In my not-so-distant past, what I knew about writing came from the verbose novels I read at a young age—A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man comes to mind. These works shaped my writing style. They taught me that writing should truly capture the author’s thought process and articulate it to the audience in exquisite detail (especially the case with Joyce’s stream of consciousness style). It also taught me that, above all else, writing is an art form and should be beautiful and emotionally evocative.  

Unfortunately, this led to me developing a sort of aversion to simplicity and bluntness. I tried to emulate these writers because of how much I admired them, which influenced my writing practices by shutting me off to others’ feedback. I still consider my writing to be flowery, but Narrative Medicine has forced me to confront that. I still believe that writing should allow its audience to escape themselves for a bit and immerse themselves in someone else’s perspective. However, this course made me realize that for descriptive writing to be effective, it must be accessible to the audience and thus the rhetoric—primarily diction and tone—should be tailored according to them as well as the piece’s overall goal.  

I struggled with this at the beginning of the course, as evidenced by my narrative essay and the piece I wrote about why I wanted to be a doctor. In my narrative reflection, I discussed how my “formal and stuffy academic language” was ill-suited for a vulnerable piece. It was my classmate’s peer review that drew attention to how “unnatural” my language was. Furthermore, in the latter (posted under “Non-Academic Writing”) I used “ileum,” “jaundiced,” and “miasma.” I can now see that this diction created a clinical tone, which may have alienated an audience given the subject matter.   

However, I made a breakthrough in my critical lens essay. It was a challenge I enjoyed, making me realize the importance of keeping the reader in mind when crafting my work. It helped that I was passionate about my topic; I wanted the reader to fully understand what I had to say about Hannibal. This made me organize and format my paper differently from the large body paragraphs of my metaphor essay. I split the thesis statement into two discrete parts and incorporated that structure in my paper by making separate sections with bolded subheadings.  

I followed this up by adding a separate section just to define the lens, breaking down Singer’s main ideas and writing concise, declarative sentences like “Essentially, sublime portrayals challenge our notions of a group. Beautiful ones do not.” My reflection documents how “I added almost as much as I cut out,” grudgingly sacrificing further elaboration of symbols to provide context and clear definitions. This, too, was prompted by a face-to-face peer review that expressed some confusion. Nevertheless, it paid off; I received more positive feedback saying that “the writing [was] elevated without [a] weird tone.”  

This change can also be seen by reading my free writes from class and non-academic writing. For example, the fanfiction chapter I wrote also included an excessive amount of sophisticated diction, with words like “scion” and “politesse,” and. My finsta post is informal but complex, including a run-on sentence: “…and we had to wait…and I just…” I stated my thoughts as they came to me rather than expressing them comprehensibly. Additionally, even though my fiction pieces in September and October were vocabulary challenges, I also wrote in inflated words that were not on the list, like “pellucid.” Finally, there is a shift in the texts I exchanged with my friends. I wrote short, assertive statements as I did in the critical lens essay, except this time with a more casual tone that fits the context and familiar audience.  

In conclusion, this course changed my theory of writing regarding the significance of the author-reader relationship. It has also influenced my writing practices. Not only am I more purposeful in choosing my words and tone, but now I bounce ideas off others when I brainstorm because of the peer review and feedback I received on drafts. Before this, I never received feedback from people my age. Now, I have learned that it is invaluable to have a second opinion to make sure my writing is intelligible to someone else. This is especially pertinent considering how one objective of narrative medicine is to foster empathy by sharing our stories, whether they be in text message or prosaic form. 

Word count (according to Microsoft Word): 750