Struggling with your memoir?
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Struggling with your memoir?
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Your book needs to have two different kinds of prose in order to make your story work. In this video, Random House author Wendy Dale explains the purpose of both objective and subjective writing and explains how much a well-written book needs of each.
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One of the questions I get asked the most is actually not a memoir-writing question. When people learn that I live in Cusco, Peru, it brings up a ton of other questions. Today I attempt to explain when I moved to Peru and why. It involves fleeing a revolution in Bolivia and a few other minor obstacles, including a 15-mile walk through the mountains. When it comes to writing a memoir, there are two main subject areas you need to understand: prose and structure. In this video, Random House author Wendy Dale explains both of these topics. Most weeks I create 10-minute videos that talk about a memoir-writing topic. This week I hope this short video inspires you. In the comments section, write to me and tell me what your reason is. Why are so many memoirs terrible? Because the writers didn't take the time to learn about structure. In this video, Wendy explains exactly why structuring a memoir can be so difficult and offers a plan for remedying this. If you've tend to look over your paragraphs time and time again, wondering if you actually have any talent, here is some good news: There is one single thing you can do to make sure that your writing is good. Learn more in this video. Describing a place is actually one of the toughest challenges a memoir writer faces in their prose. How do you do this effectively? It's not what you think. Why are so many memoirs terrible? Because the writers didn't take the time to learn about structure. In this video, Wendy explains exactly why structuring a memoir can be so difficult and offers a plan for remedying this. So many of my students stick in every little fact that they can remember to recount a story. But your reader doesn't want tons of information. They want to live through a moment with you fully. So many memoir writers are good at writing about themselves, yet they struggle to write about the other people who appear in their book. So today, I want to help you out. Our topic: How to bring your characters to life on the page.
When you write about your characters, imagine the process being a bit like buying a house. If you were searching for your dream home, would you only want to know about the external characteristics — the color of the house, the pitch of the roof and if it had a deck? Chances are, if you’re making such a large investment, you’d want to know more. You’d probably want to be invited inside, shown around, and told a story or two about who used to live there. Has the house recently been remodeled? Is there a good school district nearby? Or did the previous owner move to Paris to be with her 90-year-old boyfriend? Describing your characters is a similar process. If you just describe the outer shell, it’s as though you’re asking your reader to wait outside. Here’s an example of a character description that is typically written by new writers: "She was wearing a purple sweatshirt as she leaned back in her chair. The sweatshirt was emblazoned with the word “Harvard” across the front." When it comes to describing your characters, the most important advice I can give you is to be subjective. By subjective, I mean that you need to interpret your characters for your reader and not just provide a physical description. A better description would be something like: “Her sweatshirt was emblazoned with the word “Harvard” across the front. I imagined her days were filled with dreams of attending that Ivy League college. Would she get in? Would she make her father proud? I had no idea what that was like, to have come from generations of overachievers." So what did I just do there? I took the very same objective facts that I used a little bit earlier. And I interpreted those facts for the reader. I added subjectivity to help the reader understand what this character is really like. In fact, you might notice that this description is as much about the narrator as it is about the character I’m describing. And that’s exactly what a good memoir description does — it lets us in to the mind of the narrator. Everything you describe in your memoir should be filtered from the narrator’s point of view. Being objective is boring. Believe it or not, your reader actually wants to be told what to think about the people you write about. Till next time! Happy writing. |
AuthorA Random House author offers tips on writing your own memoir. Archives
July 2024
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Memoir Writing for Geniuses.
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