How to write without having to write a whole novel.
Now, the answer on how to do it is quite simple, and it is all about writing short vignettes or personal columns.
I first came upon the concept of writing a personal column about your own life —as Lina, the creator of The Stories Club names it— one night scrolling on TikTok under a “writing” search. I found Lina’s site, where she explained how to make your own personal column. She posted a few fragments of some of her own personal columns, as an example of the craft itself.
That totally and immediately drew me in.
By that time I really wanted to write —I still want to— but I felt I could never. Not only because I don’t have much free time in my daily life, but because I felt so insecure about doing it.
Whenever I tried to learn something and enroll in some online writing courses, I would always come across the phrase “you have a story in your head, you just have to tell it. You just have to write it down.” You know… this nice inspirational speech, about how every writer has this story or character living rent-free in their head; and how that story or character won’t let them sleep at night unless they put pen to paper and start telling said story.
Well… I have never felt like I have a story or a set of characters that don’t let me sleep at night, trying to entice me into writing them down and telling their story to the world. Nope, I sleep quite soundly aside from a couple of night terrors from time to time.
I can, however, think of a few prompts I would like to write about. I usually get excited about some prompts I find online and in some of the craft literature, but I cannot say there is a story stuck in my head that I have always wanted to tell.
Regardless of what I used to consider, until then, a shortcoming of mine, I love and have always loved writing. Lina’s post gave me such a great excuse to write without feeling the pressure of being trapped in that fallacy of writing a novel or not writing at all.
So I started looking into it —because yes, I am one of those people who need at least a certain amount of information and my own research done before I consider myself confident enough to start doing something.
Basically, what Lina explains on her website is that the personal column is simply a short narrative that focuses on a specific topic from your personal experiences and observations. And the purpose of the activity is to write about something without having to create a whole structured story. Releasing the pressure and simply enjoying the process just for the joy of doing it.
From this, my late-night web search got me into defining something that I’d been doing daily in my journaling sessions, when describing a small, vivid slice of a moment, without knowing the word for it. I now know it is called a “vignette,” which is a short, descriptive and evocative text aimed at capturing a specific moment in time. Or an “anecdote,” which is composed of a short personal story about a specific topic, when my writing is all about any of my personal experiences. These are a couple of what in literature are called “literary devices.” In practice, though, they’re probably just what we’ve all been doing whenever we write in our personal journals.
So, considering this and coming back to the “personal column” concept from Lina, what I got from it is that this is a combination of a vignette and an anecdote into a column writing style.
This is about you enjoying writing from your own experiences, opinions, and feelings, in the way that fits you the most at the moment.
For instance, I know I will enjoy writing my own “personal columns” from time to time, as well as short vignettes of whatever inspires me the most in the day. Or some paragraphs about whatever feels right to write about at the moment. No structure, no pressure. Just writing, and taking anything as an excuse to do it.
At the end of the day, it is all about writing just for the love of doing so. Just you enjoying the pen and paper, the keyboard, the notes app, or whatever it is you reach for when you write.
Sources and further reading
- A Practical Guide to Writing a Column That People Will Love to Read — Lina, The Stories Club
- Use a Vignette – #wakeupreader — Pat Thomson
- Vignettes — EBSCO Research Starters
- What Is an Anecdote? Definition, Examples, and Usage — Grammarly
- 22 Essential Literary Devices and How to Use Them In Your Writing — MasterClass
- Literary Device — EBSCO Research Starters
- Here’s Why You Should Write Columns, Instead Of Just Stories — Attila Vágó, Medium
- Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels