Three Pillars of a Powerful Memoir
There is power in writing your story. Your memoir can transform you as it leads to understanding the energy in your life and ultimately making that energy work for you.
The three pillars of a powerful memoir I want to talk about are the old stand-bys of character, action, and setting. A story is not a journal entry. Unlike a journal, a memoir needs development. Ranting and raving fit into a journal but not into a story—unless ranting and raving are in the dialog. Story has its own dynamics which in turn lead to their own conclusions. In writing your memoir, connect to your story as a literary form—literary here refers to in writing. There are requirements that go into the creation of an effective story—whether written or spoken. As mentioned before these are character, action, and setting.
Be Guided by These 3 Pillars of a Powerful Memoir When Writing Your Story
1. Your characters are the people in your story
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What everyone ought to do to create vivid characters
Five easy, proven tips for adding feelings to a memoir and creating vivid characters
As a memoirist, do you accept that your family, your friends and your acquaintances are characters in your story? This is a first step in creating vivid characters.
“But, I’m writing about my mother, not about a character,” you say.
Yes, you are writing about your mother and she is a character in your story. If you can’t incorporate that notion into your approach to writing, your memoir will not soar and you wil not create vivid characters—not of your mother or of anyone else.
Without the interactions of and with 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 questions we want answered.
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Every Story Needs a Believable Memoir Setting
Writers seem to grasp that every memoir needs well-developed characters and actions, but the same is often not true when they consider memoir setting.
Too many writers omit to tell us enough of the setting of their story to make their memoir feel solid and real. It is as if we are reading about spirits who do not inhabit a tangible world.
1. Setting places your characters in a context and makes them “real.”
The memoir setting is both where and when your story occurs. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
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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. ]