How does memoir coaching improve your manuscript?

“What does ‘My family was poor’ mean, ” I asked a memoir writer in a recent coaching session.

“Poor?” he asked at the other end of the phone line. “What do you mean what does poor mean? Poor means poor!”

“Does poor mean you didn’t have enough to eat or does it mean you never ate out at restaurants? Does poor mean you were forced to run out on your rent or does it mean you did not have an in-ground pool?”

Clearly, descriptive always adjectives don’t mean what we think they mean!

Empty literary “calories”

On the spot, I shared with him how adjectives are empty literary “calories.” They do nothing for the story but fill up space. They pretend to be effective but are not. Every writer needs to depend on scenes, dialog, settings, characters to tell the real story.

Memory List what an adjective means.

I asked him to tell me five things about his family that meant poor.

This is what he came up with and added to his memory list:

• “We always had enough food, but sometimes it was lacking in variety and often was purchased past its prime.”
• “We had beaten asphalt roofing but could not pay to have it done over and the roof eventually developed a leak that ruined a wall.”
• “We never bought new clothes. Everything we wore was either hand-me-down or from Goodwill.”
• “Money was a tense topic, and I would not ask my parents from money even if it meant passing up on a class trip and sitting the time out in the library. I did that once.”
• “We were always scrounging gas money. We’d often walk or go with neighbors when they were going into town because there was not enough gas in our car for the round trip into town by ourselves.”

Using these memories, I asked him to write scenes portraying the above. This was his assignment—to change weak telling into vivid showing. Such scenes will deepen a memoir.

This client clearly knew the stories to show being poor, but he did not know that he was not doing it. It was while I coached him that he understood his dependence on vague adjectives was not serving him well. He needed to write details into the stories he knew and let the details do the work of saying poor.

Memoir Coaching can lift your memoir to a new articulation

You may wonder about what the process would be like if you were to work with a memoir writing coach.

Memoir Coaching works when there are two factors present:

• The client is willing to grow, and
• There is a gap between where you are now and where you want to be.

If this is you, every session will find us working together in two fundamental areas:

•  your writing itself—organization, style, content—and
• your writing self—that is, do you “own” the story, do you feel you have the authority to tell it?

Working with a memoir coach, you can:

• Reach for Much More and not be consumed in the process. When writers have a partner they trust, they always reach for more.
• Make Better Decisions for Yourself as a writer because your focus is clear. You will become more focused as you share ideas with your coach — someone who is subjective enough to want a lot for you, yet objective enough not to be biassed or self-serving.
• Have a More Sustainable Energy: No more starting and stopping. When you’re happy, productive, and free from tolerations and problems, you’re going to feel more energy.

If you would like to know more about how does memoir coaching improves your manuscript or would like to sign up for our free consultation, click here.

Action Step

Here is something you can do right now about your flabby adjectives.

1. Highlight all the adjectives in a recent story.
2. Choose all that can be replaced by a scene. (Obviously, an adjective like American or Canadian cannot be replaced by a scene!)
3. Write your scenes and insert into the story.

Please leave a comment below about your experience of having done this.