Plans for Revising Draft One

 

After class last Wednesday, I was pretty confused as to why Dr. Chandler said we were all telling stories, not creative nonfiction stories. “What are you really saying?” Was the question I kept hearing; I didn’t know the answer. I thought my essay was written well and I was not sure how to change it. After meeting with Dr. Chandler, everything fell into place. I realized my essay about my Grandmother was definitely effective, but there was a message I needed to focus on and try to incorporate more of.  I realized that my main topic I was addressing in my draft was memory loss. What is memory loss? How could memory loss affect someone? After continuously asking myself about the loss of memory and trying to bring me back to my experiences with Gram, I realized something major. I was experiencing memory loss! I realized I could bring in more ideas of memory loss in life so that my readers could find a way to relate. For example, my memory about my grandma using Chex Mix in her chicken dinner, I tried to remember what happened after that. Did my mom say anything? Did we eat the dinner? I could not remember. At this point I realized that memory loss is not just a characteristic of Alzheimer’s, memory loss is a life experience that reoccurs over time. I realized that I had to bring real life into each section of my paper.  I am going to take out certain parts of my draft that make it more of a narrative, and add relatable situations that will allow it to fall under Creative Non-Fiction.