Friday, November 21, 2014

Taking Back the Narrative

Link to video
This video follows option two (introduce your essay without the Book of Mormon element).

The first five attempts I did felt forced and choppy. I was frustrated that the emotion my essay evokes when I read it at a normal pace didn't come across when I was rushing through it for the time frame. To combat this, I decided to just wing it and see what came out. The video felt significantly more real because instead of trying to inflect emotion into words while reading from a script, the feelings came out naturally when I was candid. This helped me decide what to focus on and led to the second "winging it" attempt, which I shared the link to underneath the screenshot.

I believed I could make things go back to how they were with the guy I was dating if I could figure out what I did wrong and fix it. This thought process is common in physically and/or emotionally abusive relationships. While I had very mild problems compared to the countless men and women who face much more serious abuse, my eyes were opened to the pain that comes when someone mistreats you and blames their behavior on you.

My favorite part of the video is the idea of taking back my narrative. I let this relationship define me for too long, and writing about it and working on these videos gives me closure. I don't hear his voice in my head anymore. Maybe that's because all of the pain associated with our relationship isn't throbbing inside me; now it's channeled into an essay that I hope will help someone recognize if they are in a similar situation and realize they can and should get out.

In terms of the assignment, I'm not convinced this option is the best way to do it, but I also didn't think it's a bad way either. I do think making a place for the Book of Mormon would be ideal if we could do it in a natural way that doesn't come off as preachy, though I struggled trying to figure out how to do that myself.

I'm excited to watch the other videos and see how we can learn from each other to create a project that will allow us to share our stories in a literary, meaningful way.




3 comments:

  1. Your video made me really interested to read your essay! You are direct and very genuine; it didn't feel forced. I didn't get the impression you were just doing this for an assignment, you seemed to truly care about sharing your experience in a way that could help and uplift others. I also like the element of empowerment in your video and the idea of taking back your narrative by working through this difficult experience.

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  2. I was surprised you said that introducing your essay by video might not be the best- I thought it was really effective the way you set it up. There are many people both inside and outside the church who share your experience and I bet you could get a lot of positive response with this video by posting it in the right venue

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  3. I like that your video can connect to all audiences-LDS or not. I feel that anyone going through an experience similar to yours would stop and read your essay. I also loved how you talked about your essay as a learning experience for you.

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