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Don’t Use A Writing Prompt Unless…

A writing prompt seems like a good idea—but is it really?

You are given a writing based on a writing prompt—let’s say, “Write about something physical you were afraid of as a child?”—and you instantly start to write about the water slide at Camp Algonquin you were sent to as an eight-year old. You are not sure why you are so moved to write this story but you do not hesitate. You write about standing at the top of the slide and about Martha Cocciardi in back of you on the ladder, shouting “Get going, Patty. I want to slide, too” and, at that moment,  you realized there was nothing to be done but to throw yourself at the mercy of fate and hope you survive to enter the fourth grade. You write with some humor and emotional distance suggesting “Oh, silly me! Oh, what little problems we have as children!” [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]

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Don't let writer's blok stop you

Thinking About Memoir Writing

Our right thinking about memoir writing projects or our right talking about them can lead to success or failure. We can be very clever about our evasive tactics and disguise them as right thinking. Here are three examples that can pass for thoughtfulness rather than evasion.

avoid cliches and stereotypes

Avoid Cliches and Stereotypes

If you do not avoid cliches and stereotypes, you will undermine the unique and personal feel of your memoir. Cliches and stereotypes place people in often erroneous and certainly indefensible categories. As short-hand ways of writing and speaking, they reflect ready-made thoughts and adversely affect the ways we relate to our families and friends as unique individuals and how we write about them.

“She was a mother hen—you know how mothers are!”

“My father had a heart of gold.”

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scenes and dialogue

Three Tips For Using Fiction Techniques in a Memoir

Why Insert Fiction Techniques in a Memoir?

We all love well-told stories. We love the entertainment, the sound effects, the punchy plot built around solid characterization. As we share stories in our everyday conversations, we inevitably use fiction techniques to keep our listeners’ attention and interest. When we say “And then she said…,” we are using dialogue – that’s using fiction techniques in a memoir.

In our memoir writing, we will often veer toward the same techniques fiction writers use. In fact, we don’t seem to need urging at all to adapt our stories to make them more compelling or to ensure that they drive our point home. We make spontaneous use of fiction techniques in a memoir.

Are Fiction Techniques in a Memoir Valid?

Many life writers ask, “But, am I twisting things when I use fiction techniques in a memoir? Is it really okay?”

[Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]

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christmas

Not Being Preachy: Four Tips

The theme is the soul of the story. Every story needs a theme. The negative underside of theme, however, is being preachy. You are preaching when you insist that your reader endorse your theme, message or point of view.

1) Here’s a way to distinguish between being preachy and the right use of theme.

Read your text out loud to yourself. If you have been preachy, your grand, all-inclusive phrases will jump out at you. Sometimes people laugh aloud with awareness as they read aloud such phrases as:

“I’d like to see how many kids today would…” [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]

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interesting dialog

Writing Effective and Interesting Dialog

Dialog allows the reader to hear the voice of the character. It is an opportunity to use regionalisms and particularities of speech. Even to write in pauses if that was typical of the person. “Ain’t much wrong with it,” my grandfather would say…

paul

Evoking Emotions in Your Readers

You Can Evoke Emotions in Your Readers. Here’s How. Instilling your memoir with enough emotion to stir up a response from your readers is do-able. It is undeniably one of the most important results an author must set out to achieve. A memoir seeks to move a reader and without evoking emotions, a memoir cannot […]

BussinessMan1

Business Memoir: What’s Special About Writing One?

Over the years, I have had the pleasure to collaborate on a number of memoirs which highlight the lives of men and women who have attained a significant result in their work life. Why would somebody want to write a business memoir? People write business memoirs for some of the same reasons people write any […]

rockstack

Eight Reasons to Share the Inner You

Our lives are composed not only of facts and dates but also of dreams, expectations–realized or denied–and hopes. You are not alone in having lived an inner life. Others too have experienced much of what you felt and dreamed for yourself and are likely to identify with some, or even much, of what you say. […]