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sensory details

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.

quicker writing

4 Tips For Easier, Quicker Writing

You can benefit from easier and quicker writing by adapting appropriate habits of composition. Here are four habits for quicker writing of your first draft that you would do well to learn. They are easy to implement and the rewards are significant.

finish a memoir

9 Ideas to Help You Finish Your Memoir

When your writing is stalled, turn to your writing journal for help. The following are suggestions for what you might ask yourself in your writing journal. They are taken from the Pick Up Your Memoir Again—And Finish It! a course on successfully dealing with writer’s block.

sharing your memoir

How to Get the Most Out of Sharing Your Memoir In-Progress

A critical step for a brand-new writer is sharing your memoir in progress with others. There is nothing like a reader to help you develop a healthy critical sense of your work. This article is especially for the writer who cringes at the thought of sharing his/her writing. Those others you will share with might […]

writing your memoir

4 Tips For Making and Using a Core Memory List to Write More Efficiently

The Core Memory List is a list of the crucial relationships and events which have shaped your life. It contains just ten or fewer items. Use it to write more efficiently. This is because Core Memory Lists are about the relationships and events which, had they not occurred, your life (or your mother’s or father’s, […]

theme in memoir

Is theme important in memoir?

Theme influences choices for every element in the story: plot development, characterization, and setting. Is theme important. You bet it is!

publish a book

Solving A Narrator Problem

A narrator problem can ruin a memoir. I had put off completing the book because I could not resolve its thematic challenge—ultimately a narrator problem.

Memoir Writing

A Narrator Issue: Who is Writing Your Memoir?

Who is writing your memoir? This may sound like a trick question but it’s not. In fact, it is a very serious question that will determine—or at least greatly influence—the tone and the theme of your narrative. “But, I’m writing my memoirs!” you might answer. Yes, of course. You! But, which you? We’ve all had […]