How many times have you heard “Show your story rather than tell it!”
And, how many times have you gone right on and did a lot of telling! I know I have.
“Showing” is one technique that will always improve your writing. I admit that there is some great writing that makes a precedent for “tell,” but as a rule “show” is more effective.
Here are three “show don’t tell” ideas to improve your story—every time. (more…)
DL: This is a piece about how to write a significant memoir I published on the LinkedIn blog Pulse. It addresses a major challenge many writer face—at least writers who want to have an audience beyond family and friends.
That our memoir is insignificant is about the last thing we memoir writers ever want to read about our magnum opus. How do we write a significant memoir?
A memoir tells the story of a hero’s journey.
I’ll give you a hint: it’s not fame, it’s not the scope or the arena of the action. The key to significance lies elsewhere.
When memoir writers set out to record the facts and the dates of their lives, they are doing first-draft work. We’ve all read reviews of memoirs—and possibly read the memoirs themselves—that bemoan how the famous memoirist has not given anything away. The writer has regurgitated info that could be found in newspaper and magazine articles of the time. Other than “I was happy that…” there is little insight to be found.
The reader is likely to find this memoir insignificant.
The more famous and well-known or high achieving the memoirist may have been, the more this may be one of the writing challenges: to go beyond thinking that the facts and circumstances are in themselves significant enough to carry a reader through several hundred pages. (How much more so when the writer is not well known!)
There’s often only a permeable line between memoir coaching and editing. In practice, as we writers at the Memoir Network work with a writer, we find myself slipping from coaching a memoir writer to editing the manuscript we are working with and back to coaching. That’s how organically close coaching and editing really are. Depending on the state of your manuscript, coaching or editing or both are called for.
Generally, I, or the editor who has been assigned to you, read sections of your manuscript—say 20-30 pages—and return this edited portion to you with comments and suggestions—and sometimes edits [also known as suggested corrections]. All our notes are done in Microsoft Text Edit—which you can learn in minutes. Manuscripts are returned as an attachment—but snail mail can work well, too, but it is too slow for most people.
I find working on a short segment of your manuscript—20- to 30 pages—to be more effective for contributing to the quality of the memoir than reading the entire text. Sometimes, of course, I have a question on, say, page 17 and then you might protest, “But, this is answered on page 85! You haven’t read the whole manuscript yet!” (more…)
“I have permission [as a memoir writer] not to waffle in my writing,” I was recently informed by a memoir writer.
“Not to waffle” somehow missed the point for me.
Certainly, the memoir writer has permission “not to waffle,” but there is more that is incumbent on the writer. S/he has the obligation not to waffle. As memoir writers, “not to waffle” means to tell our truth about what happened. This is a must. Over the years, I have been amazed at how I can pick up waffling and how, in a workshop setting, others can too. Waffling just comes across waving a “red flag.” So…
Yeah, don’t do it!
Have you ever wondered, “How long should it take to write a memoir?”
One answer, of course, is that it takes as long as it takes. While so true, this answer is not useful to those writers who are trying to get their duckies in line—looking at where the time is in their schedules to write, knowing what support to ask from their life partners, etc.
I’ve come up with a calculation for those people who want some sense of how long writing a memoir might take. The following time frame is realistic for any writer who needs a timeline to complete a 200-page memoir. (more…)
I emphatically don’t agree that memoir is fiction. Although a memoir invariably uses fiction techniques—and we will look at one memoir in this post, it must be an as-much-as-possible true accounting of an experience. I must confess to not seeing a problem with the idea of memoir versus fiction. Memoir IS NOT fiction!
A strength of fiction is its ability—when it is done right—to place us in the story, to enable us to get out of our “present” and enter into the time of the story. The memoir writer has to aim for the same level of involvement. In that sense, there is again no conflict of memoir versus fiction.
In many cases, this involves removing the narrator from our field of attention.
Theme in a memoir is absolutely important!
Here’s is a distinction between a family-focused autobiography and a memoir that, I hope, will help you to appreciate the value and the role of theme in your memoir.
People are always wanting to know the difference between an autobiography and a memoir. (more…)
Every once in a while, I send you a few of my verbal pet peeves. Here are a few other unfortunate phrases having to do with word usage that have come my way recently. (more…)
—Phil Cousineau in Stoking the Creative Fires
The Phil Cousineau quote above ought to be for all of us a stirring call to continue—or to begin if that is where we are at—the writing we may have procrastinated about for so long. We fill our days with lesser tasks when we know that what we ought to be doing is writing a memoir.
It is later than you think. In the twenty-five plus years I have been doing this work, I have seen people die without writing their memoir and I have seen people grow old and lose the energy to write their memoir.
In both cases, a lifestory has been lost.
(more…)
How many times have you heard “Show your story rather than tell it!” And, how many times have you gone right on and did a lot of telling! I know I have. “Showing” is one technique that will always improve your writing. I admit that there is some great writing that makes a precedent for […]
That our memoir is insignificant is about the last thing we memoir writers ever want to read about our magnum opus. How do we write a significant memoir? What separates a significant memoir from an insignificant one? I’ll give you a hint: it’s not fame it’s not the scope of the arena of the action. […]
There’s often only a permeable line between coaching and editing. In practice, as I work with a writer, I find myself slipping from coaching to editing and back. That’s how close coaching and editing really are. Depending on the state of your manuscript, coaching or editing or both are called for. (more…)
Certainly, the memoir writer has permission “not to waffle,” but there is more that is incumbent on the writer. S/he has the obligation not to waffle. As memoir writers, “not to waffle” means to tell our truth about what happened. This is a must. Over the years, I have been amazed at how I can […]
Have you ever wondered, “How long should it take to write a memoir?” At The Memoir Network, we have come up with a timeline that is realistic for any writer who wishes to write a memoir that doesn’t get stuck in endless rewriting. (more…)
Is memoir fiction? I emphatically don’t agree that memoir is fiction. Although a memoir invariably uses fiction techniques—and we will look at one in this post it must be an as-much-as-possible true accounting of an experience. (more…)
How important is theme in a memoir? Theme in a memoir is absolutely important! Here’s is a distinction between a family-focused autobiography and a memoir that, I hope, will help you to appreciate the value and the role of theme in a memoir. (more…)
Every once in a while, I send you some of my verbal pet peeves. Here are a few other unfortunate phrases that have come my way recently. 1. Amazon just today was offering me a “free gift.” (more…)
What if you ran out of tomorrows before you had written your memoir? How would your children and grandchildren know about you and the people who were important to you? How would your community know? (more…)