Nov 14, 20245 min read

What is a Mini Essay and Why you should write them?

What is a Mini Essay?

A mini essay is a short paragraph to a 300 word article/essay where you formulate your ideas around a topic. It could be a single paragraph or several, describing a single topic. Here in my blog, I have many mini essays. Although most of the articles in this blog include around 1000 word articles, they all started as mini essays. And that is the most rewarding part of writing a mini essay.

Advantages of writing mini essays.

It is easy, hence need little motivation- hence habit forming.

If you would want to become a writer, you should start writing. Not just thinking about writing day after day. And if you are not able to write a poem, a mini essay would be a great place to start. It is easy to write a 300 word piece on any topic. You can write about a falling leaf, a floating leaf or some grass. More importantly it would not take your whole day, as many of us are just writing as a hobby, just for fun. It takes only 15 minutes per day. Like I have written earlier, we should just do it, to be it. Hence when you are writing you will be a writer for the 15 minutes, of your mini essay writing. If you want writing to become a regular habit, writing mini essay as a habit can be done with minimal motivation.

They have potential to grow- mini essays are like seeds.

Although mini essays are small, they have a potential to grow. As they capture an idea, around a topic, it could be nourished. As you revisit, you can add and do your lateral thinking in a later date. And it could easily become a 1000-1500 word blog article. It is a snowball effect. Not only in the word count, it has ability to grow as a better habit. It can increase the organization in your mind. As ideas are not generally sharp when they initially arise in your mind. Only if you write them down you would understand things you even haven't thought about before. This often happens to me when I write. And even the ideas will start to Suprise you, as you start to see connections. As these mini essays accumulate in number you will start to notice surprisingly how they are interconnected. And this is learning, a higher order learning, which is happening effortlessly. You would not agree but, a mini essay can even become a novel. Think about mini essay as a little seed. If it starts to grow in a fertile ground, soon it will become a tree to shade and nourish everyone.

Mini essays let you a deeper level of understanding.

Yes, think about it. Just like Richerd Ferman explained, in his famous technique of learning anything, you should try to teach what you have learned to a kid. However, often you would find you skip this part of teaching someone what you have learnt. Mini essays are great, in this way as it allows you to formulate and organize those vague ideas into a comprehensible format. Even easy to understand. And when you do this new questions and gaps of your knowledge will be exposed and let you into a deeper level of understanding of the subject.

Writing mini essays is pleasurable.

I write about movies, jelly fish, even a piece of rock. It is pleasurable to write about these. As we all have our own consciousness which is observing the universe with mindfulness, every perspective is unique. And only if you write them down that you will be able to share them with others. As half life of thoughts is very limited if not taken out of its origin and put on paper. Once you realize that this simple act of writing it down creates a limited legend of your own, you will start to enjoy it more. Just like Achillis who battled for a legend, your mini essays will be your Sword in the battle. You can come back to your mini essays and think about them maybe years later. Like Jordon Peterson Once said, once you sharpen your skill of writing, you would be an unstoppable bullet.

Mini essays let you be creative.

Mini essays is a creative space, and creativity gives you wings. Consider this as a canvass for an artist. The canvass is blank when you start painting it with words. There is nothing, yet once you start drawing with your words, empty space will start to magically turn into a shape. Then you will start to notice a starry night, sunflower or a night street in Paris. And once you realise you can start to make it more and more into a masterpiece. You can come back and appriciate your deed. Even if it is just decorating your mind it doesn't matter. The first person who believes in his or her art is the artist herself. Hence, it doesn't matter. If something like a banana on a wall can be a conceptual art in the modern world, I bet words have more potental than any banana in the world! Don't you think so? So, use the creative space provided by mini essay and I am sure you will start loving the experience so much that you would come back again tomorrow. Just to enjoy the silence and the flow.

How to Write a mini-Essay.

This is easy. Choose a topic, Any topic. Something you believe, or something you were taught, you heard or saw on your way home. It may be an idea you just saw in a YouTube video. And start writing. Once you have written down, come back to it later and do some lateral thinking. And reform until it becomes a really polished.

Idea -> write -> reorganize and refine.

Do this process repetitively and you will have a nice mini essay. And comment me yours once you have done it !

It is better if you have a place and time when you start writing a mini essay. Rarther than specific time each day (Eg: 8.pm everyday), you can start specific location and place it after your established habit (Eg: after dinner), So that you would not forget about this. And also I suggest you start writing on a diary or a notebook. Because the phone is not a good place to hang around as it is a beast to destroy your creativity. Even a tablet for that matter. Desktop may be better as long as it doesn't have internet connection! You can start writing and then do the reserch when you start to get problems and you are stuck half way through. Do not start with an internet search! It will get you hooked for hours and hours of endless scrolling and after some half an hour you will realise you have written nothing. More often I revert back to my notebook to avoid this kind of internet hazard. But I agree, internet is like a knife. Problem is we have a monkey in our mind. Not a well trained barber, most of the time.