Community Education Fall 2024

Resources for Community Ed Class
on Memoir Writing
Fall 2024

Newest items posted at the top

Week Six (October 1)

Don’t forget you can send up to 2,000 to look over!

Outlining

Try listing at least ten events you want to include in your memoir and see how you can fit them into an outline.

You want to use the work you have done on focus, purpose, audience, arc of change, Big Ideas, theme, and Super Simple Version—these will guide you on what to include and when to include it. (Outlining may also lead you to changing your topic, audience, and/or theme)

The outline can be in any FORM that works for you (such as listing bullet points; a formal outline structure with I, II, III, A, B, C, etc.; or writing ideas on notecards and organizing them).

It can be as detailed or not detailed as you need it to be.

The two things it MUST incorporate:

What material you want to include in your memoir

The order in which you want the reader to read the material

Your outline does not have to be in the order in which you will write it.

You may end up revising your outline later, and that’s okay.

If you want advice about finishing, revising, editing, or publishing, contact me!

Finishing Your Draft

Here are some common obstacles writers face when trying to finish a draft—do any of these sound familiar?

Other priorities get in the way
You have an inner critic who tells you your writing isn’t good enough and no one will want to read it
You want your draft to be absolutely perfect and keep rewriting what you’ve drafted and get overwhelmed
You find reasons why you can’t write yet—you have to do more research, you have to wait until you have more energy, you need a bigger block of time, etc.
Writing is too lonely

Here are some common obstacles specific to drafting a memoir—do any of these sound familiar?

You feel like you don’t have enough info or strong enough memories
You don’t think you have enough to write about
You think your life story is too boring and ordinary
You don’t know what to include or where to start or stop your story
You worry you will hurt others’ feelings
You worry that your memory is not completely accurate

There are possible solutions to all of these issues! Some suggestions:

Give yourself permission to prioritize and schedule your writing time.
Read Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird—one of the best writing guides ever. She tackles the inner critic, perfectionism, and more.
Silence the inner critics by reminding yourself that your story is worth writing if you want to write it and that you will get better at writing by writing.
Set up an accountability group with others who are writing. You can cheer each other on over texts, meet together for writing time, set group goals, etc.
Set up a writing group with others who are writing: not only hold yourselves accountable, but share your work so writing doesn’t feel so lonely.
Give yourself a self-imposed deadline/goal, such as giving the memoir as a gift for someone’s birthday or graduation.
Take another workshop or class, in person on online
Work with a book coach.
Read memoirs and books on writing memoir to inspire you (see below)
Tell people what you’re doing and ask them to cheer you on—they will also likely tell you they can’t wait to read it!
Remind yourself you are only DRAFTING—you will revise later and improve your work, so you don’t need to get it all “right” the first time
Remind yourself that even if no one ever reads your draft, YOU will learn about yourself by writing it.
If you need to research a certain memory, find a better word, check a fact, etc. don’t stop writing: just make a note or write XXXXXX and keep going. You can fill in the gaps later.
If you don’t have enough time to write or to develop your skills to the level you desire, hire a ghostwriter.

How to Revise

When you have finished a full draft, the next step is to revise. Revision is about big-picture issues like improving the structure, developing your theme, cutting irrelevant sections, etc.

Step One: Set it aside. The longer the draft, the more time you should leave it alone so you can come to it with fresh eyes.

Step Two: Get targeted feedback. Ask someone to read the draft and critique it, but make sure you tell them what kind of feedback you want. You can also hire an editor to work with you.

Step Three: Read it all the way through WITHOUT making any changes.

Step Four: Revise in a series of passes where you target different issues, one at a time. For all of these, remember who your audience is. For example you may look at

structure
characterization
voice
precision
etc.

Step Five: Repeat all these steps until you are satisfied. Be patient and trust the creative process!

How To Edit

When you are done revising, the next step is editing. Editing is about small-picture issues like tightening sentences, focusing paragraphs, finding a better word, etc.

Step One: Set it aside. The longer the draft, the more time you should leave it alone so you can come to it with fresh eyes.

Step Two: Get targeted feedback. Ask someone to read the draft and mark any editing issues. You can also hire an editor (like me!) to work with you.

Step Three: Read it all the way through WITHOUT making any changes.

Step Four: Revise in a series of passes where you target different issues, one at a time. For all of these, remember who your audience is. For example you may look at

transitions
clarifying sentences
reducing repetition of certain words
reducing passive voice
etc.

Step Five: Repeat all these steps until you are satisfied. Be patient and trust the creative process!

Publishing

If your audience is friends and family: lowest cost. Options include

Website
print-out (packet)
digital file
self-publish, but at low end

If your audience is beyond friends and family: higher cost. Options include

Self-publish: you do all the work and they provide the platform
Hybrid: they do some of the production and/or marketing work as well as provide the platform
Indie (small) publisher: you submit your manuscript to them; they decide whether or not they want to publish you.
Traditional publisher: you submit your manuscript to a literary agent; they decide whether or not they want to publish you. They then submit your manuscript to traditional publishers and they decide whether or not they want to publish you.

Notes on working with self-publishing and hybrid companies:

More work by them = higher cost to you
Higher quality book = higher cost to you
Set a budget and do your research
Plan to work hard to market and sell your book if that’s a priority, no matter how you publish

Notes on working with an indie publisher or agent/traditional publisher:

You will likely want to work with a freelance editor first to get you book in its best shape
You may want to work with a professional to help you write a book proposal and query letter
Plan to work hard to market and sell your book even with a traditional publisher

For more on publishing options, see this chart: https://janefriedman.com/key-book-publishing-path/

Write your manifesto for finishing: draft a plan of attack! Consider:

Setting a deadline

Number of pages x hours Do the math: how many pages do you want, how many pages can you write in an hour, how may hours can you write a week, etc.

When: weekly schedule

Where: location

How: what means of support and feedback can you obtain?

Why: why do you want to do this?

Commitment of resources: time, money, effort, emotional vulnerability, etc.

Exercise: Write on one of the following topics (or come up with one of your own!)

A) What’s an invention that appeared during your lifetime that has been significant to you? Describe in a scene one of the first times you first encountered it. Describe what you did, said, though, and felt.

C) Describe a time you were an outsider, maybe because you were from a different place; were of a different race, class, or gender than everyone else, were an innocent/newbie among a group of experienced people, etc. Show us where you were and what everyone did.

D) Write a scene where you gave or received a memorable gift. Use precision, effective characterization, and only ONE pov (past self or present self).

E) Give us a time you escaped danger. The danger could be physical, financial, emotional, or any other kind. Try to use lots of strong verbs and include some direct dialogue. Consider using only past self’s pov, so you don’t know if you’ll survive.

Reminders:

Be precise: sensory details, string verbs, specific nouns, proper nouns
Effective characterization: show person from the outside, talk about their insides
POV and voice: let us get to know you and your perspective

Week Five (September 27)

Theme

The theme is the main Big Idea that you want to get across in your memoir. It is NOT the focus/topic of the memoir but what you say ABOUT that topic/focus. It’s not “grief” but “Grief whittles you down to the essence of who you and the people around you are.”

Defining your theme can give you a destination as you draft: it tells you where you want your memoir to go. You may revise and refine your theme as you continue to draft your project, but it will be helpful to have a preliminary idea now.

A theme is a complete thought—a complete sentence, not a phrase. For example, “love” is not a theme, “love for flowers” is not a theme, and “loves I have lost” is not a theme, but “Love never lasts” IS theme. “My time as an astronaut” is not a theme, but “My time as an astronaut taught me that we are all connected” is a theme.

A theme may sound a little cliché and simplistic; that’s okay because your memoir, which will illustrate your theme won’t be cliché or simplistic.

Try to be precise in your theme where you can. For instance, instead of saying, “Being an astronaut is good and bad,” say “Being an astronaut is terrifying, exhausting, and exhilarating.”

Coming up with a theme is hard! Here are some different ways to think about your theme:

1) You can think about it as a literary theme: a unifying statement about all the elements in the text.

2) You can think about it as the core point/the hub of the wagon wheel. All spokes in the story connect back to it, and they work together to propel the memoir forward.

3) You can think about it as the spine of the memoir’s skeleton/the trunk of the memoir’s tree/the memoir’s through line. All the ideas in the memoir build out from it.

4) You can think about it as the central revelation that changes you. Everything in the memoir either causes that revelation or is affected by that revelation.

5) You can think about it as the thesis of your argument: what your story proves. The writer and teacher Marion Roach Smith has designed this formula: My memoir is about X [the thesis/theme] as illustrated by Y [the focus/the topic/the events in your life you write about].

Here are some examples of themes for Goldilocks’ memoir:

You have to determine what makes you happy before you can be a true friend to others.
Surviving a deadly encounter comes down to preparation, imagination, and desperation.
Never settle for the mediocre when perfection is within reach.
The generosity of my friends the Bears made me the confident woman I am today
Life is best lived in the middle, not at the extremes.

Here is an example of Goldilocks using the Roach method for her theme:

My memoir is about how life is best lived in the middle, not at the extremes, as illustrated by my adventures visiting the house of the three bears.

Exercise on Theme

1) What is the theme of your memoir?

2) Boil it down to one sentence—a complete thought—an independent clause.

3) Try out a few ideas before settling on one.

Remember:

“Friendship” = a topic.

“The different friendships I’ve had over the years” = a topic

“Good friends are hard to find but provide the real value in life” = a theme

Super Simple Version (from Jennie Nash’s Blueprint for a Memoir)

Can you write a summary of your memoir in 2-3 sentences?

Here are two examples from Nash’s book:

This book is a memoir about a teenager's battle to free two black bears from cruel confinement and how, in the process, he discovered the strength to free himself, as well.

When a birth injury brings a new mom to her knees—and every doctor makes her symptoms worse—she turns to the embodied wisdom of ancient India, searching for a path to whole body, whole woman healing.

Make sure your SSV indicates the main events of the memoir, how you change, and your theme.

Like writing a theme, writing an SSV helps you choose which direction you're following out of all the possible directions for your story, and you may revise and refine it as you continue to draft your project.

Structuring your memoir

Whatever length your memoir is, you will need to think about how to structure it.

Form is tied to function and vice versa. How you tell the story depends on what story you are telling, and what story you tell depends on the form you use.

Whatever structure you use, one good rule to follow (though all writing rules are made to be broken) is to make sure
that YOU CHANGE.

The YOU at the end of your memoir should be different from the YOU at the beginning. That change is the essential energy that powers the memoir.
It can be big or subtle, internal or external, but it has to be clear and it has to be notable/valuable to YOU.
You learn something, you look at things a different way, your external circumstances alter in a way that significantly impacts you, you gain or lose, you improve or worsen.

Some Different Structures You Can Use

There are many ways to structure a memoir. Here are some models:

1) PLOT. One of the most common. May overlap with Chronological. You structure the material like a fictional story. Possibilities include

Aristotelian plot structure: conflict, rising action/complication, climax (point of highest tension), resolution, falling action
Hero’s Journey: protagonist has a goal and quests to achieve it with growth along the way
One of Kurt Vonnegut’s eight story shapes such as “Rise Then Fall Then Rise, or ‘Cinderella’.”
“The Virgin’s Promise”: the protagonist finds her own power, breaks with tradition, and brings her community with her into a new way of living. (See Melanie Marttila)
Many more possibilities out there! Google “alternative plot structures” or start with scribophile.com/academy/what-are-story-archetypes.

2) CHRONOLOGICAL. Another of the most common structures. May overlap with Plot. You structure the material by where it occurs in time. The most common options here are

Linear: start at the oldest event and end with the most recent
Modified linear: using various techniques such flashbacks, and flash forwards, you always give the reader a sense of where they are chronologically but guide them through using a rationale that isn’t JUST “start at the oldest event and finish at the most recent event.” For instance, you may have two timelines throughout the memoir.
Many memoirs open with an event close to the present, an event that makes the writer want to write the memoir. Then it jumps back into the past. and often finishes back where it started.

3) ARGUMENT: You structure the material like an argument (but it’s still a memoir). It would go something like this:

Intro with your thesis
Main point one with supporting material
Main point two with supporting material
Main point three with supporting material
Main point four with supporting material
Etc.
Conclusion with a complication of the thesis

4) EPISODIC: the material is broken up rather than uniformly connected

Thematic: Break the story into multiple pieces that are organized by topic; topical sections are not explicitly connected (a “memoir in essays” is currently popular)
Vignette: Break the material into multiple pieces that are not explicitly connected—this is the most non-structured form

5) CONCEPTUAL: You structure the material according to an external form of some kind. You could use anything, such as body parts (i.e., a chapter related to eyes, a chapter related to knees, etc.) or months in the calendar (i.e., a chapter based in January 1965, a chapter based in February 1988, etc.) Some examples:

Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love is organized into three units of 36, matching the number of beads in a japa mala, a string of prayer beads used during meditation.
Bono’s memoir, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story, is organized around different U2 songs
Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran is organized around books/authors (Lolita, Gatsby, James, Austen)
Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table, organized around elements

6) MEMOIR HYBRID: (also called Memoir+) You structure the material with another, related topic, such as

A cookbook
An explanation of a scientific concept
A how-to of some kind
A travelogue
A history of a place or people or important time
For examples, see this article: “Memoirs with Benefits: A Reading List of Hybrid Narratives”

Want even more on structure: Try “The best memoirs with an unconventional structure.”

Exercise

Write a scene from your memoir.
Choose an event that connects to the SSV you wrote.
Don’t worry about giving us ANY context. Start with a simple phrase indicating what time of day it is, such as “That morning,” “In the afternoon, “It was late at night when …”
Be as descriptive about the setting and characters as possible.
Use at least five sensory details.
Use at least three specific nouns.
Use at least two strong verbs.
Use at least one proper noun/name.
Include two places where you reveal what you were thinking and/or feeling at the time.
Include two places where you reveal what you think and/or feel about the event now.
After you write it out, go back and find three places to add onto.

If you are stuck for a topic, instead of an event that connects to your SSV, try one of these instead

A time when you pretended not to care.
A memory of bread and butter.
A hill you once knew.
A recollection of mist or fog.
A moment in a library.
What is your favorite fruit, why, and what is a strong memory you have related to this fruit?
Think of something you're an expert at and one of the first times you tried to do it before you became an expert
*many of these stolen or adapted from Natalie Goldberg’s Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir

Optional Homework

1) Send me up to 2,000 words of your memoir for me to give you written feedback on.

2) Do the exercise above again for a different scene

3) Make a list of every event you want to include in your memoir.

Week Four (September 17)

I. Some reminders about truth and memoir

Memory isn’t reality, so part of the way you deal with TRUTH is by being honest in WHAT you tell and in HOW you tell it.
Be honest: don’t make you or life look better or worse
Be open to your limits: I was angry that whole year, I didn't give my boss credit at the time,
Be true to yourself: stick with YOUR version
Accept memory’s limitations
Honor your contract with the reader and they will honor it back
Indicate the blurry areas or imagined scenes: “I think it went like this…” My best friend has a different memory, but …” The gist of the conversation was …”
The limitations of memory and perspective are PART of memoir—a strength, not a weakness, because again we are searching to understand.

II. Focus

A memoir is the story of PART of your life, so what part(s) of your life do you want to write about?

Some writers know immediately what they want to focus on, and some writers need to do some drafting before they find their focus.

If you are not yet sure, do the Focus Questions listed below.

Focus Questions

1) Some memoirs focus on a certain age. Childhood is popular, but you can write about any stretch of years you want, such as adolescence, the year you turned 30, middle age, retirement, etc. List any age ranges you’d like to write about.

2) Some memoirs focus on a significant period in the writer’s life. You could write about your time in the Navy, the three months you lived in Costa Rica, when you worked as a clown, your treatment for cancer, the first year of your marriage, etc. List any significant periods in your life you’d like to write about.

3) Some memoirs focus on the writer’s relationship with a specific person, such as their mother, a student they taught, their best friend, their business partner, etc. List any relationships you’d like to write about.

4) Some memoirs focus on a specific topic and build their story around it. These topics could be anything from addiction, food, and music to education, prejudice, or animals. List any topics you’d like to base your memoir around.

5) Memoirs work well when they focus on how the narrator changed over a period of time. Maybe they began weak and became strong, began innocent and became experienced, began as a pessimist and became an optimist (or vice-versa), or began feeling like a failure and became confident or successful. List any changes in yourself you’d like to write about.

6) Look over your list and select the focus that most appeal to you right now.

III. Purpose

Why do you want to write your memoir? Below are some possibilities, or you may have another answer. Decide on ONE main purpose.

To entertain your readers
To explain to your readers—how something worked, what something was like, why it happened the way it did, etc.
To leave a record for your readers
To set the record straight for your readers
To reveal a truth to your readers
To reveal a truth to yourself
To figure something out for yourself

IV. Audience

Say you are making (or ordering) a meal—and that your cooking ability and finances are irrelevant. Would you serve the same meal for a bunch of teenagers as for a group of sophisticated gourmets as for you and your best friend?

Just as who is eating the meal depends on what you will serve, so what you write will depend on who you see as your readers.

As you draft, you want to write for your imagined Ideal Reader. Having a defined audience in mind will make your writing more effective. This doesn’t mean ONLY your Ideal Reader want to read your memoir, however, because effective writing will make your memoir appealing to many people.

You may have an actual person in mind as you write or you may imagine a certain specific type of person.

Do this exercise to determine your Ideal Reader:

Audience Exercise

1) Are you writing your memoir solely for family and close friends?

If so, of these people, who is your SINGLE Ideal Reader (the reader who would be most interested, who would learn the most, and who would want to talk about your book with other people)?
Why are you choosing this person?

2) Are you writing your memoir for a wider audience?

If so, think about your Ideal Reader—the reader who would be most interested, who would learn the most, and who would want to talk about your book with other people.
Answer these questions about your Ideal Reader:

How old are they?
Where do they live?
What is their income level?
What is their education level?
Do they have a specific race, ethnic origin, or gender?

3) Now tell us what your Ideal Reader will most get out of reading your memoir. To learn, to be inspired, to be entertained etc?. Pick ONE.

V. Arc of change/character journey

Ideally, the main character in a story is different at the end of the story from what they are at the beginning. Since you are the main character in your memoir, answer these questions to help you see how you will develop your main character.

1. How do you externally change over the course of the memoir?

2. How do you internally change over the course of the memoir?

3. What events will you need to include to show these changes? Choose at least ten.

VI. Big Ideas

1. What 1-3 Big Ideas will be showing up in your memoir? (Such as friendship, grief, career success, physical survival, education ….). These may be related to how you change.

2. What do you believe about those big ideas? (such as “Friendship requires absolute trust on both sides” or “Friendship happens when you share adventures” or “You can never be real friends with anyone because people change too much” or …)

3. Pick the one statement you wrote above that seems most important to your memoir.

4. What events will you need to include to show this belief? Choose at least ten.

VII. Exercise on a Turning Point

Given what you came up with in all the exercises above, think about a turning point in your life that might appear in your memoir. It can be big (first job, immigrating, etc.) or subtle, not realized until you look back on later.
Think of a scene from this turning point and describe it to us. Focus on a short period of time that you can develop over a few paragraphs.
Show us this memory as vividly as you can by writing it as a scene where you
a) show what people said and did and
b) include some explanation.
Remember to try to use precision, setting, good characterization, an effective point of view, and an effective voice

Optional Homework

1) Write! Pick a section or two that you know you want to include in your memoir and write a draft.

2) Pick one of the following* and write about it using the tools we’ve been practicing:

A time when you pretended not to care.
A memory of bread and butter.
A hill you once knew.
A recollection of mist or fog.
A moment in a library.
What is your favorite fruit, why, and what is a strong memory you have related to this fruit?
Think of something you're an expert at and one of the first times you tried to do it before you became an expert

*many of these stolen or adapted from Natalie Goldberg’s Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir

Week Three (September 10

Point of View (POV)

POV is the angle from which a story (memoir) is told. It answers these questions:

Is the narrator a character in a story?
Whose head(s) can the narrator get inside?
How much does the narrator know about the story?
How much emotional and temporal distance does the narrator have on the story?

In memoir, the answers to the first two questions are easy: It's your story, so you are a character in it. Yours is the only head you can really get inside. Thus, you will use FIRST-PERSON POV.

Even when you write about an event you didn't witness, the narrator is still YOU:

My mother, Marcia Gallagher, was sitting on the beach with a peeling sunburn the day she met my father, Paul Solberg.

But the answers to those other two questions are more complicated. You’ll still be using first-person, but how much the you (the narrator) knows about the story and how much emotional and temporal distance you (the narrator) has on the events can vary from memoir to memoir, from section to section in the memoir, and even within a section.

Narrator’s distance from the event =

the effects of time
self-knowledge
emotional perspective.
authorial decision (how close or distant do you want the narration to be from the event? We know that the author is in the present writing about past events, but sometimes the narrator erases that distance and tries to get as close up to the original events as possible—tries to adopt the mindset of that past self.)

Thus memoir can use a range of distances within that first-person point of view. You can create a contrast between those differences. You can create energy from moving back and forth.

In “On the Necessity of Turning Oneself into a Character” from To Show and To Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction (2013), Phillip Lopate says that memoir requires a “double perspective” that “allow[s] the reader to participate vicariously in the experience as it was lived (the child's confusions and misapprehensions, say), while benefiting from the sophisticated wisdom of the author’s adult self.”

Consciously using a range of distances in your memoir can help you establish credibility and engage your reader: the adult/present self can comment on the fuzziness of a younger self’s memory, for instance. Authenticity emerges from the inclusion of multiple POVs because our POV changes over the course of our lives.

In Fearless Confessions: A Writer's Guide to Memoir (2009), Sue Silverman calls the two basic POVs the Voice of Innocence and Voice of Experience (inspired by William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience).

The Voice of Innocence is the POV of your past self:

it tells us what happened
It is the voice of who you were then
it can vividly capture important moments

The Voice of Experience is the POV of your present self:

it interprets and reflects
it is who you are now,
it shows what you learned or at least what your thoughts are now about then

These POVs will work together. You may not always be aware what POV you are using when you draft, but when you look over your draft and revise, you should consider if you’re using the most effective POV.

Exercise on POV

See “Tips when doing writing exercises (or drafting)” below if you need a reminder if you need a reminder

Think of a short scene from your memoir that takes place when you were a teenager (or a more recent age, if that works better for you!) If you need an idea, try one of these:

A time you were outraged
A time you were working at a new job
A time you were irresponsible
A great accomplishment
A scene from a romance

PART ONE: Relate this scene using the point of view of your present self/ Voice of Experience.

Use past tense (“I walked into the dining hall and didn't know where to sit.”)
Use all your present knowledge and perspective about what happened then and how you feel about it now. Think about how that past self is different from your present self.
Include some reflection and interpretation of the event: what do you think and feel about the event now?
Also try to

Use precision (sensory details, strong verbs, specific nouns, names)
Use effective characterization for any people in the scene (basic background, describe their outsides, describe their insides)

PART TWO: Relate the SAME scene using the point of view of your past self/Voice of Innocence

Use present tense to help you get in the mindspace of your past self (“I walk into the dining hall and don’t know where to sit.”)
Don’t use any of your current knowledge or perspective—limit yourself to only what you knew then.
Stay in the head of that past self—what was important to you then? What kinds of things did you do and think?
Also try to

Use precision (sensory details, strong verbs, specific nouns, names)
Use effective characterization for any people in the scene (basic background, describe their outsides, describe their insides)

What is voice?

It is the sound and personality of the self speaking in the memoir. It overlaps with POV and Style.

(If you copy this image and paste it into a Word document, it will be big enough to read.

Voice: A persona you can trust

You create the voice, but the voice is not exactly you because there’s a difference between reality and the page.

In The Situation and the Story (2001), Vivian Gornick writes:

“Out of the raw material of a writer’s own … being a narrator is fashioned …. This narrator becomes a persona. Its tone of voice, its angle of vision, the rhythm of its sentences, what it selects to observe and what to ignore are chosen to serve the subject; yet at the same time the way the … persona … sees things is, to the largest degree, the thing being seen.”

In “The Return: The Art of Confession” from Body Work (2022) Melissa Febos says an authentic voice requires self-knowledge:

“Self-knowledge, the insights available in the past and acquired in the time since, are what gives memoir its depth. It is not experience that qualifies a person to write a memoir, but insight into experience, and the ability to tell a story of the past that contains both dimensions.”

Readers will hear when your voice is hiding things—is unaware, insincere, inauthentic.

Readers want authority, believability, revelation, struggle and discovery.

Like any character, you/your voice will be complex: variation AND consistency.

Style

Style is things like

Diction (word choice)

Syntax (sentence structure)

Number of syllables in words

Number of words in sentences

Amount of adjectives and adverbs

Vocabulary level

Length of paragraphs

Exercise on Voice

Since voice is affected by your audience, try telling a story to different people.

Think of a short episode from your life that you could write about in a scene. If you need an idea, try one of these:

o A time you gave or received a memorable gift.

o A time you escaped danger.

o A time you decided to end a relationship (of any kind)

o A time you acted badly.

o A time you auditioned for something.

Now write the scene following these rules:

Don’t spend a long time setting it up for us. Use 0-2 sentences to explain what’s happened before or who the people are or how you feel about it. Jump into the event itself as soon as possible.
Start writing the scene as if you are telling it to your best friend.
Then switch and tell it to a seven-year-old.
Then switch and tell it to a judge in court.

Optional Homework for Next Time

1) More on POV and Voice

This exercise is like the one we did in class, only reversed and with a few other twists.

Think of a short scene from your memoir that takes place when you were under the age of thirteen (or pick a more recent time if that wrks better for you).
If you need an idea, try one of these:

A time you were astonished
A time in school not related to learning
A time you were very responsible
A magical time
A scene from a friendship

PART ONE: Relate this scene using the point of view of your PAST self (the Voice of Innocence):

Use present tense to help you get in the mindspace of your younger self (“I walk into the dining hall and don’t know where to sit.”)
Don’t use any of your current knowledge or perspective—limit yourself to only what you knew then.
Stay in the head of that past self—what was important to you then? What kinds of things did you do and think?
Children often experience life through their senses—try to capture some of that.
Use some words that would be used by that past self.
Also try to

Use precision (sensory details, strong verbs, specific nouns, names)
Use effective characterization for any people in the scene (basic background, describe their outsides, describe their insides)

PART TWO: Relate the SAME scene using the point of view of your PRESENT self (the Voice of Experience):

Use past tense (“I walked into the dining hall and didn't know where to sit.”)
Use all your present knowledge and perspective about what happened then and how you feel about it now. Think about how that past self is different from your present self.
Include some reflection and interpretation of the event: what do you think and feel about the event now?
Point out how you are different from that younger self AND how you are the same.
Also try to

Use precision (sensory details, strong verbs, specific nouns, names)
Use effective characterization for any people in the scene (basic background, describe their outsides, describe their insides.

2) Focusing Your Memoir Topic: answer these questions to give yourself some ideas about what you want your memoir to be about.

Some memoirs focus on a certain age. Childhood is popular, but you can write about any stretch of years you want, such as adolescence, the year you turned 30, middle age, retirement, etc. List any age ranges you’d like to write about.
Some memoirs focus on a significant period in the writer’s life. You could write about your time in the Navy, the three months you lived in Costa Rica, when you worked as a clown, your treatment for cancer, the first year of your marriage, etc. List any significant periods in your life you’d like to write about.
Some memoirs focus on the writer’s relationship with a specific person, such as their mother, a student they taught, their best friend, their business partner, etc. List any relationships you’d like to write about.
Some memoirs focus on a specific topic and build their story around it. These topics could be anything from addiction, food, and music to education, prejudice, or animals. List any topics you’d like to base your memoir around.
Memoirs work well when they focus on how the narrator changed over a period of time. Maybe they began weak and became strong, began innocent and became experienced, began as a pessimist and became an optimist (or vice-versa), or began feeling like a failure and became confident or successful. List any changes in yourself you’d like to write about.
Look over your list and select the focus that most appeal to you right now.

Week Two (September 3)

Some Strategies for Sparking Your Memory

Talk to the other people involved (AFTER you’ve written your own version)
Look at old photos and videos — especially the details.
Visit sensory-rich locations from your past (or similar locations) such as a library, a hospital, a school bus, the backstage of a theater, a gym, etc.
Evoke sense memories by cooking a dish your grandmother made, buying the shampoo your best friend wore, finding childhood toys for sale online, visiting a garden with the vegetables your father grew, etc.
Look at yearbooks and other keepsakes — and notice the details
Read old letters and journals (try not to cringe)
Return to your past via pop culture (searching by a given year for popular songs, fashion trends, prime time TV schedules, cult movies, best-selling books, alt-periodicals, commercials, college fads, vintage toys, and more
Find old issues of magazine and newspapers online—even just to look at what people were wearing at the time
Look old Farmer’s Almanacs
Use Google maps street view
Visit onthisday.com or thepeoplehistory.com to see what world events were going on
Look at lists of of Oscar award winners, sports highlights, fads, natural disasters, celebrity scandals, etc. from the time you want to remember
Spend time with your memory and write about it!
Shift your point of view when you write out a memory. Use the pov of the self-experiencing it, another person who was there, of a reporter looking on, etc. Imagine the scene from high above, from the next room, etc.

Writing About People (Characterization

General things to keep in mind:

Sarah Chauncey: In memoir, “your ‘characters’ are real people. This is both an advantage and a disadvantage over fiction: You can’t invent details, but you have real-world experience with the person, so it’s a matter of capturing their distinctive traits and evoking them accurately—or at least, accurately according to your perception … We want to “see who people are, not only in relation to you, but as independent beings.” https://sarahchauncey.substack.com/p/characterization-real-people
As with everything in a memoir, you’re writing about what happened then from the perspective of now. Reflect on how your perceptions about someone may have evolved—sharpened, deepened, radically altered, etc.—and consider including that sense of change.
Your people might not actually all be people, such as your family dog!

Some basic tools

identify your person and provide relevant background —who are they in the world? Who are they to you?
Write about their outside—concrete, observable traits—how they are physically in the world:
- Appearance via all five senses—what they look/sound/smell/feel/taste like, as relevant
- Action—what they do: this could be recurring like the way they walk or how they always whistle when thinking hard as well as the one-time, like that they said nothing and looked at the ceiling after you revealed you loved them or that they held your hand when you said your cat died.
- Speech —what they say and how they say it.
- Note: When drafting, get down what you can, as much as you can. And when you look back over it and start revising, consider what you can add onto and what you may not need:
  - Use precision—sensory details, strong verbs, specific nouns, names
  - Go for relevant details: what is most revealing, memorable, and/or significant about the person?
Write about their insides—the stuff you can surmise, the abstract—your analysis of them:
- Reveal their personality: how would you describe them to a friend?
- Think about how they’re complex: Good and bad qualities. Flaws. Strengths. Times they’ve surprised you. Times they’ve behaved exactly as you expected.
- Explain their desires: what they want, what matters to them, what drives them.
- How have they changed over time? Why? How has your relationship with them changed? Why?
- What makes them cry? Laugh? Get Angry? Get scared?

Strategies for Delivering Your Characterization

The overview (typical, traits that are always there)
The occasion/specific events/scene

For important characters, you’ll probably end up using both strategies.

See my handout from class for good examples of each.

Writing Exercise One

See “Tips when doing writing exercises (or drafting)” below if you need a reminder

1) Think of someone who will be in your memoir.

2) Give us an overview by making a list of some of their characteristics. Be as precise as you can (sensory details, verbs, nouns, names). You might include:

Some brief background on who they are and your relationship with them.
What they looked like
What did they sound like—when speaking, laughing, singing, yelling, etc.
What they smelled like
What their style of dress was—did they wear any typical or distinctive items of clothing?
How they moved—how they stood, walked, sat, etc.
Anything they often said or topics they often brought up.
What they wanted—what mattered to them—what drove them.
What made them happy, scared, sad, angry etc.

3) Now give us a specific occasion: think of a significant interaction you had with this person. Describe it & be as precise as you can (sensory details, verbs, nouns, names). You might include:

Where and when you were
What each of you did
What each of you said
What you thought about them
What you felt about them
Why this interaction was significant

Dialogue

For help with formatting, see https://firstmanuscript.com/format-dialogue/

Indirect vs. direct: what are they?

If what’s said and how it’s said DOESN’T matter, you can summarize a conversation through indirect dialogue, such as “We talked about where to get dinner. I suggested Rafferty’s, which he said would be fine.”

If what’s said and how it’s said DOES matter, use direct dialogue:

“Where do you want to go for dinner?” he asked. “Anywhere’s fine with me.”

“Mexican?” I suggested.

He shrugged. “Nah, I had that for lunch.”

“We could just go to Subway,” I said.

“Hmmm. I’m actually in the mood for something fancy.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, I don’t care.”

When should you use direct dialogue?

For significant moments in your story.

To get across characterization

To strengthen the drama of a scene

To advance the action of a story.

What do you include in the direct dialogue?

To develop character: use the types of words and phrases and rhythm that person would use

To get across drama and advance action: the important things that get said—revelations, lies, promises, emotions, etc.

Even though you’re writing about real life, you only need to worry about getting across the intent, gist, and/or flavor of what was said, not the absolutely accurate words.

Use contractions, fragments, and em-dashes

“I do not want to miss my flight. That would suck.” vs. “I don’t want to miss my flight. That’d suck.”

“It was hard being your sister—all those times I had to cover for you. And exhausting. I lost sleep worrying where you were.”

The illusion of reality: it should sound like the way people talk, except tightened up and livened up

What do you include with the dialogue?

Dialogue tags as needed (he said, she shouted)

Actions: “She picked up the avocado and said, “I really do hate you.”

Gestures: He pointed to the tank with his free hand. “That one.”

Thoughts and emotions: “I love it,” I said, but I didn't mean it.

What should you avoid?

Info dumps or dialogue that is really exposition:

At last she arrived at the restaurant. I hugged her and said, “Hi, Sandra, my dear friend for thirty years who lives in New York. How’s your job teaching social studies at a school in Brooklyn?”

“It’s exhausting. But, Erika, it’s been a year since your granddaughter was born. How is she and her mother, Barbara?”

A play-by-play of everything that was said just for the sake of accuracy:

At last she arrived at the restaurant. “Hey!” I said as I hugged her.

“Hey! Oh, wait, let me put my bag down.”

“Do you—oh, I see, sure—do you want to put it on this chair?”

“Um, maybe I can just—there.” She put her bag under the table. “Okay. So, yeah, so good to see you!”

“Yeah! So I hope this place is okay. I was trying to get someplace close enough to the airport that you wouldn’t have a super expensive cab ride.”

“Oh, I took Uber. It wasn’t too bad.”

“Okay. Good.”

“Just ten—well, with tip, it was twelve.”

“Yeah, cool. That’s pretty good.”

Here’s some adequate dialogue:

Sandra got to the restaurant forty minutes late because her flight was delayed, but I didn't care. I hugged her hard and we sat there grinning, just glad to be together.

Once our drinks arrived and we got caught up on the basics—her job, my job, her boyfriend, my granddaughter—I took out the letter.

“Do you remember sending me this?”

She picked it up, rubbing a finger across the fading ink of the date. “Wow. This must have been when I was in Algeria?”

I nodded.

She looked through some lines and then I saw her eyes stop where I knew they would. “Oh, wow. I’d forgotten about this. That was a weird night.”

“Did you ever hear from her after?” I pressed my lips together, my anxiety having crept in.

Exercise Two (adapted from Sarah Chauncy)

1) Choose one person in your memoir. Now think of an important conversation you had with that person.

2) Write out the conversation using direct dialogue for the significant moments.

3) Some things you could include besides the words:

What did they look like?
How did they move?
What were their facial expressions
Did they move their hands as they spoke?
What did their voice sound like?
Did they move around?
Did they perform any memorable actions?
Don’t forget to try to use some precision (sensory details, string verbs, specific nouns) and to give us the setting.

Optional Homework for Next Time

1) Do Exercise Two above (the one with dialogue), but this time choose a conversation with more than two people.

2) More Characterization Work:

A. Pick an age at random.

B. Think about who was the most influential person in your life at that time who was NOT a direct family member.

C. Write about a significant interaction you had with this person. Narrate the scene as thoroughly as you can & be as precise as you can (sensory details, verbs, nouns, names). Make sure you include some dialogue, as best you can remember it.

D. Now explain how this event reveals some typical traits of that person and your relationship with them.

3) Memory Work

A. Think of an event that you’d like to include in your memoir.

B. Pick two of the memory strategies above and do them for the event you chose.

C. Write about the event incorporating what you learned from the memory strategies. Try to write with precision and, if writing about a person, use some of the Writing about People tools.

Week One (August 27)

See my home page for Four Reasons You Should Write Your Memoir

Tips when doing writing exercises (or drafting)

When responding to a writing prompt, you’re looking for what inspires you. You don’t have to cover everything in the prompt. If an exercise takes you in a different direction, that’s fine too. It is simply a way to start walking through those rooms of your memory.

You can write the way you talk. Don’t worry about grammar or fancy words or even spelling.
Try to get as much down as you can when doing a writing exercise. If you get stuck, look at the prompt again and start it with a new subject if you want.
Don’t revise or edit while you draft. Just keep going.
Your draft doesn’t need to be shaped or complete—it might start as a list or as fragments.
Try to be honest—don’t try to make yourself look good or make things more exciting: you’ll get more out of it, as will readers. If you’re worried about what you are revealing, remember you’re never required to show anyone what you’re writing.
MOST IMPORTANT: Don’t doubt yourself as you write: Don’t worry that what you’re writing is boring or not worth writing or poorly written—if you want to write it, it’s worth writing.

Writing Exercise One (adapted from Lois Daniels’s How to Write Your Own Life Story)

Think of a toy or game you remember from your childhood.
Describe it
If you can remember, tell us about a particular time with this toy. Otherwise, tell us what you usually did with it.
Tell us where it came from—did someone give it to you? Did you find it? Buy it? Inherit it? Create it?
Tell us why it matters to you—why do you think you still remember it?

Writing with Precision

Writing with precision means using specific details and words that make your story YOUR PARTICULAR story and help the story come to life. Plus, the more you try to call up specifics from your memory, the more you may be able to remember! Here are four strategies for writing with precision:

Use specific nouns to the people, places, and things in the memory.
Include strong verbs to list what actions you and the other people are performing. For instance, did you throw the shoe across the room or did you sling it? Heave it? Wing it? Chuck it?
Include as many sensory details as you can. What did you see? Hear? Smell? Touch? Taste?
Give proper nouns/names to anything you can—the game being played, the song being played, the meal being eaten, the store you shopped in, etc.

Here’s an example of precise writing from Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House:

[The gym teacher,] Ms. Lily, wore baggy athletic pants with patches of neon greens and purples in abstract, eye-searing patterns. (When I learned the story of Joseph and his coat of many colors in Sunday School, all I could think of was Ms. Lily’s outfit.) The synthetic fabric hissed when she walked; you could always hear her coming …

… Sitting in the grass during those baseball games, I’d rip up all the weeds within my reach, leaving my hands smelling like dirt and wild onions. I broke dandelions and marveled at their sticky white milk.

Setting

A great place to use precision is in establishing the setting, which is made up of

time (era, season, month, time of day, occasion)
place (physical location but also culture)
mood (weather, emotional atmosphere)

Writing Exercise Two

Describe a time you spent at a pool or a beach, at a parade, in a field, at a festival, or on a city street.
Establish the setting as clearly as you can.
Use as much precision as you can by including
- Sensory details (Describe what you saw, heard, smelled, touched, and tasted.)
- Strong, specific verbs to describe the actions in your memory
- Specific nouns to identify the people, places, and things in your memory
- Proper nouns/names for whatever you can (the name of the person, the song, the ice cream flavor, the bicycle brand, etc.)

Optional Homework for Next Time

A) Develop a strong memory.

Pick a short, contained event from your life (if you know your memoir topic, pick one that relates to it) that you remember very well—it could be a big and important moment or it could be something ordinary, as long as you remember it well. It could have lasted a few moments or a couple hours.
First, explain what happened in this event (Example: We were having a picnic lunch in kindergarten. I was sitting under a tree with some of my friends. One girl, Jodi, went to ask the teacher a question. Another girl, Colleen, pointed to Jodi’s cookie and asked, “Can I have your cookie?” I thought she knew it was Jodi’s and was joking with me, so I said, “Sure!” But then Colleen picked up the cookie and actually took a bite, so I had to explain it was really Jodi’s cookie, and I felt awful.)
Now go back and revise your explanation into a vivid scene by adding as much precision as you can. Be sure to establish the setting and to include
- Specific nouns to identify the people, places, and things in your memory Sensory details (Describe what you saw, heard, smelled, touched, and tasted.)
- Strong, specific verbs to describe the actions in your memory
- Proper nouns for whatever you can (the name of the person, the song, the ice cream flavor, the bicycle brand, etc.)

B) Develop a weak memory.

Now pick a short, contained event from your life (if you know your memoir topic, pick one that relates to it) that you want to write about but that you don’t remember as well as you’d like.
First, explain what happened in this event (see example in above exercise).
Now go back and revise your explanation into a vivid scene by adding as much precision as you can. Be sure to establish the setting and to include
- Sensory details (Describe what you saw, heard, smelled, touched, and tasted.)
- Strong, specific verbs to describe the actions in your memory
- Specific nouns to identify the people, places, and things in your memory
- Proper names for whatever you can (the name of the person, the song, the ice cream flavor, the bicycle brand, etc.)
Did trying to write it with precision help you develop the weak memory? If so, how? If not, what do you think you could you do to either remember more or research details about it?

Resources for Community Ed Class on Memoir WritingFall 2024

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