SWA for assignment. To describe showing versus telling and how I will apply it to my first draft and ultimately the final project.

SWA for assignment. To describe showing versus telling and how I will apply it to my first draft and ultimately the final project.

Tell/Summary:

            Time went by quick. I was dropped off and the girls put their best faces on. Confusion hit me like a wrecking ball. I finished the presentation from the Pi Beta Phi House and there were girls crying, mixed with emotions. I kept it together because I also had to put my best face forward and look like the big girl I was supposed to be. Four days prior I would’ve never thought I would be part of something so big and great. Four months ago, worse! I never would have even pictured myself in a sorority. We walk from Greek row to the Sub in utter silence. The ballots were passed out and you could hear a pin drop in the dense of that room. We made our preference from one- being our favorite- to four- being our least favorite. We turned it in and our decision was left in God’s hands at that point.

Show/Narrative:

            My already swollen heart is split into two. They told me I would just know, but at this point my brain is just mush. Four days of Rush Week, for what? I spent my last four days away from my mom just so I can say good-bye to her tomorrow. She reassured me before I was dropped off that I would know what place that I would call home. Oh how she was wrong, they were all wrong. I get out of the second house more confused than when I walked in. My home was already Albuquerque, but the present question is who would be my new family? Who would be the girls I would call my sisters, or run to when I was having a bad day? Why it all I could think about is running to the bathroom to check myself, because like always Aunt Flow always had the best timing. The only dress I brought down from Utah was a white dress that was classy yet still sassy at the same time, something that represented my personality in my wardrobe. We lined up in alphabetical order. The Rho Gamma, or our leader during Panhellenic Rush Week, yells over the whisper of girls, “No sound all the way to the sub!” Complete silence, from Greek row to the SUB. I picked the worse day to wear highs, but that was not biggest concern that night.

            Writing in general is not strength of mine so the weakness of the narrative will always have to be going off topic and not really bringing the story together in the way I want. I do that when I am talking and am always afraid I will do that in my writing. With that I can also be very strong in detail in many aspects like my mood at a certain point in time or describing my surroundings. For the Summary, I like how I can be concise without using detail but I don’t enjoy being that dull in my writing. I thing a story should be interesting and worth listening to, so if I had to choosing between showing vs telling, I would choose to show my reader though a movie clip of my story in words. This helps my memoir because this is a moment that really changed my life in an unexpected way and I was very emotional in both my decision and my big move here to New Mexico.