Be a Better Writer--MEMOIR AND 1ST PERSON NARRATIVE
Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2014 8:52 am
This week’s term is memoir, which is a kind of autobiography in miniature. More specifically, a memoir is an autobiographical writing about a part of a person’s life, rather than its entirety. In its strictest definition, a memoir sheds light on a particular period of history, but since this class is primarily on writing for the Challenge, I’m choosing to ignore that—because I can. By the way, most of these tips apply equally well to 1st person narratives, so I won’t write a separate lesson on those.
For the writing challenge, a memoir or short autobiographical writing would have to tell about a very, very tiny part of a person’s life—you just can’t do much more than that in 750 words without running the risk of simply summarizing. Here are a few pointers for writing a good memoir (in the Writing Challenge).
1. Be sure to choose a life story that will be interesting to a wide audience. We all have our own stories, and since we feature prominently in them, we naturally believe them to be fascinating. But you’d be amazed at how little your stories will actually interest most people, unless they are either a) extremely compelling stories, or b) written extremely well, or c) a situation not commonly experienced. There are some family situations that—although they may feel new and unique to us—are actually quite common. If yours is going to appeal to a wide audience, it should differ in some significant way from the similar experiences of others.
2. Resist the temptation to tell your beautiful nugget of a story, and then to summarize a big chunk of the rest of your life in the last paragraph. You don’t even really have to tell us how your story changed you, or influenced the rest of your life (although you may). Just tell your story—if you do it well, your reader will go “Ahh!” and will figure out its significance.
3. Since this is your story, you obviously know all the background, and the cast of characters. Your readers don’t, so be sure you explain things to them that seem perfectly obvious to you. Read it with a stranger’s eye, if you can, and ask yourself, would I understand this, if I didn’t know about Aunt Sherry’s kleptomania?
4. Don’t feel as if you have to include every family member, every neighbor, and every teacher you ever had. Keep the characters to a minimum, and if necessary, combine minor characters to create composites who will keep the narrative clipping along.
5. A testimony is a specialized kind of memoir, and this is a great place for a testimony. It’s my preference that you not end even a testimony with an address to the reader: Have you decided what to do with the One who can save you from life’s hurricanes…? Again, if you’ve told your testimony well, you will inspire your reader. You don’t have to then preach at her.
6. Memoirs are written in 1st person, and almost always in past tense. Sometimes when we tell a story aloud, we slip into a casual present tense (I walk up to Mrs. Ackerson and say, “Hey lady, that’s my cat you’re holding). But stay in the past tense with your memoir—which, after all, happened in the past.
7. Go ahead and include dialogue, as if you were writing a piece of fiction. Dialogue really moves a story along, and also attracts readers’ eyes more than solid blocks of text do. Don’t worry if you can’t re-create the dialogue verbatim. No one will be able to go back and check on your accuracy. If you’re true to the spirit of the event, that’s just fine.
8. Be very, very careful that the people in your memoir will not be upset to have their story written. Even if names are changed and certain details are disguised, they will recognize their story, even if no one else in the world does. It has happened more than once that I know of here at FaithWriters that family members have been quite upset to appear in a public piece of writing.
9. Finally, as with any writing, use all of the tools that make writing good. Hook your reader in the beginning. Use salsa words, not rice cake words. Keep your writing snappy and concise. Make your characters feel real and unique by giving them well-rounded personalities, quirks, and authentic dialogue. Move it along. Put a kicker at the end.
Homework: Write 150 words, either an ultra-short memoir, or the first paragraph of a longer one. Keep in mind the 9 points in the body of this lesson. (Were any of those tricky for you?)
OR tell about any memoir writing you’ve done, either for the Challenge or not, and any particular challenges it presents. Provide a link, if you’ve got one.
OR, follow-up with a question or comment specifically about 1st person narrative, and how it differs from memoir.
As always, I welcome ideas for future lessons.
For the writing challenge, a memoir or short autobiographical writing would have to tell about a very, very tiny part of a person’s life—you just can’t do much more than that in 750 words without running the risk of simply summarizing. Here are a few pointers for writing a good memoir (in the Writing Challenge).
1. Be sure to choose a life story that will be interesting to a wide audience. We all have our own stories, and since we feature prominently in them, we naturally believe them to be fascinating. But you’d be amazed at how little your stories will actually interest most people, unless they are either a) extremely compelling stories, or b) written extremely well, or c) a situation not commonly experienced. There are some family situations that—although they may feel new and unique to us—are actually quite common. If yours is going to appeal to a wide audience, it should differ in some significant way from the similar experiences of others.
2. Resist the temptation to tell your beautiful nugget of a story, and then to summarize a big chunk of the rest of your life in the last paragraph. You don’t even really have to tell us how your story changed you, or influenced the rest of your life (although you may). Just tell your story—if you do it well, your reader will go “Ahh!” and will figure out its significance.
3. Since this is your story, you obviously know all the background, and the cast of characters. Your readers don’t, so be sure you explain things to them that seem perfectly obvious to you. Read it with a stranger’s eye, if you can, and ask yourself, would I understand this, if I didn’t know about Aunt Sherry’s kleptomania?
4. Don’t feel as if you have to include every family member, every neighbor, and every teacher you ever had. Keep the characters to a minimum, and if necessary, combine minor characters to create composites who will keep the narrative clipping along.
5. A testimony is a specialized kind of memoir, and this is a great place for a testimony. It’s my preference that you not end even a testimony with an address to the reader: Have you decided what to do with the One who can save you from life’s hurricanes…? Again, if you’ve told your testimony well, you will inspire your reader. You don’t have to then preach at her.
6. Memoirs are written in 1st person, and almost always in past tense. Sometimes when we tell a story aloud, we slip into a casual present tense (I walk up to Mrs. Ackerson and say, “Hey lady, that’s my cat you’re holding). But stay in the past tense with your memoir—which, after all, happened in the past.
7. Go ahead and include dialogue, as if you were writing a piece of fiction. Dialogue really moves a story along, and also attracts readers’ eyes more than solid blocks of text do. Don’t worry if you can’t re-create the dialogue verbatim. No one will be able to go back and check on your accuracy. If you’re true to the spirit of the event, that’s just fine.
8. Be very, very careful that the people in your memoir will not be upset to have their story written. Even if names are changed and certain details are disguised, they will recognize their story, even if no one else in the world does. It has happened more than once that I know of here at FaithWriters that family members have been quite upset to appear in a public piece of writing.
9. Finally, as with any writing, use all of the tools that make writing good. Hook your reader in the beginning. Use salsa words, not rice cake words. Keep your writing snappy and concise. Make your characters feel real and unique by giving them well-rounded personalities, quirks, and authentic dialogue. Move it along. Put a kicker at the end.
Homework: Write 150 words, either an ultra-short memoir, or the first paragraph of a longer one. Keep in mind the 9 points in the body of this lesson. (Were any of those tricky for you?)
OR tell about any memoir writing you’ve done, either for the Challenge or not, and any particular challenges it presents. Provide a link, if you’ve got one.
OR, follow-up with a question or comment specifically about 1st person narrative, and how it differs from memoir.
As always, I welcome ideas for future lessons.