Stepping Stones: Introduction

“Stepping Stones” is my first official essay of university, and the piece that has given me the most grief. It is a personal narrative on a piece of writing advice that influences me, but I do not particularly feel as though writing advice resonates with me as “writing advice” as much as it does with my art.

I revised several other pieces of my writing to speak more about myself before attempting to revise “Stepping Stones” again. I hoped to build upon my ability to talk specifically about myself with more deliberately conversational pieces and find a balance between my usual authoritative and academic tone and my conversational tone. While I frown upon their length, each piece helped me focus on writing more specifically about myself, conveying my emotional states in a given situation and recalling specific memories as evidence and description. I could certainly revise “Stepping Stones” further, but I feel as though I have achieved the best product I can provide at this given time without simply scrapping it altogether and starting over. I hope that I have succeeded in achieving a better median.

My original introduction—not just the first paragraph, but the introduction to the piece of writing advice—was much longer. After several revisions with the goal of cutting my writing to make it shorter and make the information more pertinent in mind, and after enough time passed so I did not feel emotionally attached to my writing, I finally managed to cut my introduction to half its original length.

The problem with my original introduction was largely due to the fact that it followed my usual desire to explain my train of logic. I am particularly fond of writing meta-analysis and psycho-analysis about characters in the series I find myself obsessed with (see: “My Affection”), and thus I am used to explaining every detail that typically go disregarded or forgotten so that I can build credibility in my premise, and I can easily refer to one particular detail later on in my analysis.

The most difficult part about revising my essay, however, was shedding my strictly academic tone in favor of writing about myself and using my personal experiences as evidence. While I have nothing against talking about myself in a conversational tone, my writing always takes on an authoritative tone when I set out to write with a goal or message in mind. Approaching the piece as an academic essay only served to further stilt my personal narrative, so I struggled with inserting myself in my paper.