You’ve probably heard the phrase “main character energy” floating around on social media. It's about stepping into yourself with confidence, purpose, and sometimes a touch of flair. But here’s something you might not have considered: stepping into that same energy is also a great way to write a standout college essay.
Of course, you’re technically always the main character in your personal statement. But you’d be surprised at how easy it is to write an essay that shows off impressive accomplishments, extracurricular activities, hobbies, or interests, without actually revealing much about the person behind it. In everyday life, we know that we can’t always be the center of attention, so we might downplay our most deeply held ideas, feelings, or perspectives. But the college application essay is your chance to step into the spotlight and take center stage, not by showing off a laundry list of achievements, but by revealing to your reader something true, honest, and compelling about yourself.
So how do you cram everything from your accomplishments and achievements or your raw human experiences into a 500-600 word essay? In this post, I’ll show you how to harness your main character energy and turn it into a main character essay writing strategy in two easy steps by finding your “plot points” and putting on a show (don’t tell)!
Step 1: Find your “plot points”
Every main character has to go through a narrative arc. Think about your favorite book or movie character. What made you like them? Likely, they faced some tough obstacles and managed to grow through the experience. They may have learned a key lesson along the way. At Essay Cafe, we recommend that your narrative arc include a few key “plot points”:
The challenge
At the start of your essay, you’ll want to articulate the problem, obstacle, or situation you were up against. This sets up the stakes of your narrative and gives your reader something to root for. For more on writing the challenge, see our blog post on the sweet and sour balance.
The transformative moment
Show the decision, realization, or experience that changed how you thought, felt, or acted. I like to call this the “aha” moment, because it is usually a specific moment that changes how you think or feel about something and leads to a key realization that helps you overcome the initial obstacle. This is where the reader sees your growth in action.
The lasting change
End by showing how that moment continues to shape you today. How did it affect the way you approach challenges, relationships, or opportunities? This is where you show your reader that you not only overcame the challenge, but learned and grew from it. This is a great place to show how you’ll carry the lessons you learned with you into college.
In order to locate your “main character” moment, it may be tempting to think of the big things in life, like major accomplishments, losses, or drastic changes, but often the moments when we truly step in our “main character energy” are more subtle and unexpected. Use the following list to help you brainstorm moments when you experienced challenges and transformations, both big and small.
Think about a time when…
- You were afraid to do something that others found easy or simple, like learning to drive, participating in class, or learning a new skill or sport.
- You were wrong about something you had felt sure of, like rethinking tradition or deeply held beliefs, or misjudging someone's character before you knew them well.
- You stood up for yourself or someone else, like challenging an authority figure or advocating for fairness in an unfair situation.
- You failed, and what happened next, like not making a team, bombing a big test, or letting someone down.
- You realized you were growing up, like navigating a new job or internship, traveling alone for the first time, or taking care of someone else.
- You felt out of place, like changing schools or moving cities, navigating between cultures, languages, and identities, or being a novice at a new skill.
- You were in conflict with someone you care about, like a parent or close friend, and how you worked through it.
- You surprised yourself by solving a problem in a novel way or enjoying something you had once disliked.
- You challenged the status quo, like questioning a long-standing belief or tradition, or an unfair rule.
These are just a few ideas to get you started. Remember, stepping into your main character energy can happen in both big and small ways, so don’t discount the small moments and the little wins. Sometimes, they can reveal the most!
Step 2: Put on a show (don’t tell!)
I’m sure you’ve encountered the age-old adage, “show, don’t tell,” but what does that mean in the context of the college essay? “Telling” would be the equivalent of standing on the stage with the spotlight on you and reading the plot summary of a play aloud, while “showing” would involve actually performing the play. The second one sounds much more interesting, right?
Most importantly, showing allows your reader to organically understand who you are as a character without having to be directly told. This is the key to putting on a show without seeming like a show-off; it's an important distinction! Main characters don’t just announce who they are; the story reveals it.
To help get you started, here are a few examples of what "telling" looks like vs. putting on a show.
| Telling | Putting on a show |
|---|---|
| Writing about starting a non-profit after-school reading program and telling us how great your project was for the kids. | Describe a moment in which you worked with an individual student and saw their growth after many hours of difficult but diligent hard work. |
| Saying you starred in the school play and got a standing ovation on opening night. | Recounting the moment backstage when your hands were shaking or the time you were so nervous you nearly quit, but you decided to push through. |
| Mentioning that you wrote a novel during junior year and self-published it on Amazon. | Describing the late-night writing sessions, the deleted drafts, and the moment you almost gave up after a rejection, before finally reaching your goal. |
| Explaining that you won a regional science fair and led a team of peers. | Telling the story of a failed experiment that nearly derailed your project, how your team disagreed on the solution, and what it taught you about collaboration under pressure. |
| Talking about how you spent a summer interning at a law firm and “learned a lot about the legal system.” | Focusing in on a specific case file you reviewed, how it opened your eyes to issues of justice or inequity, and how that moment reshaped your career goals. |
| Saying you were team captain and led your soccer team to a championship. | Sharing the moment in a tough match when you had to choose between taking the shot or passing to a teammate, and what that moment revealed about leadership to you. |
Not only does taking the “putting on a show” route give your reader something more interesting to read by putting your achievements into narrative form, but it also tells us something more about you as a person: your character, your ability to persevere when things are hard, and the lessons that you’ve learned.
In the context of the college essay, “main character energy” happens when you show your reader who you are, not just what you’ve done. We don’t like main characters because they’re perfect; we like them because they’re real, flawed people who make mistakes, learn, and grow, and also because, cliche as it may sound, they are uniquely themselves.
Your essay should leave the reader with the sense that they’ve just witnessed not a list of achievements, but a story with you at the center. If you bring the main character energy, your reader will want to keep following you into the next chapter.
About Katie Livingston
Katie Livingston is currently an English PhD candidate at Stanford University. With a focus on American literature from 1840-1940, Katie researches class mobility in the novel, women's literature, and local color/regionalist fiction.
Katie did her undergrad at Wesleyan University, where she graduated with high honors in English. She has been teaching both creative and critical writing for the past seven years both in a tutoring and classroom setting. She believes in focusing on the process and practice of writing and helping students use writing as a tool for self-discovery and expression. Her own writing has been recognized in awards and fellowships and published in literary journals, and fiction anthologies.
When she isn't immersed in writing or teaching, Katie enjoys exploring the outdoors as a backpacker, hiker, and climber. She also finds joy in baking cakes, indulging in campy horror films, and spending time with her cat, Loaf.