Sometimes you need to have an experience in the present to collect ambient details for a scene you’re writing from the past.
Writers notice. It’s part of our creative work. We practice being aware of what’s going on around us so we can add some of that ambient detail to our writing to bring the world of the story to life.
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I grew up tuned in to the radio. In the late sixties my station was 93 KHJ, “Boss Radio.” I knew the words to every song. In the early seventies I was still singing along, even to songs like Don McClean’s “American Pie,” with verses that went on even when
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Reflection deepens a story. Reflection personalizes. And better yet, when a story is personalized by using reflection—when you include how you were affected—a story has a better chance of drawing a reader in. With memoir you want not only to write about what has happened in your life, you also
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All the best writers do it. They develop a piece as they write subsequent drafts, improving the writing every time. Philip Roth says, “The book really comes to life in the rewriting.” Joyce Carol Oates says most of her time writing is really rewriting. John Irving says, “Maybe as much
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I compare publishing a book to having a baby. The nine-month pregnancy—writing the book—is the first part. The life that follows the birth is the rest of the story. In ways, you’re done—you’ve finished writing the book. In other ways, you’ve only just begun.
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Calendars are key to getting your writing time. Write your writing time into your weekly calendar like the important appointment it is. Set the length of time for it and stick to it.
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How true is your story? Can you possibly remember everything important to include in a scene from an event that happened thirty or forty years ago? And what about emotional memory versus fact—the truths you know by experience that can’t be verified by provable facts? With memoir, truth is expected.
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Where do you start a story? Whether you’re writing a short memoir or a book, you need to draw a reader in right away. Here are a few ways to do it. Use An Emotional Hook Emotional hooks engage. Readers feel something, they’re curious to know what will happen. They
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A memoir student asked me recently if it was okay that she was skipping ahead in the chronology she planned for her story. She was jumping a time period of several years to write about a part that came more easily to her to write. The material she was skipping
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With memoir, or creative nonfiction, you’re required to show—to animate—relevant events in stories you create from out of experience. What can you do if you don’t remember something clearly? You’ll draw on a combination of memory and imagination.
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