11/8/2017 2 Comments Revising my Life Choice MemoirIn this blog post, I will be talking about how I revised my Life Choice Memoir Essay. The original essay (draft #2) consisted of 2,422 words when the assignment was to write an essay with 1,000-1,500 words. Since my essay was a little too long, my teacher, Sabatino Mangini, challenged me to get rid of 700 words.
While trying to eliminate these 700 words, I got very frustrated. I did not know what parts I should cut out and leave in the essay. I also liked some parts in the essay, but I knew they were parts and descriptions that were not necessary to tell. Therefore, I ended up deleting them. So, after eliminating as many words as I could, I got the word count down to 1,738 words in my revised essay (draft #3). I eliminated 684 words total. I know it wasn't 700 words exactly, but I thought that 684 was pretty close. Also, I did not see anything else I wanted to delete from the essay. Mr. Mangini told me that he thought I could possibly like my shorter essay better than my original one. However, I do not like it as much. I feel like I had to take out more descriptions than I would have wanted to. I also deleted the ending portion where I talk about hearing about my old job after I left. I liked that part of the essay, but it was taking up too many words and I didn't feel like I NEEDED to include it. I feel like draft #2 is more descriptive and more interesting than draft #3 is. Draft #3 definitely gets to the point quicker than draft #2, but I liked explaining more of what I saw and experienced in draft #2. Even though I do not like draft #3 as much as my original draft, I still liked the challenge of trying to eliminate 700 words from draft #2.
2 Comments
Sabatino
11/15/2017 04:15:24 am
Thanks for sharing this post. The writing here provides a clear insight into your writing and revision processes. I appreciate how you took on the challenge of illuminating 700 words. We knew it would be painful, right? Now that you’ve been through the process, if you feel as if the story benefits from the extra words… By all means please keep those words in your story. The main goal with this revision was situate as a writer who must ask questions about the pace and arc of the story — and to experience the struggle of really critiquing each word. You’ve done that. So thank you.
Reply
Sabatino
11/15/2017 04:17:18 am
*not illuminating but eliminating.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Julia ThorntonI am using this blog for my English course and beyond Archives
December 2017
CategoriesAll Life Choice Making Connections Memoir Proust Questionnaire Reflection Research Paper Student Choice Summary Where To Invade Next Writing Process |