An informal essay is written for pleasure. Don’t presume that it can not be informative, but it should mainly reveal your ability to write informally and in this way express your point of view on some problems, or some events. The main features of the informal essay missing from other types is its informal style and less rigid, though well-organized plan.
The readers should have the perception of conversation when they are reading your paper. One of the most important things is to preserve the sense of your personality. The reader should penetrate into your mind should apprehend your philosophy as well as your vision.
Many students design their informal essays as the fictional story, from the beginning to the end, with some intervals on description.
You should spend several minutes on the designing of your initial story. This is your first draft. Start at the beginning of the story you are trying to unfold and progress up to its end. At this stage do not bring in emotions or feelings. Try to emphasize on the dates and the events. Certainly each of us has had some important and memorable events, such as the first trip to Europe or the first day at the college.
The plan of the informal essay.
Once you have come up wit the topic, you should consider two important questions. First, you should decide how much information you will present. Second, when you will present this information.
The techniques of the informal essay. Compression allows you to stress on the most important points and events of your story, while omitting or compressing into several words irrelevant and secondary ones.
Time inversion - another technique that is often used in writing the informal essay. The events of 1951 may come before the events of 1940, for example. Needless to say that you have to use this technique cautiously, as too much inversion might weaken the structure of your essay and eventually ruin your assignment.
The cornerstone of this process is a clear, comprehensive and well-organized plan. You should always bear in mind what type of the essay you would like to complete.
Look at the following illustration:
Time order: The start of the event The middle The end of the event.
Now we inverse the time order, so the final illustration looks as following:
The middle of the event The recollection of the start of the event The end of the event.
This technique allows you to attract the attention of the reader by presenting the most important moment of the story. Once he has been attracted and intrigued, you can “transport” him to the beginning of the story and make him acquaint with the missing information before you proceed to the end of the story. This technique is very effective, but you should notify the reader when you intend to proceed and when you intend to look back in time.
Creation of the suspense.
Have you read many interesting books where writers try to preserve the suspense up till the end of plot? Have you watched interesting movies where directors try doing the same with their audience? Yes, but how do they do it? Only few people could tell, fewer can create the suspense in their papers. It is widely regarded as one of the most difficult tasks. But, it might not be so difficult if you bear in mind some very simple principles.
Certainly, you have got to create the suspense in order to attract your readers, to make them stay, to induce them to continue reading your paper. However, several authors can either satisfy your expectations or preserve the suspense until the finals strokes of the completion of the paper. The most important point in the creation of the suspense is the creation of uncertainty. You should create exhilarating and thrilling atmosphere of something unknown, something unexpected and even unpredictable. This technique, named foreshadowing is one of the most widely used techniques in the writing of the fiction stories. It can also be applied in writing the informal essays.
During this process you use another technique- withholding. Every time when the readers ask themselves various questions on the progress of the events in your essay, you withhold the information.
Narrowing of the plot.
Imagine that you are getting on the train and your friend is chatting with another person about his work. We have got two separate but interconnected stories.
Every event in our life comprises several different stories that can be interconnected with others. If you can look at the different stories and distinguish them, yet at the same comprehend the integrity of the story and the reader can see how the story unfolds, then you can use them as an additional technique in your informal essay.
Informal essay
The middle