WRITING ADVICE: Writing with NARROW FOCUS AND BROAD APPEAL

While it may seem obvious, I learned the hard way that my essays had to have strengths that sounded mutually exclusive.

A few years ago, our family and friends were on a Fourth of July outing to watch a big-city fireworks display. It was windy that night and several times the fireworks were nearly called off. At ten-ish, they decided to appease the restless mob and the shooting began.

Moments after the first bombs burst in the air, hot ash and glowing cinders blown down by contrary upper winds, started to rain down on our side of the crowd. Few other people were there, most having gathered in the park. Spared the night fall, they were busy oooo-ing and ahhhhh-ing as those of us caught in the rain of debris sprinted for cover dragging, pushing and carrying little ones.

Incensed by the time I got home, I made to fire off a letter to the editor of the local paper. I wrote it, but after it cooled for a few days, a quick read-through made it seem trite, spiteful and (worse) whiney. I started again, this time pausing to reach back into history to compare our little episode with what some of the Colonists might have experienced as real rockets rained down on them during the first American war. Suggesting we all might enjoy the gift of freedom a bit more with our small taste of flaming ash in recent memory landed me a Guest Editorial in the paper rather than being relegated to one of a half-dozen Letters to the Editor.

Narrow focus coupled with broad appeal is a formula I should follow more often when writing essays.