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LITR 3731 |
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Amanda Pruett
My Confession: Take Three
Though I never took the time to develop a short story, I have always been interested in writing fiction. When we reached the point in class to begin developing our stories, I took it for granted. I knew what I wanted to write about, but never realized how difficult it would be to develop it into an understandable story.
When I sat down to begin writing, I didn’t know where to start. I had a lot of content with too little pages. I decided to go ahead and write anything that came to mind and then remove the content that was unneeded. However, after I felt my first draft was complete I had developed close to fourteen pages. Once I started removing pieces that I felt were unnecessary, I began to struggle with different scenes. If I deleted one thing, I would then need to delete another because it would be hard to follow the story without certain details. I finally condensed my piece to slightly over six pages. I decided it would be easier to present what I currently had and then use the suggestions offered in class.
After carefully studying each response, additional dialogue appeared to be the reoccurring demand. Because I wrote the story with a first-person memoir approach, it was a little difficult for me to add dialogue. I had to examine every paragraph and focus on each individual sentence to gain a sense of where it would be possible to add the dialogue. I received a lot of helpful feedback from the class during the fiction presentation.
Alicia suggested for me to place a distinction between the mother and the step-mother in the story by using specific language for each person. For example, the mother would speak with a demanding tone while the step-mother would only speak negatively. Jeff and J.J. mentioned the narrator would appear more victimized if I placed submissive pronouns in the mother’s dialogue. Because the narrator is telling the story, it did not occur to me to place a name for this person. Christi suggested that I add the name at the end of the story in the graduation scene directly before the line, “It’s my turn.” Having the name pronounced at the graduation tied the beginning with the end since the first few sentences focus on it being the narrator’s day for recognition.
I made the revisions that Christi, Alicia, Jeff, and J.J. offered; however, I did turn down a few suggestions such as building the graduation scene in the beginning into something larger. I didn’t want the focus of the story to rest on the opening graduation scene. I did add a little more to the subject, but not too much. Instead, dialogue remained my main focus in the revision.
Currently, I hope I will find the fiction author within myself to develop this story into a potential novel. I would like to develop this story into a life memoir and really develop each paragraph into its own chapter. Though I can begin the larger writing portion of the childhood memoir, I feel I have not reached quite the right age to develop a true life memoir. After a few more years of life experiences, I hope to pick this piece back up and see where it takes me.