On Mini-Essays

A mini essay (aka atomic essay) is a short text of prose, usually around 300-600 words long. It is focused on a single topic and attempts to introduce an interesting subject to the reader by presenting an extract of author’s learning, observations and insights, purposefully compressed into a dense form, blending everything into a coherent structure, artictulated with a clear and organized expression. If practiced deliberately, mini essay can become an highly effective method to learn writing skills and learning overall.

Learning takes place when the author tries to integrate his learnings into a coherent structure. This structure will emerge when enough thought is put into it. We can’t write a good mini essay by just writing one draft and then revising it: good mini essay is crafted in loops of refinement.

These loops of crafting contain three steps.

First, we generate the content. Generation includes freewriting, note-taking, journaling. It includes reading books and ruminating over complex ideas while jotting down words and phrases on the margins.

Second, we gather the content and switch to planning mode. We are looking for the system-organizing idea. A system-organizing idea is something that will tie up all the loose threads; it’s like the Sun in the middle of the solar system. Unfortunately, the system-organizing idea will evade us for the longest time, until out of nowhere it will pop into your head.

Third, we don’t write down our ideas, we present them to the reader. Presentation can take many forms: a narrative; a chronological explanation of events; a fact-by-fact exposition. We are a guide, trying to remain unnoticed, anticipating the reader’s next question and gently guiding his attention to the answers.

As we finish our first, second and third rounds of refinement, we are still unsatisfied. Questions and doubts arise? Why restrict yourself with all these artificial constraints? Will I sound like an AI? What do I do with all of the leftover material? Why not just cram it in? These are normal question during a despair. You just have to let go of them.

In the end you will have a mini-essay. A short piece of text, distillation of your obsession, crafted with intention, forever yours.