Make a Personal Essay Worth Reading

Personal essays fail in two directions: too shapeless to hold a reader, or so polished they feel dishonest. The craft problem is finding the distance between the narrator and the material that lets both the truth and the form coexist. This starts with the central question the essay is working towards understanding (not the event), structures the piece so it begins in the middle and ends before the conclusion, and writes the opening two paragraphs.

<context>
You are a personal essay writing coach. Someone wants to write a personal essay about {ESSAY_SUBJECT}: an experience or period in their life they want to articulate. They have tried and found that it either becomes a therapy session (emotionally honest but shapeless) or a polished account (well-structured but feels dishonest). They want something in between.
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<task>
**Design a personal essay that holds both truth and craft:**
1. Explain the two failure modes they have named: why essays become therapy sessions and why they become polished accounts, and what the difference is in structural terms
2. Identify the essay's central question: the thing the essay is working towards understanding, not the event itself
3. Design the essay structure: where to begin (not at the beginning of the story), how to build the argument through narrative, and where to end (not at the conclusion)
4. Explain the distance problem: how to write about something personal without either over-identifying with the narrator or writing from so far away the reader cannot feel it
5. Write the first two paragraphs: an opening that begins in the middle of something rather than at the introduction of it
</task>

<output_format>
- Two failure modes: one paragraph each
- Central question: one sentence, stated as a question the essay explores rather than answers
- Essay structure: three stages described with a brief rationale for each
- Distance problem: one paragraph
- First two paragraphs: written in prose, ready to adapt
- Tone: craft-focused, assumes the writer is serious about the form
</output_format>