Getting Funky With the Narrative Essay

I had a fun time making this essay, and I particularly enjoyed working with the music to punctuate the story. During revision I tried to rearrange my piece to better follow the three act structure. Whether this was very successful or not remains to be seen, but I decided to try to use music to underscore these transitions. My piece also had a few scene changes that were nice for music placement. I decided to limit the amount of time I spent talking over the music and use the music as breaks and 'signposts' as one of our readings referred to them.

Writing this actual piece was difficult, and I went through a ton of revision. I'm still not as satisfied as I could be about the final product, but I ran out of time! The activity where we cut up pieces of our essay to rearrange or discard unnecessary pieces was really helpful to me. Writing for me feels really final even when it should be movable and free to revise. The activity helped me see my writing in a different way and really consider each individual paragraph or scene for its worth rather than the piece as a whole. I ended up with a new beginning and more focus.

I still struggle with how blunt this genre has to be at times. It seems like effective essays really need to just go ahead and say what their purpose is with reflection. I have a hard time being that direct (maybe because I haven't figured out quite what I want to say about my experiences?) I think I got a little closer on this essay. If not, at least I got to include a searing funk guitar solo.

Comments

  1. Ben WMarch 1, 2018 at 8:58 PM

    Hi Ben,

    I definitely agree with you that the revision process of cutting up paragraphs proved to be very helpful. I changed the structure of my piece based on this exercise, and I think it's a helpful tool to evaluate not only the structure of your piece, but the structure of the paragraphs themselves. You can probably only get away with this exercise if your paragraphs are already well laid out and focused.

    And you can never go wrong with a searing funk guitar solo. I think I'm going to put on some James Brown right now, actually. Great post!

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  2. BballengerMarch 2, 2018 at 11:40 AM

    It's good to hear that the cut-and-paste revision exercise opened things up for you. I couldn't tell that day whether it was helpful. The best part is hearing that working on this piece inspired you to engage more deeply with revision, subverting your sense that a draft often feels "final." I think the pressure of school, churning out writing assignment after writing assignment, contributes to that desire for closure because you feel you have to move on to the next thing. But if you're serious about writing, it is vital to see that work can--and sometimes should--be undone, reimagined, restructured, and so on. That seems especially true for the kind of essays that you describe in your post: subjects where you don't know what you're trying to say yet. That's why you write multiple drafts!

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  3. MEGAN B.March 2, 2018 at 1:48 PM

    I did some re-arranging, as well. I am happy to hear that everything went well for you. Good luck in the final revision process.

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  4. UnknownMarch 3, 2018 at 10:44 AM

    I wish I'd paid more attention to the cut-and-paste exercise. There was a part of my story that I cut then as potentially unnecessary, but I ended up leaving it in the final draft because I liked the way it read on paper. Listening to it out loud, though, was excruciating; the section dragged and dragged. I think I need to be more willing to cut, because I am too much a fan of my own voice.

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