I recently came across a personal essay that captivated me — both because of the subject matter and the quality of writing. I read the piece once online, then printed it out and started marking it up. I circled phrases and sentences that stood out to me and scribbled related notes in the margins.
“I Gave My Son the Books I Loved. He Chose ‘Heidi’ Instead” was written by Dave Kim, an editor at The New York Times Book Review. In it, Kim explores his 8-year-old son’s love for the classic children’s book “Heidi” and chronicles a related trip that he and his son took to the Swiss Alps, where they visited bucolic scenes from the book.
Kim’s essay draws upon several writing techniques that are worth keeping in mind, especially when writing personal essays. I encourage you to read it (and admire the accompanying photo illustrations). Then, consider these 12 takeaways:
1. MAKE GOOD USE OF JUXTAPOSITION
Throughout the piece, Kim places contrasting details side by side — a technique known as ironic juxtaposition. This technique can help highlight differences, create meaning, and infuse humor into your writing. Here are a few examples, with contrasting details bolded for effect:
- “I went to the Alps in August because my son — a New York City third grader obsessed with baseball, projectiles and YouTube — fell in love this summer with the Swiss children’s novel ‘Heidi.’”
- “I couldn’t work out how a boy who thrived on armed combat and poop jokes had fallen so hard for a tale of pastoral youth and spiritual transformation.”
- “I took in the valley as I caught my breath, bludgeoned by the beauty, while my son relieved himself behind a spruce.” [I also love the alliteration of “breath,” “bludgeoned,” and “beauty,” coupled with the consonance of “himself” and “spruce.”]
2. SPRINKLE IN RELEVANT CONTEXT
“Heidi,” by Swiss author Johanna Spyri, was first published in Germany in 1881; an English translation was published in 1885. But rather than assuming all readers are familiar with “Heidi,” Kim provides a brief synopsis of the book early in his piece. He doesn’t belabor the description, but gives us just enough to understand the plot, time period, and pacing. (Action in the book is leisurely — so much so that Kim refers to “Heidi” as “the three-toed sloth of children’s books.”)
Kim also provides context about the places where he and his son, whom he refers to as “R,” visited. This gives readers confidence that they are in the hands of a guide who won’t leave them behind.
3. WEAVE IN VISUAL DETAILS
I once had a grad school professor who read a piece I’d written about my father and matter-of-factly told me: “I still have no idea what your father looks like. Help me see him.” Perhaps because of my lifelong struggles with body image, I’ve always had difficulty writing physical descriptions of people. It often feels forced to me, and sometimes even trite. But since hearing that professor’s feedback, I’ve become more attuned to the ways in which good writing can help us see people in our mind’s eye.
Kim helps us see his son in ways that are both specific and striking:
- “He had a deep crimp between his eyes, the look of someone packing far too much into a suitcase far too small.” [This metaphor works especially well, since the essay is about travel.]
- “R went off to find some sticks. He rushed back seconds later with dinner-plate eyes: He’d seen a sign for a pool.”
4. EMBRACE DIALOGUE AND VOICE
Along with helping readers see, we also need to help them hear the people in our stories. As journalists, we’re trained to capture quotes in response to our questions. But it’s just as important to listen for dialogue — two or more sources talking to each other. As I tell my students: Quotes are heard; dialogue is overheard.
The best dialogue is brief but telling. Take this example, in which Kim is talking with his son during a visit to Heididorf, a village celebrating the beloved storybook character:
“Was Heidi real?” R finally asked.
I told him there were probably girls like her once. But she herself was pretend.
“Then who lived here?” he shot back.
“Nobody.”
We only hear Kim once in this dialogue, but his one-word response speaks volumes.
In another passage, we hear R’s voice again when Kim tries convincing him to go on a scenic train ride. Kim writes:
But in the late-afternoon heat, with an orange Fanta against his cheek, R was in no mood for more “stuff.”
When I read that, I could hear my own 8-year-old using the same word to describe excursions that sound fun to me but boring to her. And I could picture myself heaving an exasperated sigh in response. In listening to others’ voices, we sometimes hear our own.
5. ZOOM OUT WITH BIGGER-PICTURE OBSERVATIONS
To write an effective personal essay, you need to zoom in on your personal experiences and help readers see the bigger picture you’re trying to convey. This requires widening the aperture beyond your own story so that readers can more clearly see its underlying universal themes — the connective ties that bind writer and reader.
Sometimes, attempts to do this can come across as didactic or pedantic, so be mindful of your tone and intent. When you try sounding smart, readers get turned off. But when you aim to make readers feel smarter, they tune in.
Kim made me feel smarter (and less alone) when he zoomed out in these three instances:
- “Eight is the cruelest year, an age when myths deflate into hard forensic realities. Magic becomes sleight of hand; the logistics of Santa’s gift distribution stop making sense. But the revelation process isn’t so much like a veil being thrown off as it is a fuzzy world slowly coming into focus, and parts of it often go blurry again.” [Notice how he links to a secondary source here so that readers who are interested can click on the link and learn more.]
- “Children are not miniature versions of yourself. They do not like what you like, or what you think they will like.” [I found this sentiment so relatable as the mother of a 7-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter. A few years ago, I surrounded the Christmas tree with toys that I had loved as a child, hoping my children would too. But they showed minimal interest and much preferred their great-grandmother’s dollar-store gifts.]
- “It is a truth widely known among parents that no matter where you go in the world, or how exotic the itinerary, the hotel pool will always be the highlight for your young children.” [Reading this made me feel as though Kim was speaking directly to me, writer to reader and parent to parent. I immediately thought back to last summer, when I asked my kids to share their favorite part of our family trip to Hawaii, and they shouted in unison: “The pool!”] ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
6. SHARE HEADSPACE
When writing personal essays, it’s easy to focus on what we were doing at a particular moment in time. It’s harder to look inward and consider what we were thinking in that moment. Always ask yourself: What was I thinking about? How was I feeling? What questions were racing through my mind? What fears were holding me back?
Kim does a nice job of this when he describes R’s puzzlement over the religious undertones of “Heidi.” He lists the questions it sparks for him:
Why do some people, like his grandmothers, believe that an all-powerful god exists, while others, like his parents, do not? How can one person’s reality differ so drastically from someone else’s?
In reading these questions, we can more easily understand his son’s — and perhaps even his own — attempts to try to make sense of the world.
7. SHOW US HOW YOU ARE ONE OF MANY
No matter how singular your story is, there are likely still parts of it that speak to our shared humanity. I always appreciate when writers describe how their own experiences relate to a broader community of individuals — not in a monolithic way but in a “me, too” kind of way. Kim does so effectively when comparing himself to other parents in this passage:
Like many parents, I have tried to pass on the highlights of my early reading life to my children (R and his little sister). And, like many parents, I have been crushed when the box sets of serial mysteries and Beverly Cleary paperbacks I buy with aching affection remain untouched.
The repetition of “like many parents” makes the writing feel more inclusive, and the Beverly Cleary paperback detail makes it more relatable. (I tried getting my 8-year-old daughter to read my old Cleary copies, but they have remained on the bottom shelf of her bookcase, untouched.)
8. REMEMBER THE MAGIC NUMBER THREE
My longtime mentor Roy Peter Clark introduced me to the magic of the number three, and it has become one of my favorite writing tools. In his book “Writing Tools,” Clark encourages writers to think about the number of examples they provide when writing: “Use one for power; use two for comparison, contrast; use three for completeness, wholeness, roundness; use four or more to list, inventory, compile, and expand.” In personal essays, using three examples helps to encompass the whole.
Kim takes advantage of the magic number three several times throughout his essay. Here are three examples (see what I did there?):
- “He was expecting roller coasters, goat-shaped bumper cars. Animatronic Heidis with dark curls and dirndls.”
- “The attractions were … rigorous hikes! Ye olde villages! Incredible views!”
- “We did pass those meadows, but also vineyards, beefy medieval castles and flower-capped fountains.”
9. USE STRONG VERBS.
When self-editing personal essays, circle your verbs. You may find that you tend to use the same verbs over and over, or that you overuse versions of “to be.” Switching up your verbs can keep your writing more specific and more dynamic.
Consider the verbs in this passage from Kim’s essay:
The hot grass thrummed with cicadas. We huffed uphill on narrow shoulderless roads as farm vehicles and bleating Peugeots swerved around us …
These strong verbs create narrative energy and help drive the story forward.
10. CLIMB UP AND DOWN THE LADDER OF ABSTRACTION
On its surface, Kim’s essay is about a trip to the Alps and the book that (partly) inspired it. But at its heart, the essay is about so much more: navigating the father-son relationship; letting your child become their own person; appreciating how books can expose us to new worlds, both real and imagined …
The late politician and scholar S.I. Hayakawa popularized the term “ladder of abstraction” in his book “Language in Thought and Action.” It’s a helpful technique for writers, who should always aim to move up and down the ladder. Concrete details reside at the bottom of the ladder. Universal themes live at the top. The key is not getting stuck in the middle, where rungs can be riddled with jargon, hard-to-understand concepts, or unnecessary details/context.
In Kim’s essay, there’s a brief scene in which he writes about deciding to have a stick fight with his son. He moves down the ladder when he talks about the sticks that his son gathers (the sticks being the concrete detail). He starts to move up the ladder when he briefly mentions that his son stumbled upon the resort pool when looking for the sticks. Then he arrives at the top when he draws a connection between Heidi’s storybook adventures and his son’s sudden pool fascination:
Theirs was a joy burdened by neither earthly concerns nor fantasy — a love of present circumstance, of a real life that was plenty good enough.
11. BRING IN SOURCE MATERIALS
Some of my favorite personal essays pull in source materials, such as quotes from books, journal entries, medical records, and letters. Kim does this when quoting from a park map that stated:
You are standing in the middle of the village of the most famous Swiss girl, Heidi.
He had to have either taken a picture of this map or held onto it for safekeeping — two good strategies for any writer who wants to use source materials when writing about personal experiences.
Kim also quotes directly from “Heidi,” which makes good sense given that the essay is largely about the book. He refers back to one of these quotes at the end of the piece. In doing so, he helps us see the connections between his own story and that of Heidi’s — and the sometimes surprising overlap between fiction and real life.
12. RELAY A MOMENT OF REALIZATION
One of my former colleagues, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tom French, once said a story is a promise that the end is worth waiting for. I’ve always loved this line, and whenever I write a personal essay, I ask myself: Did I fulfill the promise?
I used to think I was fulfilling the promise by writing tidy endings that were all tied up with a pretty bow. But I’ve come to find that the best endings don’t require a happy ending, major turning point, or life-changing epiphany. More often, they recognize smaller moments of realization or growth.
As Daniel Jones, editor of The New York Times’ Modern Love column, once said: “A happy ending is when the writer understands something he or she didn’t understand before.”
I thought of this when reading the last couple paragraphs of Kim’s essay, in which he writes that
... it became a little clearer to me why R and generations of other unruly children had found a counterpart in [Heidi].
The essay’s ending is not a pristine package wrapped with a perfect bow, but it’s still a gift.
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Mallary Tenore Tarpley teaches at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Journalism and Media. Her debut nonfiction book, “Slip: Life in the Middle of Eating Disorder Recovery,” will be published by Simon & Schuster’s Simon Element imprint in August 2025 and is now available for pre-order. She recently launched a newsletter, Write at the Edge, geared toward helping writers hone their craft.
