(416 words – less than 3 min read)

I feel lucky! I received great feedback on the first 20 pages of my story from friends and family members. I have signed up for a memoir workshop in October and the review of 20 pages of my story was part of the package I bought. I really wanted to have as much edit as I can to send a good quality draft for the professional reviews. There is no competition but I intended to provide a mature enough copy to get feedback about what I don’t know.

The honest feedback always  enriches the story, any story!

I received great questions about the story that answering them would cover the gaps that I didn’t know existed. I received great feedback on my grammatical mistakes and even spelling errors that have been corrected to the wrong word by Microsoft Word spell checker. I also received a very interesting feedback about my writing style! one of the reviewers kindly mentioned that my writing method follows the “stream-of-consciousness” technique.

I am learning to become a writer and this was a new door opened to me. I started searching about different techniques of writing and learned more about “stream-of-consciousness”. The reviewer was indeed correct! I did not know I have a writing style and it is very close to this method. According to the literalydevice.net “In literature, stream of consciousness is a method of narration that describes in words the flow of thoughts in the minds of the characters.” My writing describes the flow of my thoughts under different circumstances. I describe what I thought and how I felt for an event. I don’t have a chronological flow. When I write about an event, my writing takes me to flashbacks and flash-forwards, whatever the event reminds me and I write it right there. I searched and learned Virginia Woolf has used this style in her very popular book “Mrs. Dalloway”. I started listening to that story. I don’t have the writing capability that she had for sure but I can connect to the flow of her thoughts very smoothly. I am about to go and learn more about other literary styles and see what else is out there.

I truly enjoyed reading my feedback provided by my dear ones and incorporating them into my story. I am now really excited to send it out for professional reviews. This will be a turning point for the rest of the story as well. Every moment of this process is so precious!

Celebrate life!

Shabnam

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