modify essay

CNF essay:

My main comment about this essay is that, as it reads now, it does not read like a creative nonfiction essay, but rather like a composition essay about general characteristics of the speaker. My suggestions for revision are as follows:

(1) create a singular narrative thread. Rather than just a cataloging of personal attributes, select a singular event or moment in the speaker's life to narrate and show these attributes using scene, action, and intimate/specific detail (vs. tell).

(2) Related to the first suggestion, rather than telling your reader that the speaker is funny, has lots of friends, etc, SHOW this using narrative and intimate and specific detail. If establishing the speaker as funny is important, maybe begin the essay with a dialogue where the speaker tells a joke, then reflect on this particular scene.

(3) Make sure to specify when possible. There are lots of ways to be funny, to excel at school, etc. Make sure to show the reader how this specific speaker is unique and how this specific narrative/event is important.

Poem：

There is a lot to admire about this poem draft, from the surprising figures used (""like my ice is melting," "I break in fear") to the unusual rhyming that defies traditional scheme (fear/ear/clear -- and even the sight rhyme "tear"). My main suggestions are these:

(1) Because no traditional rhyme scheme is followed, I think it's clear to root this poem firmly in the tradition of the sonnet in other ways. I don't think I would have read this poem as a sonnet if not for the knowledge of this specific assignment. The poem is 14 lines, but other than that, there aren't other conventions of the tradition followed. I really like the nontraditional rhyme, so I would focus on line length and stanzaic structure. Could the poem be divided into an octave and a sestet with a clear volta between? Could the line lengths be regulated to iambic pentameter or at least to 10 syllables per line? Both or either of those changes would help clarify to the reader that the poem is, in fact, in dialogue with the sonnet tradition.

(2) I think the rhetorical questions are "throw away" lines. They don't seem to add much to the poem in terms of content -- and 3 out of 14 lines is a lot of space to take up when the form doesn't allow for any unneeded words/syllables, let alone full lines. Could the speaker show his confusion and ambivalence about whether or not the emotions he feels can be classified as love?

(3) For a love poem (sonnet), there is a surprising lack of details about the "beloved." The poem's main focus is on the speaker's sensations and emotions (pain, exhilaration), but I think it needs to be made clearer what specifically makes him feel this way -- what about the "her" and his relationship with "her," conjures up these feelings? It's important to use concrete details so the reader can understand this specific speaker, this specific "her," and their specific relationship.

Short Story:

There are several interesting elements in this story draft, from the protagonist who has overcome a dangerous and unstable environment to become a revered leader to his class to the framing device of a single scene – graduation day – and the memories that this moment evokes in the narrator, as a kind of “entry point” into his life story. My main suggestions are these:

 

(1) There needs to be more scene/action. As it stands, the piece is almost entirely exposition and reflection by the omniscient narrator, without many specific scenes, or actions, that occur in “onward time.” Even if much of the piece (the center part) is meant to be flashback, these flashbacks can, and should, be presented as scenes: vivid memories that the protagonist must confront as he waits to give his speech. Because so much of the story is told as reflection/exposition, there isn’t a clear framework of gathering action, climactic action, and falling action. While it’s clear that the main set-up is the protagonist waiting to give his speech at graduation, there still should be a climactic moment – one that all of the other actions lead up to. Related to this, make sure to show vs. tell using scene/action filled with specific details and concrete imagery. Rather than having the narrator tell the reader that Chester was raised in an “unstable” environment – show this in scene. One active and specific scene will get across all of the information about Chester’s background (and family) and do it in a more engaging and specific way than 3-4 paragraphs of exposition.

 

(2) Make sure to keep the details of the setting consistent as well as the vantage point of the narrator. When the story begins, the narrator says that they are in New York, but then with the mention of the high heat (107 degrees), this doesn’t seem plausible. Later, the narrator says that they are in Arizona, which would make more sense about the heat, though perhaps not by graduation time (early May). Similarly, the piece shifts from past to present tense at several moments. It seems clear that two major time transitions are needed (graduation dayàpast memoriesàback to graduation day), it’s important to keep the tense consistent within each scene series. I think immediate past for both the graduation day and the memories would work well.

 

(3) Keep the language concise and active. This will help the narrative momentum continue forward vs. becoming stalled in unnecessary verbiage. For example, no need to say “time seems to trudge,” just “time trudges.” No need for “corpse bodies,” but simply “bodies.”