The Process
Note: the following process description refers to the Complete Personal Statement Package, but is illustrative of my approach for all component services offered.
We start by talking through the prompt together, in person, on Zoom, or over e-mail. Utilizing a storyteller’s framework, we brainstorm until we land on the right experience for your student to write about.
Guided Brainstorm
Through conversation, I help the student place the experience in context of the prompt and understand its features through a storyteller’s lens. We discuss how fiction techniques, such as scene-based openings, descriptive openings, narrative arc, character development, and exploration of interior states, can be utilized to tell the story.
Discuss Approach
Together, we develop a structural blueprint for the essay. Armed with a plan, the tools of a fiction writer, and the freedom to write a story instead of merely an “essay” or “statement,” the student writes a first draft.
Develop Structural Blueprint
Revision
Once a draft is complete, I provide a line-edit of the completed first draft, along with detailed feedback. Additional rounds of edits may require an additional fee.
Packages and Individual Services
Start to finish support on your personal statement or supplemental essay. Includes a guided brainstorm and planning session (in person, Zoom, or email, up to 60 minutes), a structural blueprint built together, and one comprehensive line edit with detailed feedback on voice, structure, and how well the essay answers the prompt. Package includes a PDF on utilizing fiction strategies in personal statements and supplemental essays.
Upon purchase, you will be sent a link to book the meeting with your student.
For a finished draft. A close edit with detailed feedback on voice, pacing, structure, and how well the essay answers the prompt. Text will also be copyedited. Edits provided via e-mail, via Google Docs or Word Track Changes. No meeting included with this service.
A private, one-on-one session on how novelists build scenes and write stories, including active openings, stake-raising, and narrative and character arcs. These tools can be used in crafting the personal statement or supplemental essay. 60 minutes.
Note: group sessions are also available. Please inquire.
A single working session, in person, Zoom, or email, to analyze the prompt, choose from among several possible topics supplied by the student (or those that come up during brainstorming), and together come up with a detailed, story-informed blueprint for your statement or essay.
About Ashley Shelby
I'm a published novelist, short story writer, essayist, and journalist with an MFA in Writing from Columbia University. Before I was writing my own books, I worked as an acquisitions editor at Penguin, reading manuscripts for a living. I’ve developed and taught classes on memoir writing and nonfiction writing at The Loft Literary Center, Gotham Writers Workshop, and Mediabistro, and guest lectured at the University of Minnesota and University of St. Thomas. This deep and varied experience, plus a novelist's sense of story, is what I bring to every student I work with. I’ve spent my entire career understanding what makes a piece of writing worth reading, and how to help anyone figure out how to tell their story.
I work with students based in the Twin Cities in person, and with students anywhere by Zoom.
Information about my books and writing career can be found at www.ashleyshelby.com