Ingredient - Say an Essay!

During my coursework for Creative Non-Fiction several semesters ago, I was assigned the reference text, "The New American Essay." This was it. This was to guide me to my defining medium for my writing format and my style. Well... It didn't. I knew that essays weren't fiction works nor were they considered academic research. But these essays were designed to stretch the limits of the definition 'essay'. The styles represented were more about the creative force rather than the intellectual dissemination of information. But I don't want to write too creatively intellectual.  

So, I looked around. I've scattered magazines and toppled books looking for an essay style that "speaks to me." What did this hearing impaired person find, but 'spoken' essays. Have you heard of TED Talks? Some might consider these video essays, but thanks to their translation and transcription program, I read these spoken essays. They are factual information collection and organized as a result of a person's own unique perspective and communicated in an artful and engaging way. That's an essay and exactly what I need.

Typically, these spoken essays are 10 to 20 minutes long... or in written form, 1,500 to 3,000 words. In the case of  Carolyn Steel's spoken essay, "How Food Shapes Our Cities," 15 minutes and 40 seconds or 2,857 words. While reading the essay, I was struck by its simplicity, yet the format engaged me every time I read it. Here I've found an essay format to aspire to:

• Introduce a Question - "a great question, one that is rarely asked"
• Set the Scene - use the landscape of the issue to shape the essay
• The Background - map the history, "how did we get here"
• The Foreground - map the future, "what does it mean"

Word Count: 293
Total Edits: 3