- 1). Decide how you feel about your possessions. Possessions typically evoke an emotion associated with a memory. Do you feel triumph because you bought yourself a bike after losing 20 pounds? Do you feel sorrow when you look at the book given to you by a former partner? Use a pen and paper to jot down a few notes about the feelings your possessions evoke.
- 2). Determine how you want the reader to feel. Enlivened? Miserable? Nostalgic? Choose possessions to write about that will get the reaction you're going for.
- 3). Link the possession to a memory. Simply writing about the possession won't be entertaining for the reader. Aim to write an essay, not a product description. Find a way to make your personal possession a character in a story about your life. For example, if you want to write about an old purse, discuss how your mother gave it to you when you were a little girl and now your own daughter plays dress up with the purse like you used to. In this example, the purse is a metaphor for the passage of time.
- 4). Show, don't tell. Use your writing to convey emotion, not simply tell the reader how you feel. At the close of your essay the reader shouldn't only know what you felt, they should feel what you felt. For example, rather than writing "I felt angry", evoke the feeling of anger in the reader.
- 5). Use the five senses of taste, touch, smell, sight and sound to describe your possession in concrete tems.
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