Going Deeper in a Memoir: Look at “Life’s Failed Contracts”
This post is about going deeper in a memoir, deeper even than you thought you could go when you started. This may be hard, but take a look at the contracts with life we make and the terrible disappointment that inevitably comes from making them. All of us at some time or other have made such a contract with life—in fact, we make them over and over again until we finally grow up and become present to the unfolding reality. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
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Vivid Characters Are Essential in a Memoir
Why Creating Vivid Characters is Essential
The people in your story are your characters. It is your task as memoir writer to bring vivid characters to the attention of your readers. You must use descriptive writing to present believable characters. Without other people, our lives and memoirs risk becoming dull. Although ideas are pivotal for many individuals, relationships are even more commanding. We are intrigued with who other people are and how they function. “Who’s that? What are they doing? Where did they come from?” These are the questions we want answered. To write a strong story, capitalize on this interest.
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Show Don’t Tell Your Characters, or Don’t Describe Your Characters–Show Them!
The old adage “Show, don’t tell your characters!” is as true as ever. It 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.
1. Your computer and its keyboards are your movie camera. Show Don’t Tell Your Characters.
In a film, a director ( that’s you!) doesn’t have an actor go on screen to tell the audience that someone is angry. Instead, he shows the character in a scene where anger is in action. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
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Writing Hooks to Open a Paragraph or Chapter
“How do I start a chapter so that it has writing hooks that capture the reader’s interest?” you ask.
In this post, I give you three surefire ways to open a chapter or even the whole of your memoir. You’ll use one of these writing hooks time after time.
These three methods involve creating curiosity in your reader. This curiosity via writing hooks is easy for you to ignite so that your reader will want to read your story.
The first of the writing hooks
The first technique is to start with a conversation, but you must start with the second half of that conversation and not the first part.
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Self-Editing Tips for Memoir Writers
The self-editing tips I’m sharing with you in this post will save you a lot of time and mistakes! Whether you are self-editing as you write or are going through your manuscript one last time before sending it to a professional editor, you’ll find these tips to be super helpful for better self-editing.
While I am offering you the steps in a linear way—mentioning one thing and then another—in practice as you go through your manuscript, you’ll do well to be aware of all of these steps at one time. That is, you are looking to edit everything.
Of course, you will on various occasions perhaps slight one element of self-editing or another, but when you realize this, you can go back and re-edit.
Going through each of these self-editing tips on your manuscript will take a while. I even recommend that you do it several times and even perhaps a month or two in between times. What this does is distance you emotionally from your manuscript. When you return to it, you’ll read it as the reader rather than as the writer.
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Dramatic story development, rather than dramatic events, adds up to an interesting memoir
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People will sometimes suppose that only big drama can make an interesting memoir. Of course, there are many readers who require constant titillation if they are to remain reading. Perhaps they are not the readers you should be seeking for your memoir. Nonetheless, nearly all readers require some attention to “interesting.”
No, I do not believe that it is the scope of the drama of your memoir that is the crucial element to creating interest. Some would-be memoir-writers get discouraged by the ordinariness of their lives. Yet, I have found that almost everyone I have had a serious conversation with about memoir writing had enough happen in their lives to fashion an interesting memoir.
An interesting memoir: drama vs. dramatic story development?
Much more important than the inherent drama of an action is the dramatic development of your story.
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22 Memoir-Writing Goals to Jumpstart your Memoir Writing
Do you find yourself wandering along with your memoir writing and not achieving your memoir-writing goals? Do you have a sense that you might have accomplished a bit more writing than you have?
At regular intervals, it is traditional to review how the past went for you and to recommit to goals for yourself for the coming months. (A goal is a wish with action steps and a timeline.) These goals need to be written and reviewed periodically.
Studies have shown that people who set goals in writing have a better outcome vis-à-vis accomplishing what they set out to do. Here’s a report on one such study. (The famous Harvard goal-setting study so many of us have heard of apparently never happened, but the concept of goal setting is clearly important and is explored in the linked article.)
22 Memoir-Writing Goals especially for you!
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Writing Feelings into Your Memoir
Recently, David asked in an email about “writing feelings into your memoir,” about writing a memoir that, if I am understanding him right, is not all details and facts.
Below is my response which can serve as a stand-alone article to help you write your own memoir.
Leave a comment below expressing your experience of writing feelings into your memoir.
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Here are some of my suggestions for writing feelings into your memoir:
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The Theme-focused Memoir
While many of the people whom I have helped to write a memoir have come ostensibly to write about their lives – to celebrate some achievement, I would say that many of these people are also writing a mission-driven memoir, a theme-focused memoir.
Behind the desire to tell about their lives, there is some intent to promote a point of view. This comes under many guises. Generally, of course, this point of view is called “theme.”
The theme-focused memoir is the most common model.
Writing a manuscript only of one’s experience—the dates, the facts, the activities—may often not enough to entice the reader—at least, it will not interest the reader who is not family and friends. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]