Wildania Brito
Writing a narrative that is close to your heart is not as easy as it sounds. It is easy to get off-topic or focus on another problem that you believe is equally important. There were many instances in which I believed I could not get this narrative essay done. Getting this narrative done highlighted to me personally my strengths and weaknesses in the writing process. However, writing this made me become a more open-minded student when it comes to criticism and feedback.
It was easy for me to focus attention on my strengths because I have also worked on exposing them to my writing. Adding words that describe what I was feeling during the time made the audience feel connected, engaged in my writing. I know this is true because I had various peer reviews that indicated the same thing. Including jokes, using words like bullying and resentment which represent feelings that we as humans have sensed sometimes in life. My motivation was to get my story through to the readers, to be as detailed as possible in order for the reader to get engaged. I believe that if you incorporate imagery into your writing, any reader is interested in what you have to stay, they feel connected, like if they are you. My purpose was to make my audience feel connected with me, to have fun reading and remain attentive throughout the entire narrative. I did this by giving background information about the issue of the story and making them feel as if I was speaking to them without directly addressing them. Meaning, at first I made the mistake of adding phrases that spoke directly to the audience. After realizing this I just deleted those parts and replaced them with my thoughts throughout the entire essay, still giving the sense as if I was speaking to them but not by a direct phrase.
It was not difficult for me to know if I was telling a story because I am very creative and especially when it comes to writing stories of my life. I believe I have an interesting life and as a critical reader myself, I know what the people want and like to hear. I hate boring stories and I did not want mine to be one, so included the small details that may have sounded like gossip but it was to get the reader’s attention and the sad part is that everything is TRUE. I had a little issue with making a strong thesis because during my draft I did not know what I wanted my thesis to be, it was not clear enough. Reading my story and outline over and over again I realized what my story was centered on and the lesson we learned at the end which is supposed to pair up with an initial thesis. My story revolves around food and how the emotional environment you cook it in affects it in an indescribable way.
I tried exploring all possible rhetorical situations by thinking about different purposes and motivations but not one stuck. For example, a purpose I thought about was to give as much information as possible so the reader can understand the context of the story but this would have made the story boring and extensive. Also, the genre was a narrative, not a non-fictional biography and this had to be clear for me and the audience. My peers edited and revised my narrative draft and I took this very seriously. Not only because we don’t all have the same thinking process and reading habits but because we all had something extra to give to each other, feedback. I tried to integrate my argument as much as possible by giving hints here and there about the climax and merging a little of the final lesson towards the end. The peer reviews helped me with different interpretations of my narrative and helped me through the writing process of editing and revising.
To conclude, writing this narrative was a strenuous task not only because you are trying to tell a story but trying to tell an interesting and engaging one. Also, it has to connect with food, food had to be the center of it and staying focused on that was hard itself. The peer reviews help a lot because they are basically an audience and their feedback is in theory what the other readers are thinking so I took this very seriously. Writing this narrative highlighted my strengths and made me notice some things I needed help with as well, I tried to convey an interesting and compelling story and I hope I did a good job.
