UPDATE:  Since Gather has announced that they will favor trained non-writers and groups that have published trash while some of us spent long hours moderating for quality content, I am shutting down my writing groups. I will leave the history here but will not accept new content.

Hope to meet you on another internet site that respects writing and writers.

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Tips For Creative Non-fiction/Personal Essay Writing

Creative non-fiction and personal essay writing combines critical thinking, communication, and craft. Every topic lends itself to creative non-fiction or personal essay as long as you include the following:

• Tell your story from a personal point of view
• Deliver yourself to the reader along with your story
• Show a process of discovery preceding a universal message or aha! discovery

The art of the personal essay is in rewrites. Tell your story as it happened the first time through. Go back through and add or fine-tune sensory details (description, dialogue, tastes, and smells). Tweak the flow - sometimes it is necessary to move an insight or revelation to a different spot in order to make the story comfortable for the reader. With each rewrite, strive to open yourself more and discover what of yourself you want to share with the reader in addition to the story. Repeat the process until you find the lesson or insight and then go back a last time to make sure you have eased into the point smoothly and it doesn’t appear to have been an afterthought or tacked on at the end.

To keep readers coming back and assure variety, please:

• Edit before submitting
• Submit no more than one post a day to this group

(If you are like me, many errors hide until after you hit the post button. Edits to the same post will only count as one submission.)

Please add creative non-fiction or personal essay to your tags.