Yeah, this is something I see in my students' personal essays. They're very worried about putting their best foot forward, when the best personal essays are those that expose a person's weaknesses, idiosyncrasies, and honest shortcomings. There is actually an inverse relationship I've found between how seemingly flawed an author comes across as being in his or her work and how much readers end up liking that author (i.e. we like the flawed ones a whole lot more). But it's a hard thing to remember when casting one's own life off into the blogosphere, especially in the context of other blogs that don't feature flawed (real) humans...
2 comments:
I've thought the same.
Yeah, this is something I see in my students' personal essays. They're very worried about putting their best foot forward, when the best personal essays are those that expose a person's weaknesses, idiosyncrasies, and honest shortcomings. There is actually an inverse relationship I've found between how seemingly flawed an author comes across as being in his or her work and how much readers end up liking that author (i.e. we like the flawed ones a whole lot more). But it's a hard thing to remember when casting one's own life off into the blogosphere, especially in the context of other blogs that don't feature flawed (real) humans...
Post a Comment