Blog Post 3.3
For my final essay, I initially planned to expand on the same story that I covered for my second essay. I thought it would be fun to experiment with the structure and how I told it. But then I thought of a similar experience that might fit better for a lyric essay: My worst experience at the hair salon. It’s also a childhood experience, but this time I will talk about getting my hair pressed (straightened with a hot metal comb) for a party.
For this piece I really want readers to feel what I was feeling. I want them to experience the chaos and confusion of a cluttered salon, to react to the pointless gossip I was forced to hear, and to smell the filthy odor of burnt hair and cheap perfume in a salon with no windows. I want them to see what it’s like to be in a nine-year-old’s shoes, stuck in a high chair with a scalding hot comb against her scalp. I often say that words can’t describe how embarrassing and painful this experience was, but hopefully, this lyric essay will change that.
This fits into a lyric essay category because it will be very poetic, and it will depend a lot on imagery. I intend to use a lot of description for this, so I want the details to be really vivid. I want it to flow like a creative poem because I want it to have rhythm, so I’ll be experimenting a lot more in terms of the structure.
For now, I plan to go through the experience step-by-step and build up to the climax. To signify the shifts between each main point I might use paragraph breaks, but I’m still thinking of other options. And as for the length, I think it will be about 5 pages.
For lack of a better title, so far I’m thinking: Pressed to Kill
4 responses so far
I love all the sensory details you’re already beginning to evoke in your proposal. I think you’ve got great potential there. What might end up happening, after you write the essay you propose here, is that you might find you would be able to interweave it or otherwise merge it with your Essay 2. The two might speak to one another so interesting that it could work.
But don’t think too much or worry about that for now. For now, write this proposed essay. I would suggest you consider including voices from the salon–the stylists, salon owner, your mother, other customers. You could play with the individual qualities of the different voices. Or you could play with how they are, ultimately, so similar–you could play with ways to merge them into one common voice. For instance, what if these voices were actually like a chorus–you know, like the choruses in ancient Greek plays, who were sometimes comprised of women (as in Sophocles’ Electra). What if you played with this structure? It could be a fun, lyric-essay thing to do: to create a “Greek Chorus” that would play a role similar to that of the chorus in ancient drama: they were commentators, moralists, etc. who stepped in and interrupted the action to comment on it. Just a thought. I think it came to me because the hair salon is a place of many (and often loud) voices. And you talk about wanting to experiment with structure in this essay.
The salon is also a place of women, and this is a woman’s story: the story of hair and its meaning, and the story of suffering for hair. It’s also a story of race and identity, as much as gender and identity. And ultimately, of course, it’s up to you what aspects of the story (gender? race? the individual and her experience? the collective?) you will most want to bring out, which will determine how you will incorporate those voices I’m talking about above.
Sounds great. Lots of potential here.
Just reading this I can already see it, and smell it. Maybe that’s because I’m a girl who has a lot of hair, burns it, and spends a decent amount of time in a hair salon. All that aside, I think you already do an excellent job at describing it using words. I’m excited to see what you come up with. When I was imagining this essay in my head I imagined it as being recited via audio and the gossip and sounds being featured in the background. I don’t know if that was the route you wanted to take but that’s an option! And I think it can potentially be a very effective one!
I feel like if I were to write an essay about my experience in a hair salon, it could take one page the most. I think you will have to involve a lot of thorough description into this one to make it five pages, but I would be cautious with inserting too much of a description. The idea is interesting, it’s something any girl would love to read about and it is also unusual.
Hey Nakiesha,
I can soo relate to your topic, hours spent at the hair salon only for the style to last 2 days. #girlproblems
I am picturing all the sensory details you could use to describe the hair salon experience. In all honesty, 5 pages is very long, in order to avoid dragging the topic out you should make sure that it flows smoothly. Reading the story out loud after you’ve finished the first draft is a great way to weed out the unnecessary segments. Either way I look forward to reading your story.
-Cass