If you want to learn how to write vividly, use the following tips for avoiding vagueness in writing your memoir.

When a manuscript slips into a vagueness, the reader reads and rereads and does not quite “get it.”

“What’s the author trying to say here?” we ask ourselves. “What am I missing?”

Here are a few of my ideas as to why this may happen.

1. The author is not sure herself what she is trying to say. She has not lingered with this part of the story to extract from it the essence of her meaning. Once she has meaning, finding prose that might do justice to the expression of her feeling becomes easier.

Solution if this is you: journal around the story, look at your photos, take a walk to ruminate about the events you have written about, ask yourself, “What exactly am I trying to convey here? What do I really mean to say?”

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