays as a cathartic exploration of yourself. They’re a form of writing therapy; a method for discovering your own truth; a way to find your true story. These are an essay’s sweetest rewards. The sale is just the frosting.

How have you sold personal essays? Share your stories in the comments!

If you’re interested in learning more tools of the essay-writing trade, sign up for Amy Paturel’s six-week online essay-writing workshop. Her next class begins June 15, 2015. Visit www.amypaturel.com/classes for details. Bonus: TWL readers get a 10-percent discount! Contact amy@amypaturel.com to sign up at the discounted rate.