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Essay:

CNF Essay

Most people today are known for their tendency to change their characters because of some situations in life. It could be these people are changing for the better or even for the worst (Stockdale, 2017). This statement gives me memories of someone who used to be so special to me. A person who I shared a lot with and who I thought I was going too spent the rest of my life with. The sudden change in his character after I had a miscarriage is the reason why we parted ways last year. But I am grateful since taught me many things and at least I can now say that I am happy.

We were friends with Collins since were young children since we used to live in the same neighbourhood. When we grow up, we rarely saw each other because of the school matters. One day as I was heading home from school, I saw him in town and he had really changed since it had been long since we met. We boarded the same bus on our way home as we talked of our child hood stories. We exchanged our contacts as we parted. From that day, Collins was the last person that I talked to before I slept and the first person to talk with in the morning. Many events passed and we started dating.

Collins and I were so much in love that our friends were jealous and most people in our town talked about us. We did not bother anyway since we knew that people must talk. Our love grew slowly by slowly and we even moved in together. Our parents knew about our relationship and they did not bother so much since Collins and I were now grown-ups. That time, Collins had completed his studies and he was working in some firm as a lawyer. So he used to cater for everything in the house since I was still in school.

One day I missed my periods for two months and when I went for testing, I found that I was pregnant. When I broke the news to Collins, he was so happy that we were going to have a baby together. After a period of two months, he started to behave differently that I suspected that there must be something taking place. I just kept quiet and did my investigation without even telling anybody. Sometimes he could not come and when I called him he could not respond to my calls. I came to find out that he had gone back to his former girlfriend. This stressed me so much and I ended up experiencing a miscarriage. After the miscarriage I decided to go back to my parents and at this point we rarely talked with Collins. One day, he called me and told me that he was not interested in me anymore and that I should just move on with my life. What hurt me the most is when he said that it is even better that I had a miscarriage so that we could not have anything else to bond us. I was really stressed but I decided to let go after sometime. Later I met someone better than who is real and we are so much in love. Collin’s cousin told me that Collins currently is so frustrated after the former girlfriend left him and he does not know what else to do.

This story shows that time may change people so as to reveal their true characters and to help other people find better opportunities (Stockdale, 2017). Collins and I had no issues before I got pregnant. The fact that he was not faithful to me hurt me so much up to a point that I miscarried. But it is better because after he left me, I found someone who is better than him. This case shows that some circumstances can change the people who were just pretending to be who they actually are not.

References

Stockdale, K. (2017). Losing Hope: Injustice and Moral Bitterness. Hypatia, 32(2), 363-379.

Fix:

This is an interesting first draft and the subject matter is certainly engaging and heartbreaking.

My main suggestions as you move forward to revision are to (1) use action/scene to balance reflection, (2) specify vs. use vague language, and (3) remove the vague statements about character and situations that are paired with citations, as this reads like a research paper vs. a personal narrative.

As of now, the essay doesn’t contain any scenes/action. Rather, the piece is entirely exposition where the speaker tells the basic plot points of a narrative and occasionally tells her reactions to these events using exposition. It’s important to balance scene and reflection to allow the reader to “experience” the events along with the narrator (as much as is possible). For example, show in scene the speaker and Collins meeting for the first time (reconnecting in early adulthood) and falling in love so the reader can sense that they were “so in love” vs. simply being told that information. It’s important to show vs. tell whenever possible. Rather than saying that Collin’s character changed, show this character change by depicting how he acted prior to the breakup and how he acted after (filtered through the perspective of the narrator).

There are several passages that utilize vague vs. specific language. Phrases such as “he taught me many things” (what things?), “most people in our town talked about us” (what people? What did they say?), and “he started to behave differently” (how so?) don’t do much in the way of specifying the situation and characters for the reader.

The initial (and conclusory) statements about general character change with the in-text citation don’t do much to add to the piece and, in fact, read as out-of-tone with the body of the piece, which is a first-person personal narrative. Certainly secondary sources can be used in some creative nonfiction, especially that in the New Journalism vein, but this assignment called for personal narrative. If you are interested in research based CNF, some good writers to look at are David Foster Wallace (especially his piece “Consider the Lobster”) and Malcolm Gladwell.

Happy Revising,

Dr. Sharpe

This piece is only 1.5 pages, which is much too short for the assignment (within the 3-5 page range).