Writing your own essay

This guide shows one method for developing those preparation essays using the texts, archive material, historical research and critical readings brought together by the Bram Stoker Estate. Your teachers will help you apply that knowledge to the demands and technique of your examination.

Different courses, different questions. Dracula is studied across qualifications with different text choices and assessment requirements. Some tasks concern the novel alone; others require comparison or analysis of a supplied extract. Use Chapter C’s course information and official papers alongside your teacher’s advice.

Choose a practice question or one set by your teacher. The seven stages below – five to build the argument, then two to write and revise – suggest a method, not a compulsory formula. Your teacher or college may suggest another. You may return to earlier stages when drafting changes your understanding.

The example essays show the first five decisions before presenting the finished essay. Read the preparation alongside the essay to see how the question, evidence and provisional conclusion shape the finished argument. Then use the full seven-stage approach to develop and revise your own response.

Define the task, test the evidence and settle on an argument and structure before you begin the draft.

Work out what the question asks you to decide. Define each important term through the text, identify what its wording actually asserts and establish the task’s requirements. Distinguish an assumption in the question from a tempting initial reading of your own.

Worked example: “Mina Harker is both traditional and modern.” Traditional can refer to marriage, duty, service and male protection; modern to paid work, technical competence and independent judgement. “Both” proposes coexistence, not an equal balance. Ask how those qualities work together, where they conflict and what the novel’s treatment of them enables you to conclude.

Gather relevant passages from across the novel. For each, record the chapter, who speaks or writes, a short exact quotation, and the point it supports or complicates. A quotation becomes evidence when you explain what it helps establish. Include the strongest passage against the answer you first prefer, as well as evidence in its favour.

Keep a brief note of passages you considered and set aside, with your reasons: a passage may answer a different question, record one character’s view rather than establish a fact, or repeat a point that stronger evidence supports. Select for relevance and range; there is no fixed number of passages every essay must use.

Worked example: “useful to Jonathan” (Chapter 5) connects technical skills with service; “it is no part for a woman” (Chapter 18) exposes a limit on participation. “Unclean, unclean!” (Chapter 21) could support a different argument about coercion, purity and conventional expectations. Set it aside here to maintain the chosen focus on work and authority, not because it is inherently irrelevant to traditional femininity.

Choose precise historical or literary contexts and critical interpretations that bear on your question. Explain what each does to your argument: strengthen it, qualify it or challenge it. Where critics disagree, test their readings against the novel. There is no fixed quota of critics or historical facts; check Chapter C and your teacher’s requirements. Use context to clarify the language and possibilities of the period, then analyse what the novel does with them.

Worked example. Van Helsing intends “man’s brain … woman’s heart” as praise, but its division of reason and feeling is itself gendered. Read the compliment beside the exclusion that follows. Test the domestic frame emphasised by Sally Ledger against Jordan Kistler’s reading of Mina’s useful work: the disagreement helps distinguish what the ending says from what the plot needs.

Use the Estate’s research where it changes your reading: working notes, Bram’s 1897 interview, Charlotte’s public work, Oscar Wilde, Henry Irving and Whitman correspondence. Distinguish documented facts, useful comparisons and unproven influence.

Write four lines, each labelled with its job: the strongest case for; the strongest case against; the deciding consideration (the evidence that tips the balance); and your judgement, a one-sentence answer that includes “how far”. Treat it as provisional: if drafting changes it, change the plan.

Worked judgement: Mina combines traditional commitments and modern competence. The plot needs her active intelligence, while the men repeatedly recognise and restrict it through traditional authority. Their exclusion of her complicates the terms of that coexistence; it does not disprove it.

Write an argument outline, sometimes called its “spine”: your provisional thesis followed by the main points of your paragraphs in their intended order. Explain how each claim develops, qualifies or challenges the previous one. The reader should be able to follow why the argument moves from one point to the next.

For each paragraph, select the key quotation or precise detail, note the method you will analyse, and explain how the paragraph advances your answer. Place an alternative interpretation where it most effectively tests your reasoning. Keep the plan flexible if the drafting exposes a gap.

Three useful options follow. They are choices, not rules: choose the one that best develops the conclusion your evidence supports.

Main point: Modern competence develops within conventional usefulness.

Key quotation: “useful to Jonathan” (Chapter 5); “dates are everything” (Chapter 17)

What to analyse: Contrast the declared beneficiary with the authority that organising the documents gives her.

Main point: Male praise recognises ability while retaining a gendered hierarchy.

Key quotation: “man’s brain”; “woman’s heart” (Chapter 18)

What to analyse: Read the divided terms of praise beside the subsequent decision to exclude her.

Turn your plan into connected prose, then check whether the finished essay delivers the answer your evidence supports.

Drafting and revision can send you back to the evidence or change your conclusion. This guide’s sequence is a suggested working method. The IES guidance on modelling, practice and reflection supports making writing decisions visible, without prescribing these exact seven steps.

Keep a short revision note: what was the original claim, what evidence challenged it, and how did the new version answer the question more accurately? This makes the preparation reusable without treating the finished essay as a script to reproduce.

The method draws on IES guidance on modelling, practice and reflection. It is not a requirement imposed by an examination board.

Check your course’s text choices and comparative requirements before choosing a second work.

• Use the seven steps for comparison. Define the question for both books; build paired evidence; distinguish their contexts; form a comparative judgement; plan shared points with quotations from each; write the connections into the argument; and revise the balance.

• Extend a single-text preparation. The Mina example (Essay 6) could lead to a comparison of female agency with Carter on OCR. The ancient-myth example (Essay 8) could support comparison with Frankenstein on OCR or The Little Stranger on Edexcel. The foreigners example (Essay 2) could develop comparison with Beloved on either Literature course. Each requires fresh evidence from the second work and a question appropriate to both.

Use the comparison guide and six pairing guides for paired passages, formal differences, context and possible arguments. These develop a method; your specification determines which texts are permitted.

Use context in an argument. Context and themes shows how historical and literary evidence can explain a passage, with a worked paragraph and a comparative prompt. Charlotte Stoker and Mina: an evidence-led comparison addresses the connection between women’s public work and the novel, and distinguishes a useful comparison from proof that Charlotte inspired Mina. Printable student worksheet · Separate teacher commentary.

Going further with the belonging example. Stoker’s life and queer readings sets out what the documents show about Stoker’s friendships with Walt Whitman, Henry Irving and Oscar Wilde, and what they cannot show. Read it alongside the difference and belonging example. A queer reading of the novel can be illuminating without proving anything about Stoker’s own life.

Each example gives the full question, five stages of argument-building, the finished essay and separate teaching notes with examiner feedback. Eight draw on past examination tasks; the Mina question is Estate-written. Source checks and the OCR comparison limitation are stated beside the questions.

If you think you’ve developed a convincing argument, send us your essay. We welcome contributions from teachers, students and enthusiasts alike. Your ideas could help readers and Bram’s family deepen our understanding of his life and Dracula, while supporting future students. We’ll credit the author of every essay we publish – so your fifteen minutes of fame might last a little longer.

Next: F – Practising and revising · Previous: D – Context and themes · Back to UK and Irish study

Did this approach help you develop your own argument? Tell us what worked and what needs explaining more clearly.