Writing About Yourself: The Art of Telling Your Story

Continuing his series on the art of writing, fellow Interintellect Rick Benger explores telling authentic, effective personal stories. 

We draft the LinkedIn bio, the dating profile, the cover letter with some disquiet. Such formats confront us with the god-mode question, “Who are you?”, and a nest of norms, implied but unreal audiences, and cues that can leave even the most self-aware of us second-guessing.

How do we write something authentic yet effective? Where’s the sweet spot between “I contain multitudes” and something so reductive it feels like a betrayal of our real self?

In this salon we’ll explore writing about yourself for public audiences. We’ll cover professional bios, all manner of internet profiles, self-assessments, cover letters, personal statements and apologia. We’ll share our own examples, learn from bad advice, and experiment with writing exercises.

This salon is part of a series on writing about the hard to write about. Expect a cocktail of genre exploration, literary examples, writing experiments, and finding ways to find your voice.

• Writing about Love: the Art of a Great Love Letter – request a rerun
• Writing about Loss: the Art of Saying Goodbye – request a rerun
• Writing about Yourself: the Art of Telling Your Story

Suggested Reading:

• The Art of the Cover Letter
• A collection of advice from the Twitterati
• A CV of failures goes viral
• Being Your Selves: Identity R&D on alt Twitter
• Do you like this portfolio site?
• Does this article give good advice?
• Which of these bios do you like?