Why Sensory Details Bring A Memoir To Life
Successful stories are full of sensory details (colors, shapes, textures, smells, sounds, flavors. When your stories portray a vivid world (“three sweet-scented roses”) rather than a vague one (“some nice flowers”), you make it easier for readers to take the leap of faith into the world of your writing.
Abstraction kills a story
If your story has abstract and vague wording like “After a while, absence from home made fidelity difficult for him and he committed adultery…,” your readers will be less interested in (and less swayed by) what you have to say than if your narration is filled with concrete details. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
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Is theme important in memoir?
Theme influences choices for every element in the story: plot development, characterization, and setting.
Here’s the shell of a plot: your father was laid off; a difficult time followed for the family; your father received additional training and obtained a different job.
Your treatment of this plot will vary according to your theme.
Let’s suppose the following is your theme: “events whose consequences we can’t understand happen gratuitously to us in our lives, but we can always make the best of things.” In the elaboration of this particular theme (message), you will find it natural to set your father’s being laid off not only with his reaction at the time but also with its consequences. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]