Voice within a Voice

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It’s a lot easier to talk about yourself. You know it will be honest (or not), your own opinion, and your own voice.

To be able to capture another voice and keep its originality is something else.

I absolutely enjoyed the interviewing. If I could interview people on an on, I would. The experiences, the stories, the pauses, and the silences all add so much to the interview. I, the interviewer, gained so much insight by listening to the interviewee expose his world to me. The problem with gaining a lot of info was the fact that I had to tie it all down somehow without distorting the truths.

I had so much trouble with this problem of telling the wrong truth. For the first draft, I received critique that my work was “too cliché” and “too general”. Because of how afraid I, I had written a boring piece of writing. I kept telling my audience who my subject was, and it did not do his life justice. At this course in the writing process, I decided to go with my gut.

I found myself writing the way I should have from the start. It felt so much more natural, similar to the way I wrote my narrative. I discovered that it was okay to write what I wanted about my subject because it was my choice. The essay flowed more naturally and I integrated words from my subject to retain the originality of his voice that I wished to preserve. I was able to balance my thoughts with my subject’s. 

Changing Paths

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I decided to go with the narrative again for this essay on a trip I took to the Dominican Republic for a medical mission. I also had photos from the trip that I felt would work well with the prompt of cultural criticism. Initially, I wanted to talk about the efficacy of a medical mission to the third world countries. I started things off with free-writing for the days that were important to me. As I wrote, I found myself straying away from the theme I wanted to begin with.

 

More free-writes went by, totaling about 3500 words. I got quite nervous because the theme was totally different from what I had initially planned to go with. After I attempted to piece the free-writes together, they seemed to be very scattered. Unfortunately, this essay had little peer reviewing, so I did not know how on-point my essay was turning out. My audience had changed from premeds and medical professionals to a wider one.

 

My voice in the free-writes were a mix of summary narrative and dramatic narrative, and I did not know what to focus on. I decided to compromise the two by blurring the lines a little bit. I also accepted that my gut was leaning towards changing the theme and audience, which is ok right?

 

With the switch, I added photos ahead of excerpts to evoke emotion from readers. After the photos, I had a very relevant paragraph or two showed my thought process. The editing of the photos themselves required a lot of thought, as I found myself questioning which photos to use and what to highlight in photos and what color tones to take advantage of.

 

I tied everything together into an order that would shift the attention of readers, sort of like a movie. I purposefully made some moments abrupt to keep readers interested. Overall, this essay showed me how difficult it is to stay on a theme you intended, and how important it is to recover with what you have. For those of you who want to read my other thoughts of the Dominican Republican, I will be posting them here with their respective photos!

Musical Writing and Separation

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Here are two fine pieces of writing I found: Entry No. 79 from Why’s this so good? and “A Separation” from Words Without Borders. These are two completely different readings and are meant to be considered separately.

 

I love art. I love how art can be multidisciplinary. Personally, I am an 8-year bass clarinet instrumentalist who has performed in three wind ensembles. Entry No. 79 from Why’s this so good? brings to light the intersection of two different art forms – writing and music.  The entry expands on the mathematical aspect of writing that is used to draw readers in and the mathematical rhythm of music. To think there was such thing, it blows my mind on how similar counting syllables and counting beats really are. The entry author, Adrienne LaFrance, does a clever job of taking two well-renowned authors of different times, Joan Didion and Ernest Hemingway, to make them familiar. Read on to see how two great writers move their audience with the careful choice in syllable count.

 

Heartbreak, one of the lowest lows one will face. “A Separation” from Words without Borders drops the reader into a depressing instance of two men grieving on two different stories. Eduardo Rugeles managed to pull me into the story and feel the emotions both characters, Arturo and Julio, feel.  Rugeles leaves many “gold coins” throughout his writing to draw in his readers. He uses details only in places where they’re needed, and keeps his narration succinct. Rugeles does a fine job of adding sentimentalism of two love stories and the reality of how love hurts both simultaneously. If you have ever been through a tough time or have broken up with a significant other you never wanted to let go, read this to find a surprise, or not. Heartbroken men, I’m looking at you.

 

 

 

Organic Writing

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I was so excited to write a narrative. Professor Hammons’s testimonial for an old student and his ability to tell his story really inspired me to do the same. For my narrative, I was ready to address some internal family issues within the Asian-American household.

I always struggled with starting the essay. Luckily, “Shitty First Drafts” was one of the first readings. Reading “Shitty First Drafts” allowed me to be more creative and explorative with my writing without hesitation.

When I wrote my first draft, I was quite confident that it portrayed my message. However, after I brought it to Professor Hammons, she mentioned how it was too sentimental, but there were many avenues I could take the essay on to be more clear to my reader. I read my essay aloud, and I noticed how the issue could be more universal than I thought. I started to delete paragraphs of my essay in order to center my narrative on one message.

“Under the Influence” became the prime example for me on how to be sentimental yet relatable at the same time. I always referred back to Sanders’s narrative whenever I wanted to know how to display tension.

I found myself taking notes for the narrative in random places (laptop, book, notes, syllabus) throughout the day. I accumulated these random thoughts, which added a lot of creativity in my essay that I would never expect.

Sharing essays in the class was extremely helpful for the growth of my essay. Thanks to the feedback, farfetched risks were modified and suggestions were taken seriously. I got to write an essay I was really proud of. I have never taken that many risks with writing. A combination of risk-taking and feedback created an organic narrative, and I could not be more happy with it.

I am so surprised with how different my essay changed. As I wrote, I discovered more about myself and my family that I took turn on my narrative. This really reminded me why writing can be very difficult: the essay is a breathing life, and it requires TLC that is entirely different from the “hard sciences” that I am used to.