I’ve been teaching the how-to essay again and reading models. I love how the how-to format offers the personal essayist a structure that inspires poignancy, honesty, and humor. Here is an excerpt from my book Writing and Sharing Personal Essays. And for after you’ve read about this style essay and the sample essay in the excerpt, I’ve included links to two popular pieces that have used the form.

The How-To Essay

Write Question #3: What do I know how to make or do?

…there is the mnemonic potential of language—the capacity to use this tool to help one remember information, ranging from lists of possessions to rules of a game, from directions for finding one’s way to procedures for operating a new machine.

—Howard Gardner, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences

In our culture, we are very familiar with the how-to style of writing. It is not hard to find how-to books and articles on subjects as wide-ranging as making a marriage work, becoming a super learner or performer, wiring a house, lowering cholesterol, and preparing for alien abduction. All of us read about how to do things and/or make products.

In getting an education, pursuing hobbies, raising families, and doing jobs, we learn how things are made and how they work. Some of us know first-hand how a particular government agency works, how landing gear on an airplane works, how to make yogurt or paper or a website. Some of us are able to juggle two jobs while raising a family; others know something about how to resolve conflict successfully or how to play badminton. But why would we write about how to do these things in a personal essay?

When you write a personal essay using the how-to form, you often write about how something is done or made to address particular people you care about or disagree with. There is something in the process you are writing about that you want them to appreciate or see as a metaphor for a life situation or understand to be better informed. You want your audience to understand how the process of making or doing a particular thing has affected your life and could affect theirs.

Some of the most moving how-to essays I’ve read explain step-by-step how to do something that the authors actually wished they didn’t really know how to do. These topics include how to become codependent, lose hard-earned savings, alienate a spouse, lose a child’s respect, have practically no friends, and take actions that will ruin the environment. Authors of the how-to personal essay can write to help those they care about to avoid doing what they have done.

All how-to writing requires paying attention to 1) the steps in the process you are describing, 2) the order in which the steps must be performed, 3) the special terms to understand 4) the tools required to do the process, 5) the variations allowed in approaches, and 6) the signs that the desired outcome has been achieved. This organization contains sequence much like narration contains chronology. It contains description as you write about stages in a process and involves the five senses as you make the process immediate for the reader. In addition, the how-to essay can contain anecdotes (short narrations) as a way of describing any of the steps. How-to personal essays also make clear to the reader why the author is explaining how a particular thing is made or done.

Because I think the how-to form of the personal essay is intended for particular people in an author’s life, I suggest borrowing from the epistolary or letter form of writing to focus the how-to personal essay. By thinking of both something you know how to do or make and someone you believe needs this information, you will be ready to write an effective how-to personal essay.

If you intend to write about an area of experience you have already decided to explore, ask yourself the “write” question like this: What do I know how to do or to make concerning (for example once again, divorce, parenting, adjusting to an illness, fighting in a war or visiting another country)? To whom do I most want to tell this? Your answer to the first question might range from how to file for divorce and how to work out joint custody to how to make divorce harder on yourself and everyone you love. When you think about to whom you want to tell the information, you will narrow down possible topics. Perhaps you’ll find the topic that most appeals is the one about joint custody, addressed to your children so their new life is easier for them. Or perhaps you want to address your ex-husband on the topic to make a point about how important it is that children’s lives continue with as little interruption as possible.

After you figure out whom you want to address, you might find yourself rearranging the topic a little. Maybe you see that you want to write to your ex-husband about the need for joint custody and you realize the most effective way to do this is to write about how to wreck joint custody and the kids’ emotional lives, too.

If you are not thinking about a particular topic for your writing, ask, “What do I know how to do or to make? Who do I most want to tell this to?”

Whether you have already decided on a particular interest or not, do two clusters. In the first one, put “how is made or done” in the middle of the page and circle and connect whatever words come to mind, whether you are clustering on one particular process or fishing around for one of interest. You might find yourself thinking about how to make your grandmother’s rhubarb pie, how to cheer up a toddler, how to mess up a house, how to earn points with the boss, how to find a new friend, or how to care for a sick friend. You will be surprised at what you can explain to someone else. Next, cluster around the phrase, “To whom do I want to tell something?” Pretty soon, you will think of some surprising people or even inanimate objects, you might want to write a how-to personal essay for—a former teacher, a dead relative, a close friend, the annoying business associate at the next desk, your favorite stuffed animal from childhood, your mother, father, spouse, lover or children.

Example How-to Essay

In “Letter to My Friend John,” Tim Johnson describes the process of planting and raising a pinto bean harvest. Johnson feels he can connect to his friend on this subject because he has already told him that he brought pinto beans home from his annual trip to North Dakota. By describing the process of pinto bean farming, Johnson realizes that what he is describing is also a metaphor for how his friend has recovered in the years following his wife’s murder. There are steps to growing the beans and steps to rebuilding a life. To communicate the processes clearly, Johnson uses description and narration.

Letter to My Friend John

       by Tim Johnson

Dear John

I value our friendship too much to want to dredge up past memories that are too painful for you to relive. During the past eight years, standing by you through your painful journey, I never asked to talk about anything you didn’t want to share, but I want to tell you how much I admire you. The best way I know to describe my understanding of your courage is through an analogy.

When I brought some pinto beans home last fall upon my return from my annual harvest pilgrimage to North Dakota, I told you that it was the first time that pinto beans were raised on my land. After cleaning out the field dirt, rinsing and soaking the beans, I prepared them in a slow cooker. One of the recipes I concocted is with hefeweizen or wheat beer, a ham bone and various seasonings including Worcestershire sauce. It makes for some fine eating!

I renegotiated my farm leasing arrangement with the cousin who planted the bean crop last year. The deal I struck with Gary will include a cash rent-share crop arrangement. He will pay me cash rent on all the tillable crop acres except for the pinto bean acres. On those acres, we will share an 80-20 split of the crop. In other words, I will get 20 percent of the production as the landlord. I made this arrangement with him because pinto beans are an intensive high input crop, and there are many risks associated with raising them.

I will share the risks because I want Gary to raise pinto beans. I want to break out of the cereal crop rotation, which has left the overall soil fertility, especially nitrogen, at low levels. As you know pinto beans are a legume so they will fix atmospheric nitrogen in the soil thereby cutting down on the need and expense of using only commercial fertilizer. Weed control is a very important step in raising a successful crop of pinto beans. Gary will use various herbicides in this step but will also do mechanical cultivation. While cultivating, he also marks the surface rocks that he can see with small red flags. However, the main reason for cultivation is to “hill” the rows.

“Hilling” is important because it throws dirt into the rows. Harvesting is a three-step process that involves first knifing or under cutting the roots and bunching two rows together. The hilling process created by cultivation allows the four-foot long knives to work properly and is mainly done at night when the bean vines are damp with dew. The damp vines flow over the knives in a smoother motion. When the vines dry out they start to bunch up. Seeing the red flags that mark the surface rocks allows the operator of the knifer to lift over the rocks so that the knife assembly isn’t damaged any more than necessary. One pass with the knifing apparatus is usually not enough to sever all the roots, so he also has to make a pass with a rotating rod assembly that runs underground and loosens the remaining roots. The last harvest step is threshing the bunched rows with a combine that is modified for this operation. The combine is equipped with a special header that eliminates some of the small rocks and dirt picked up with the beans. The rotary cylinder is slowed down so as not to crack and split the beans during the threshing process. Splits are part of the dockage that includes other dirt and are discounted when unloaded at the transfer elevator. Once the beans are unloaded from the collection hopper of the combine, they can be used immediately.

In relating how Gary raises a crop of pinto beans, I am especially thinking about the challenges in your personal life during the last eight years. Just as my soil suffered depletion of life-giving nitrogen, your life lost its sustenance following Marta’s death. Instead of giving up, though, you chose to help renew the soil with a pilgrimage back to Paraguay to return Marta’s ashes to her family and attend the nine-day novena, which though difficult, helped you and your son with closure. You eliminated weeds in your life by testifying at the trial of Marta’s assailant and then cultivated the future by bringing a lawsuit against the entities and the system, which allowed him to prey upon women in this city. By doing so, you created a future for Tom.

When you met Anna, perhaps you didn’t realize that she would figure into your life within a few years. But while you were cultivating the future, you also “hilled” the rows of your life by striking up a correspondence with her and having visits in which you got to know her daughter Diana and she Tom. The harvest process in your relationship began with your wedding almost four years ago. Following the wedding, she severed the roots of her old life and moved

to Tucson to be with you, but there have been rocks in the rows, which you have had to lift over. The readjustment process for all of you has been the bunching of the rows of your individual lives. Not all the roots have been severed by just one pass and the process of threshing out the vines of diversity and expectations hasn’t always been easy.

You more than anyone knows that life doesn’t come with guarantees or without risk. Eight years ago, 100 percent of your life was at risk. Slowly but surely you have been able to turn around the situation from that of an operator who assumes all the risks to that of a landlord, willing to risk 20 percent in order to be a better steward. The benefits have been great. The cleaning and separation of the fruits of your lives still has its share of splits and dockage. However, you are now cooking the soup together with Anna and Tom and Diana, with the fruit of all your efforts, and adding seasonings, making for some pretty good sustenance.

Please accept my words and admiration.

Sincerely yours,

Tim

How the Writer Makes a Discovery and Shares It in “Letter to My Friend John”

Notice that to organize parts of the how-to essay, Tim Johnson used various forms of rhetoric inside the main organizational plan. He delineates the steps from legal arrangements to cultivating the soil, planting and harvesting the beans. His descriptions provide precise images and details. Anecdotes help demonstrate and set scenes of the process under discussion. Johnson defines technical terms and tells us the effects of doing certain steps improperly. Once he has done this, he turns from describing the process in farming to applying the process to his friend’s personal recovery. Here he uses metaphor and comparison and contrast-style thinking (which we will work with more in the next chapter) to evoke his feelings and ideas.

Exercises for Developing Your Material

Although you may feel familiar with description and narration as writing styles, you may feel unsure about your skill in using other organizational patterns, such as how-to. However, even if you haven’t been using patterns other than description and narration in writing, you have been using them in your lives. In this and following chapters, I share exercises that help you connect with your experience using these patterns.

To grease the wheels of your “how-to” thinking try this one:

The If-I-Can-Do-It-I-Can-Help-You-Understand-How-to-Do-It-Too Exercise

Find someone willing to interview you about something you know how to do (or pretend you are being interviewed). Ask your interviewee to ask you why the particular task is important to you. Jot down the reason. Ask why it is important for others to know how to do the task. Jot this down, too.

Perhaps you will discuss how to stop smoking, or how to unplug a toilet, or how to create a savings plan that works. Whatever your subject, be sure to have your interviewer ask you to tell the steps needed to accomplish the task, one by one, in the right order. Your interviewer should ask questions to clarify any special terms, tools, materials, variations, or precautions necessary for the task. After the interview is completed, let your interviewer describe your process back to you. Would he or she be doing it right the way they are telling it to you? If not, what do you need to do—correct a step, add steps, or give more information? How do you know the process is complete and successful?

Anytime you have given someone travel directions or shared a recipe, you have communicated in the how-to style. Anytime you have tried to assemble something from manufacturers’ directions or used a product according to instructions, you have experienced receiving information in the how-to style. You know how important clarity, precision, correct order, and pertinent information are for the receiver! Whenever you are using the how-to form, whether it is to teach family members how to do Thanksgiving the way your grandparents did it or to tell your best friend how to overcome the grief of an unwanted divorce, that same thoroughness will create essays that are rich, full, and well received.

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Write a short account of a time you remember sharing something with the person to whom you are writing, or contemplate a future time for which you want to prepare this person. After grounding your reader in a situation, state the process you want him or her to understand. Then describe the steps that need to be done for the process to be completed. Take care to get the order right and not to leave any important steps out. Pay attention to your use of description and terms in the steps. Are the images sensory and true to the situation? Do any of the terms need explanation? How will the reader know when he or she has accomplished the process? If you concentrate on answering these questions as you describe the steps, you will evoke more and more of your subject and keep your reader involved.

Another idea for starting your essay might be this: consider a sentence from Latin American writer Eduardo Galeano in his book, Days and Nights of Love and War (Monthly Review Press, 1983): “I believe in my vocation; I believe in my instrument.” Fill in the vocation involved in your how-to. Let the reader know what you believe in.

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Here are the promised links to two more pieces in the  how-to form:

• Lorri Moore’s “How to Become a Writer“:
• J. Perelman’s “Insert Flap ‘A’ and Throw Away“

If you have a thought or question about the how-to form for the personal essay, please leave a comment below.