If you are writing a personal, creative, reflective essay or “hybrid” expository, you will need to include anecdotes, or short recounts about people or about yourself-as-main-character.
- A personal anecdote should be relatable, dramatic and colourful, consisting of sharp and accurate descriptions, possibly humorous, and often showing raw emotions. It must relate to the prompt or to the theme of your discussion.
- A real-life story or anecdotal evidence draws upon people’s every-day (ordinary) and/or extraordinary experiences; it may draw upon articles or short stories you have read. It must be meaningful.
- You must capture as accurately as possible the protagonist’s (person-as-main-character’s) views, values, attitudes, responses, dilemmas and reactions.
- What are they thinking and feeling?
- Think about the descriptions you use to reflect their state of mind; be as fresh and original as possible. If possible use some figurative devices – metaphor, similes, personification.)
- An anecdote or recount comes to life if it captures people’s uniqueness, differences and/or idiosyncrasies. Even ordinary, common incidents or events will not be just another cliché if you use interesting and precise descriptions.
Here’s a few of my favourite ones. You will notice that the example provides a very accurate insight into how the person is thinking and feeling. It gives a chance to step inside their shoes, or as Scout says in To Kill a Mockingbird, to “wriggle around in their skin”.
Notice how the person is in a position of weakness; they are showing quiet courage or resilience in the face of difficulties; often showing a sense of humour.
Sometimes short, snappy dialogue works well.
See: Tim Costello: “The lessons still to be learnt from Rwanda”, The Age, Monday 7 April 2014.
Tim Costello, the chief executive of World Vision of Australia, discusses the ability of Rwandan citizens to forgive and heal the terrible scars caused by the genocide in 1994. The genocide include 100 days of “frenzied violence and merciless killing that left more than 800,000 Rwandans dead.” For the past 20 years, these events cast a dark shadow over the lives of Rwandans. The survivors and perpetrators held 100 days of national mourning to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the killings. Costello writes:
“But I believe that the extraordinary progress Rwanda has made is equally due to the extraordinary decision that Rwandans have made to forgive each other and themselves. You don’t have to have been in the country very long before you realise that this is the choice that virtually every Rwandan has made – whether they are survivors, perpetrators or their descendants.
I met one such Rwandan last week. His name is Gaspard. Now 39-years-old, he was only 19 when he lost his parents and 10 siblings in the genocide. He quietly told me that he had chosen to forgive his Hutu school friend who had savagely killed some of his siblings. This perpetrator eventually confessed and was released from jail. This man took Gaspard and showed him the grave where he had dumped their bodies.
Gaspard also told me he had rebuilt his parent’s family home and has two young children of his own. Yes he remembers, but there is no trace of bitterness and he has embraced his family’s attackers. Gaspard, like most Rwandans, has taken to heart Desmond Tutu’s admonition: ‘‘There is no future without forgiveness”.”
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/comment/the-lessons-still-to-be-learnt-from-rwanda-20140404-zqqps.html#ixzz2zNW9TRnt
Lonely years, (Good Weekend, 15th March 2014: the stories are from Fiona Scott Norman’s book. The author interviewed local celebrities and collected their stories in a new book called Don’t Peak at High School: From Bullied to A-List.
Stella Young (comedian with a disability)
“At high school, I just wanted to fit in with my non-disabled friends. I didn’t like hanging out with other people with disabilities. But walking to class with friends, invariably I’d have to duck off and find the accessible entrance, and I’d get really worried about rejoining the conversation. I’d pretend I hadn’t missed huge chunks. I’d be all, “Oh, yes, yes. Of course.” ….
I had surgery on my legs in year 8, so I had time off school, and it was at the end of Year 8 that they kicked me out. I stressed all holidays because I was terrified of having no friends. So I thought, “Right, I’m going to try to sit with other people at lunchtimes.”
I floated around and sat with other people, and it felt really awkward. It’s difficult to be subtle in a chair. I was sure they were wondering what I was doing there.
Then I thought, “What the hell, I could be the worst house on the best street”, and I “joined” the popular group. I’d go and sit with them, eat lunch and hang out, until this mortifying incident one lunchtime. The girls were all talking about how they wished someone would go away. You know, “I wish she’d just f… off.” As usual, I didn’t know who they were talking about. I was just agreeing like always, nodding and smiling, saying, “I know, oh yes, I know.” Eventually, yes, I realised they were talking about me. So, I raised my chair up, and said, “I’m just going to go to the toilet,” and I went and I cried.”
Tiffany Hall, Television Presenter, also interviewed in Fiona Scott Norman’s book.
“School stressed me out so much that I got glandular fever, which led to chronic fatigue syndrome, and I had to take six or seven months off. That was year 9, the pivotal time when you make your friends. Socially, I never recovered.
I never fitted in. A lot of the girls were really well off and stuck together. The dominant thing was wealth and having the right things. One girl was bullied because her family rented their BMW.
Sometimes, if I couldn’t deal with something, I’d clean. Mum would always yell at me because I’d just empty a drawer into the bin, which would make me feel better, but she’d have had important stuff in there. So, for my 12th birthday, I asked for cleaning agents and some Ballerina cleaning cloths. When the girls came over for the sleepover, I said, “Let’s all clean the house!” Three of them were like, “Seriously?” But one girl helped – she’s still my friend today.
When I was 19, I had a party and invited all those uni kids. Mum made big beautiful bowls of fantastic pasta and we’d bought a little bit of alcohol, and I sat there waiting with my parents and they didn’t show. I haven’t had a party since. Uni, for me, was just a disaster.”
Kendall Hill’s experiences
“Kendall Hill describes how he was a “nerd” at school: he wishes it was easier to be “different”. He states, “if only it were easier to be different in this country. Back then our education system – and, by extension, most teachers and students – rejected anything unconventional”. Refer “Habitual cruelty: maybe the bullies get screwed up the most”, The Age, 19/6/11).
When the TV series of Alex Haley’s slave epic Roots was first broadcast in Australia a few decades ago, my high school tormenters had a brilliant idea. We could play Roots at school the next day.
“You can be Kunta Kinte!” my nemesis hooted, his eyes flashing evil mischief. “And the rest of you can go home and make willow whips.”
Electric excitement rippled through the group. Me? I thought I might cry.
The episode sums up the hell of high school for me – falling into a poisonous group that terrorised other students but, mostly, terrorised me. Soccer matches where I became the ball, kicked around until I was coated in mud like a choc-dipped loser. Threats hissed through clenched teeth to force two unwilling combatants, one of them always me, to brawl at lunchtime for the school’s entertainment. Every student on every bus chanting insults at me at home time.
And they say school days are the best of the your life.”
Linda Duberley recounts her despair at the fact that her son, Connor, was ruining his life owing to his gaming addition. (See “My son was a cyber addict – hooked on fantasy and sci-fi games” in The Age.) “For three years, Connor played truant, failed exams and shut himself away from people to create a new personality in his electronic universe.”
Duberley recounts: “To me, the problem seemed to be school; Connor was truanting. He was tired and stressed. So, I cut back my work as a media consultant to be around more at home. But he found new ways to sneak home from school, only now he had to be even more surreptitious to avoid me. Then, at a parents’ evenings, two of his teachers were clearly surprised to see me – they thought that he had left the school. That Christmas, his father took Connor’s younger brother and sister away so he and I could be alone together and talk. I was optimistic. But shortly after that, on just the second day of the new term, I found Connor hiding in the bathroom, having sneaked back into the house. In fact, he turned up at home several times that week, once having gone missing for so long that I called the police. That time, I eventually found him hidden, wrapped up in a duvet inside a cupboard.”