During WW2, the Japanese enslaved thousands of women to serve as prostitutes. I recently had the opportunity to interview author William Andrews about his experience writing his recent novel, Daughters of the Dragon: A Comfort Woman’s Story. Last week, I published the first part of the interview and below I publish the second portion. If you have not read the first portion, it is a good idea to do so before reading the text below.

DL: You changed narrator in this book. You went from a third person to a first-person narrator. You went from a middle-aged male narrator to a young woman. Can you talk to us about why you did that? What were some of the challenges you had?

BA: Yes, both of these changes—from third person to first; from father to granddaughter—really helped the book. Let me start with the second—changing the character. I first wrote the frame of the book (the book is written in a framed narrative or a story within a story) with the father of the adopted daughter as the narrator. Why? Because I was him. It was easy for me. Then I realized that the granddaughter—the daughter of the comfort woman—had the most at stake in the story. By giving her the narrative, the frame had much more power, more emotion. It was more direct, more raw, more dramatic. It wasn’t nearly as easy to write, but it was way better.

As for switching from third to first person, that was a result of needing to give the narrative a better voice. Writers and agents and publishers and coaches talk about “voice” all the time, but it isn’t always clear what it is. Well, to me, it’s a simple concept, but not easy to do. Voice is the personality of the narrator. Think about it. If you could have your comedy told by either a boring person, or by Robin Williams, who would you choose? Then again, you might not want Robin Williams to narrate your romance since the personality or voice of the narration must match the story. To get the voices right in Daughters of the Dragon: A Comfort Woman’s Story, I changed the narration to first person. Once I did, the personality HAD to come through. The 20-year-old granddaughter said things like, “awesome” and “seriously?” and such. The 80-year-old Korean grandmother’s voice had to be deliberate and precise to match her personality. Structurally, it wasn’t all that hard to change, but really forced me to think about voice.

DL: Is there anything in particular that you would say that was the most difficult thing to do in this book? Was it research, plotting, point of view?

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The following is a guest post by Chris Lightfoot.

For many of us, finding the time to write a memoir can be challenge. There are so many things that seem to get in the way what with work, family, household chores, the lure of TV and of social media, etc. But…

Are all of these distractions really just a way of avoiding getting down to writing? If you are a new or inexperienced writer, you probably have some doubts about your ability to be a writer and so keeping yourself busy means you don’t have to confront your inner writing demon which feeds on your self doubt and taunts you with the specter of failure. (more…)

“Rather than simply telling a story, the memoirist both tells the story and muses upon it, trying to unravel what it means in the light of her (his) current knowledge.” — Judith Barrington, Writing the Memoir

Writing a memoir is hard work.

I know because I have been writing mine for the past five years. Ever Faithful to His Lead: My Journey Away From Emotional Abuse is now in its final editing stage. My goal is to publish it through a small publisher by December,2014.

I started writing vignettes about twelve years ago and have journaled since my teens. But I didn’t get serious about my memoir writer’s journey until 2009 when I started taking memoir writing workshops and attending writing conferences.

It’s very humbling to learn what you don’t know and when I started out, I didn’t know anything about writing a memoir. I only knew that I had a story inside me and that I wanted to write about it. (more…)

This is another excerpt from my high-school memoir, In Another Century. It wasn’t until my father turned onto Middle Street and drove the 1955 red Ford station wagon up the hill towards the seminary that I gave in to the looming presence of doubt. Was this really what I wanted? I sat in the front seat between my father and my grandmother. My brother and my sisters put their books down, and my grandmother grew quiet. We were all attentive, curious to see what this place which had occupied so much of our attention that summer looked like. “Remember,” my (more…)

The following is an excerpt of a memoir of my high school years. This is in the introduction and occurs in the summer of 1960. The story takes place in Lisbon Falls, Maine—which is where I still live. At 13, as I moved tremulously into adolescence, I knew that, whatever I did, I was leaving childhood and my life would soon be different from what it had been, but I could not appreciate how the difference would be marked not in age but in culture. My life would now be different from that of my contemporaries. While they moved forward (more…)

The following excerpt was taken from Here to Stay, a memoir/history of my seventeenth-century Canadian ancestors. Louis was the first of my patronymic ancestors in the New World. Louis Ledoux and Marie Valiquet During his first decade in Canada, Louis did not marry. While his friend Adrien Sénécal was growing a family, Louis remained single, paying (one presumes) the bachelor tax. In the early 1670s, Louis moved from one settlement to another, but, by the end of the decade, he had become an habitant [farmer] in Varennes where he would spend the rest of his life. Louis Ledoux must have (more…)

The following is an excerpt of a memoir of my high school years. This is the opening paragraphs of the introduction to the book—the first text you would read. In the summer of 1960 when I was thirteen, my mother drove me into Lewiston to Vincent & Leblanc’s on Lisbon Street at Ash Street. There, in a shopping spree that was unprecedented, she bought me more new clothes than I’d ever had at any one time. Shirts, pants, underwear, socks, even handkerchiefs. The seminary’s list of clothes I was to bring had been very precise—three of these and two of (more…)

I am pleased to introduce you to guest blogger Marguerite Roy’s notes on the composition of her book, Aurore: My Franco-American Mother. Having just finished my own mother’s memoir, We Were Not Spoiled, I was keen to read about Maggie’s experience of working with family material. Maggie, by the way, did a stint in my Turning Memories Into Memoirs lifewriting workshops back in the 1990s. An Extraordinary Woman in an Ordinary World It was inevitable that I should write Aurore: My Franco-American Mother. From early childhood, I enjoyed my mother’s stories, visualizing the scenes as she talked about her family and the past. During (more…)

The following is an excerpt from We Were not Spoiled by Lucille Ledoux as told to Denis Ledoux. The trip to Syracuse We left our wedding guests at 1:30 for the train trip to Albert’s base in Syracuse, N.Y. Since it was still summer and the sun was out late, we saw much beautiful country as we rolled though Massachusetts and New York. When we arrived in Syracuse, it was dark. We did not have reservations for the night, so we went to the Yates Hotel downtown not far from the station. The Yates was a big hotel, and they (more…)

How to Write A Book: A Chat With Author William Andrews Part 2

By William Andrews

During WW2, the Japanese enslaved thousands of women to serve as prostitutes. I recently interviewed author William Andrews about his experience writing his recent novel, Daughters of the Dragon: A Comfort Woman’s Story. (more…)

6 Tips to Finding the Time to Write A Memoir

By Chris Lightfoot

For many of us finding the time to write a memoir can be problem. There are so many things that seem to get in the way what with work, family, household chores, TV, social media, etc. So start by asking yourself whether all of these distractions are really just a way of avoiding getting down […]

8 Lessons Learned on My Memoir Writer’s Journey

By Kathleen Pooler

Memoir writing is hard work. I know because I have been writing mine for the past five years. Ever Faithful to His Lead: My Journey Away From Emotional Abuse is now in its final editing stage. My goal is to publish it through a small publisher by December 2014.I started writing vignettes about twelve years […]

When I Arrived at the Seminary

By Denis Ledoux

An excerpt from my high school memoir. It wasn’t until my father turned onto Middle Street and drove the 1955 red Ford station wagon up the hill towards the seminary that I gave in to the looming presence of doubt. Was this really what I wanted? (more…)

The Summer Before I Left

By Denis Ledoux

At 13, as I moved tremulously into adolescence, I knew that, whatever I did, I was leaving childhood and my life would soon be different from what it had been, but I could not appreciate how the difference would be marked not in age but in culture. (more…)

Louis Ledoux and Marie Valiquet Marry

By Denis Ledoux

During his first decade in Canada, Louis did not marry. While his friend Adrien Sénécal was growing a family, Louis remained single, paying (one presumes) the bachelor tax. In the early 1670s, Louis moved from one settlement to another, but, by the end of the decade, he had become an habitant in Varennes where he […]

Preparing to Leave Home

By Denis Ledoux

In the summer of 1960 when I was thirteen, my mother drove me into Lewiston to Vincent & Leblanc’s on Lisbon Street at Ash Street. There, in a shopping spree that was unprecedented, she bought me more new clothes than I’d ever had at any one time. (more…)

An Extraordinary Woman in an Ordinary World

By Marguerite Roy

It was inevitable that I should write Aurore: My Franco-American Mother. From early childhood, I enjoyed my mother’s stories, visualizing the scenes as she talked about her family and the past. During my teen years, I thought my mother talked too much, repeating the same stories over and over again. Whenever she was on the […]