Your relationship to memoir story time Writers often jumble the use of time in the memoir. The time in which the story unfolds is considered to be the present of the story—often called the “historical present.” When I write, “She ran into the woods,” the run occurs in the present of the narration—that is the memoir story […]

Your relationship to memoir story time

Writers often jumble the use of time in the memoir. The time in which the story unfolds is considered to be the present of the story—often called the “historical present.”

When I write, “She ran into the woods,” the run occurs in the present of the narration—that is the memoir story time. While I have used the past tense (ran), the reader sees the woman running in the mind’s present. We call that the “historical present.”

The reader is always mentally in the present of the story. Following is a line from a text I edited recently. The present of the text is in the spring of the year while the move mentioned in the story was sometime in the past of the story present. That is, it occurred some time previous to what we consider the story present [the historical present].

This is the line the editing client had written, “…a couple of months after I moved into my new apartment…”

Since the present is in the spring and the move was sometime in the past, we do not know when this “couple of months” needs to be dated from. What the author must to do is fix the move within historical time so that it connects to the present of the story. A better reference would have been: “three months earlier”   (than the time the story in the historical present) or “six months earlier“(than the historical present).

The earlier is in reference to the present of the story and not to a date of the move the reader may have forgotten (“a couple of months after I moved into my new apartment”—now when exactly was that in relation to the historical present?)

Your take away: connect always to the present of your story (the historical present) not to another memoir story time that is not the historical present. This will create clarity which your reader will appreciate.

Memoir story time: present vs past

“Have you wondered what tense would work best with portraying your memoir story time?“ asks memoirist and prolific blogger Kathy Pooler in an article published June 20, 2016, on her incisive—and extensive—writing blog Memoir Writer’s Journey. Tense, of course, refers to the time of the verb.

Kathy is the author of Ever Faithful to His Lead: My Journey Away From Emotional Abuse. We are proud to mention that she serves as a occasional memoir editor for The Memoir Network.

While the past or historical present is the more usual choice for a memoirist, the present is also an option as Kathy will point out.

In conclusion…

Whatever you do today, write a bit on your memoir.