While I certainly agree with the storytelling and “show don’t tell” advice, I do think it is more useful to start by identifying what it is you want to “show” about yourself, and brainstorm from there, rather than start writing anecdotes/stories without a sense of where it may be going because finding a way to connect those anecdotes can be a challenge afterwards.
I can see the difference between my kids’ process – first kid wrote a charming essay – self-deprecating, funny, sweet – but other than showing he was funny and quirky, it didn’t really “go” anywhere. Next kid reverse engineered the essay – we knew the LACs he was looking at valued diversity and he couldn’t change which boxes he checked there as an upper middle class white kid who hadn’t faced many challenges. But, he had engaged in a diverse community and school and his ECs were with diverse groups, so he connected his storytelling to showing, without explicitly saying, how he lived, and valued, a diverse community. Both kids wound up in the right spot for them, but older one – though a stronger intellect – underperformed in his LAC results, though by then, he knew he wanted big and wasn’t interested in LACs.