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This is the first of several articles on point of view in a memoir.

My mother’s memoir, We Were not Spoiled, was a work of love that took me many years to bring to closure as I had other work to do to support myself that filled my days. Finally, she got to be quite a bit older, and beginning to feel urgency as many people do when in my position, I put the push on finishing her story.

I’ll be sharing with you in the next few blog entries my experience of writing someone else’s memoir. My mother was, after all, another person with her own agenda and experience. As the co-writer, my task was to listen to her and to write as close to her point of view as possible. How does one remain faithful to another’s point of view in a memoir? (more…)

Is writing a chronology of a life ever enough?

Dates and facts are necessary to life writing in the same way route numbers are necessary to maps. It’s not only that dates and facts provide interesting information but that they keep your readers on the right path as they make their way through your life story. So…

Writing a chronology is already a great contribution to your family story, but you can do so much more than just include the dates and facts. (more…)

The Passive Voice Has Less Impact than the Active Voice. Generally speaking, the passive voice of the verb (the subject has the action done to it) is weaker than the active voice (the subject does the action) in involving the reader in your story. That is crucial because as a memoir writer you are not sharing ideas but recreating life experiences to share. In the passive vs active voice, favor the active. “Mary baked a cake” is active. Mary, the subject of the verb baked, is doing the action of baking. On the other hand, “A cake was baked by (more…)

Redundant word usage is rampant!

As a writer, I am chagrined when words get misused and one particular miscreant is redundant word usage.

Here are examples:

1. “As I re-listened to these interviews again…”

2. “That just my personal opinion!”

3. “Repeat again…”

4. “As a child, I was raised by parents who…”

5. “a personal friend”

These are phrases and sentences that I read or heard today (in the space of one hour!) (more…)

Let’s start with a basic question: is writing a memoir important?

Okay, why do we tell so many stories? Stories fascinate us all our lives. As children, we loved to be told fairy tales and to hear, time after time, the tales our parents told us about what we did and said when we were babies, as well as the stories about their own childhoods. As soon as we were old enough, we told stories about ourselves for our parents and for our friends. (more…)

Action in a memoir is essential—even if internalized!

Action in a memoir usually happens in the usual place—outside the memoir narrator. That is easy to grasp: “The boy ran by.”

When you use flashback scenes in which you remember someone and what they did way back then—these are not interiorized actions, these are memories of actual actions.

What can be less easy to grasp is that action in a memoir can be internal to the character, happening in the character’s mind. (more…)

Each poem clarifies something. But then you’ve got to do it again. You can’t get ‘clarified’ to stay so: let you not think that. In a way, it’s like nothing more than blowing smoke rings. Making little poems encourages a man to see that there is shapeliness in the world. A poem is an arrest of disorder.

—Robert Frost, poet

Generating the arrest of disorder of life

When I read the quote above, I did not have to make much of a leap to sense that the words “An arrest of disorder” apply to the task you and I undertake when we write memoir. As the poet so is the memoir writer engaged in art making: the creation of meaning.

More than anything perhaps, we want an arrest of disorder. Disorder seems to be everywhere in life. And so, we take our raw material—the events of our lives and of the lives of the people who surround us—and endeavor to make meaning of it all. In short, we take up our mishmash of events, our disorder of memories, and attempt to make order—or, at the least, to create an arrest of disorder.

This rendering of order proves to be soothing. It is what we deeply wish to achieve in our lives—to have all the disparate and seemingly meaningless (or at least random) occurrences, wishes, pains somehow come together coherently, meaningfully. It all happened, we realize in an “A-ha!” moment, for some reason rather than by chance.

(more…)

Understanding the role of passion in your memoir will help you to access the emotional side of your writing more easily and enable you to stay longer and more deeply in the memoir conversation. Understanding will add balance between your will to write and the passion that prompted you to write in the first place.

For a long time, passion—or or even mere feeling—was not thought to be necessary for good writing. As an extreme example, recall the works of John Dryden and of Alexander Pope. Not only were these writers not passionate in their writing, but were proud to have expunge all feelings from their texts. (more…)

“What to write about in a memoir?” is a basic question. The right answer will keep you writing and the wrong may lead you to believe that writing a memoir is too hard and not for you.

Write about something important to you

My answer to what to write about in a memoir is always to write about something important to you—not what you think is important to others.

Why are you writing? What is it that you hope to get from this effort of creating a memoir? You are about to devote a lot of time and energy to this task. Be sure it is for reasons that will keep you writing. (more…)

point of view in a memoir

Point of View in a Memoir, Part 1

By

Point of View In a Memoir Is Important. I recently completed my mother’s memoir, We Were not Spoiled. It was a work of love that took me many years to bring to closure as I had other work to do to support myself that filled my days. Finally, she got to be quite a bit […]

writing a chronology

Avoid Writing a Chronology: 4 Tips

By

Is writing a chronology of a life enough? Dates and facts are necessary to life writing in the same way route numbers are necessary to maps. It’s not only that dates and facts provide interesting information but that they keep your readers on the right path as they make their way through your life story. […]

passive vs active voice

Passive Vs Active Voice

By

Generally speaking, the passive voice of the verb (the subject has the action done to it) is weaker than the active voice (the subject does the action) in involving the reader in your story. That is crucial because as a memoir writer you are not sharing ideas but recreating life experiences to share. (more…)

redundant word usage

Redundant word usage

By

Redundant word usage is rampant! As a writer, I am chagrined when words get misused and one particular miscreant is redundant word usage. (more…)

mining memoir depths

Is Writing a Memoir Important?

By

Let’s start with a basic question: is writing a memoir important? Okay, why do we tell so many stories? Stories fascinate us all our lives. As children, we loved to be told fairy tales and to hear, time after time, the tales our parents told us about what we did and said when we were […]

action in a memoir

Do you need action in a memoir?

By

Action in a memoir is essential—even if internalized! Action in a memoir usually happens in the usual place—outside the memoir narrator. That is easy to grasp: “The boy ran by.” When you use flashback scenes in which you remember someone and what they did way back then—these are not interiorized actions, these are memories of […]

write your memoir

Your Memoir: an Arrest of Disorder

By

When I read the quote above, I did not have to make much of a leap to sense that the words “An arrest of disorder” apply to the task you and I undertake when we write memoir. More than anything perhaps, we want an arrest of disorder. Disorder seems to be everywhere in life. And […]

the role of passion in your memoir

The Role of Passion in Your Memoir

By

Understanding the role of passion in your memoir will help you to access the emotional side of your writing more easily and enable you to stay longer and more deeply in the memoir conversation. Understanding will add balance between your will to write and the passion that prompted you to write in the first place. […]

what to write about in a memoir

What to Write About in a Memoir

By

“What to write about in a memoir?” is a basic question. The right answer will keep you writing and the wrong may lead you to believe that writing a memoir is to hard and not for you. My answer to what to write about in a memoir is always to write about something important to […]