Improve your memoirs–fast–using fiction-writing techniques.

My friend, Debra Chaves Norwood, wanted me to share my suggestions about her memoir. So here is my "before" and "after" about "Under the Samán de Guerra," her memoir about  growing up in Venezuela. 

BEFORE: 

I would lean out the window of our Volkswagen and strain to see ahead, excited to feel the wind against my face. It was a cool wind, brought about by the shade of many trees, bearing the smell of cedar, lemon flowers and mangoes. One by one different species of trees start to flank both sides of the carretera, the local definition of an asphalt road considered a state highway. My father quizzed me on the trees and made me single out the soft wood from the hardwood, but it was easy to tell. Only the hardwood trees were tagged with white and blue collars of paint around their trunks, the proud mark that meant: “Thou shall never cut me. I am an important tree!”  These trees were marked as property of the government. But I knew that, however important they looked, they were nonetheless relatively insignificant escorts on the road to the Holy of Holies, the glorious Samán de Guerra. (161 words)

 AFTER:

I strained and leaned out the window of our Volkswagen, excited to see ahead. There was a cool wind from the shade of many trees, bearing cedar, lemon flowers and mangoes. One by one, different species of trees flanked la carretera, the asphalt state highway. My father quizzed me. “Which are the softwood? Which are the hardwood?” It was easy to tell. Only the hardwood had white and blue collars. Those proud paint tags said: “Thou shall never cut me. I am important! I am the property of the Venezuelan government.” But, however important they looked, they were only sentries on the way to the Holy of Holies, the Samán de Guerra. (112 words)

FICTION TECHNIQUES APPLIED:

 1. Dialogue Mode

Debra's father would have quizzed her using dialogue.

2. Action Mode

Action Mode uses strong verbs to show how important events or actions happen: strained, leaned, flank.

3. Viewpoint Writing

Viewpoint Writing technique shows the world through the eyes of the memoirist. Words and phrases which label sensory experiences are deleted: to feel the wind against my face, the smell of, and knew. Debra's present-day opinion, the local definition of,  also also bbbbbbrb   brbreaks the storytelling illusion and is out. Different species of trees stays in because Debra, like her father, knows trees. 

4. Description Mode

Deletions: (1) Qualifiers: nonetheless relatively insignificant, start to, considered. (2) Repetitions which serve no narrative purpose: trees and roads. (3) Unnecessary adjectives: glorious. Strong nouns are great: sentries is better than escorts; Holy of Holies stays in.

The passage is 49 words shorter.

Better?

Image reprinted with permission of Clipart ETC An Online Service of Florida's Educational Technology, University of South Florida

Everyone recommends The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. But do you know the artist who illustrated it? Her name is Maira Kalman and she isne recommends The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. But do you know the artist who illustrated    itO, The Oprah Magazine (page 62). She also authored The Principles of Uncertainty (2008) which Francine Prose called “the ultimate picture book for grown-ups.” A retrospective of her art is on tour in the U.S. (currently at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco until October 26, 2010). Her new illustrated book And The Pursuit of Happiness     itO, The Oprah Magazine (page 62). She also authored The Principles of Uncertainty (2008) which Francine Prose called “the ultimate picture book for grown-ups.” A retrospective of her art is on tour in the U.S. (currently at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco until October 26, 2010). Her new illustrated book And The Pursuit of Happiness (about American democracy) is due on next month. Memoirists: tell your stories through painting or drawing if that's your cup of tea. Maira Kalman's art is delightful.       feat    featured in the October 2010 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine (page 62). She also authored The Principles of Uncertainty (2008) which Francine Prose called “the ultimate picture book for grown-ups.” A retrospective of her art is on tour in the U.S. (currently at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco until October 26, 2010). Her new illustrated book And The Pursuit of Happiness is due out in October.

Image "None of us is perfect." from Elements of Style © copyright 2005 by Maira Kalman.

Want to tell your story, but hate the process of writing? Here's a creative idea: you can talk into your computer using voice recording computer software. That's what inter-network marketing specialist Jerry Clark recommends in his recent blog. He says, "You can get a no cost voice recording app known as 'Audacity,' from  audacity.sourceforge.net."

He has two other helpful suggestions: 

• You can record onto mp3s the significant events in your life.
• Don't be judgmental of your recordings.

I've blogged  about how your stuff  and a bridge can be a memoir. But as I was reading a Family Circle letter to the editor , I thought of something else. 

In "Thanks for the Memories," Terasa Goggins Gipson of East Amherst, New York, writes that as a new wife and mother, she devoured the pages of Family Circle. Flipping through an issue for the first time in years, she wrote, she was overwhelmed by many wonderful memories. "The articles on parenting, the fun recipes, the decorating ideas and wellness advice added up to a wealth of knowledge that has stayed with me."

Family Circle was a memory trigger taking Terasa back to her early days as a wife and mom.

Could you turn any favorite magazine into a memoir? Yes! Here's how. Find old magazine articles or covers (check eBay), and cut and paste them into a scrapbook, frame, or shadow box. Add anything else that's meaning ful to you. Some "memoir items" might be: photos, your children's homework, prize ribbons, school projects, recipes. Add your favorite recollections and memories–handwritten or typed. Decorate with ribbons, stickers, drawings.

If you would like to share your "magazine as memoir," you could give it as a gift to a new mom, perhaps your daughter or daughter-in-law, along with a subscription to Family Circle or one of your other favorite magazines. 

Offer to babysit so she has time to read!

Can a bridge be a memoir? Heck, yes! Add bridges to the list, along with all your other stuff from my last blog.  Nj.com and the "New Jersey" section of The Star Ledger reported this week that Paul Bartick, of South Orange, New Jersey, is working with Miriam Sumner, Lynne Smilow, and the Village of South Orange to name a bridge over the Rahway River in South Orange after Jonathan Felsman, a beloved South Orange community leader who died at the age of 57 of cancer on July 9, 2009.

Jonathan’s community initiatives included the South Orange Performing Arts Center (SOPAC), the town soccer league, building baseball dugouts at Meadowland Park, beautifying the Rahway River waterfront, and programming ideas at the public library.

“He didn’t give a damn about people’s reactions to his ideas,” says Bartick. “He sold his vision by capturing people’s imagination. Then he took action to make his shared vision a reality.  Jonathan really was the bridge that brought people together to make things happen.  That’s why the bridge is such an apt memorial.” 

Have you built or created something that is a memoir? (A wall, a bridge a window, a shrine, a monument, a statue?)

Write to me about it. Send me a photo. 

I used to think memoir consists of three things: (1) writing, (2) in the first person, (3) about a thin slice of a person’s life. “The reader doesn’t want the whole iceberg, just the tip,” to paraphrase Russell Baker.

Now I realize memoir is much broader. First of all, you have a lot of other objectives–besides the act of writing itself–when you create memoirs. You want to: 

• record family stories
• research family history
• find lost relatives
• socialize with lost relatives once you've found them
• discover your DNA
• collect and preserve family data
• get over something traumatic
• tell the story behind a family memento
• create personal documents (video, audio, shadow boxes, etc.)
• get rid of something heavy which you've been carrying around (secret, imposition, demand)
• catalogue, organize, and archive family documents, photos, and memorabilia
• take the sting out of something painful
• save and identify family heirlooms
• capture family information that would otherwise be lost.

I now have a working definition of memoir which is much more broad. Memoir is the communication of what you want to remember and what you want to be remembered. Which leads me to two more points. First, you can get really creative and use any of the following as the basis of a memoir:  

• letters you quote
• recipes
• random memories
• your hopes for the future
• a secret you no longer want to keep
• family sayings
• something that always got on your last nerve
• a mystery you never figured out
• funny family anecdotes
• what you want your legacy to be
• describing what’s going on in an iconic family photo
• a list of your favorite things and why
• describing how you got around a long time ago
• how a business used to make money
• your worst vacation
• how you kept the house cool in the summer
• the most expensive thing you ever bought
• a portrait of a relative using your five senses (see, hear, feel, taste, smell).

Second point. You don’t have to write at all. Lots of your "stuff" can be turned into a memoir:    

• Photographs
• Video
• Audio
• What things cost
• Collages
• Political buttons and pins
• Jewelry
• Fabrics
• A telephone bill
• “Shrines” you create
• Scrapbooks
• Songs
• Guns
• Music
• Portraits
• Paintings
• Statues
• Pottery
• Drawings
• Furniture
• Clothing
• Games
• Puzzles
• Tools
• Maps
• Drawings
• Self-portraits

Even a packing list from 50 years ago could be the basis for a great memoir. So, I ask you:

• What do you want to remember?
• What do you want others to remember?

Tell me about the memoir you create. Send me a photo.

The same thing is true when you write a memoir about a place that no longer exists. What is the transaction between you and the place? What is its pull? What memories do you bring? What is the real place like now? Who used to live there? Who lives there now? What is still there? What is gone?

Barbara Krasner visited her grandmother’s ancestral home, Ostrów Mazowiecka (Ostrova in Yiddish) in Poland while she was doing research for a young adult novel that takes place in nearby or Zaromb (Yiddish). Her 30-photo exhibit of these Jewish communities which no longer exist, “My Home Is Gone—Remnants of Jewish Poland,” will be shown at the JCC of Metrowest in West Orange, New Jersey September 12-October 31, 2010.

What is the pull of a place that no longer exists? How do you write about it? Let me know.

I once found a photo tucked inside a book at an estate sale. The photo showed a Model T in ruins, destroyed by what looked like a head-on collision. The photo jumped out at me. I took it the man, about my age, who was running the garage sale. His mother had just died and he was selling the contents of her house. I handed him the photo. "This looks important," I said.

He stood transfixed, staring at the photo. "Mother told us about that crash. Both she and Dad survived it. But I never knew if the story was true."

My mother-in-law, Maxine (Shanbar) Marshall, has an iconic memoir photo. Her photo shows an apartment building (not hers) being moved from its location near Poplar Street in Chelsea, Massachusetts. The reason? The construction of The Mystic River Bridge (now the Tobin Memorial Bridge).

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Why not make your memoir writing easier? Why not organize it around an iconic photo?

Our friend Julie from Cedar Grove, New Jersey, got stuck when she was writing a family memoir about her mother.  Julie wanted to include her “bits and pieces”— her random memories about her mother. But she felt they wouldn't be as good as the rest of her memoir, which was structured chronologically. She quit.

Beginning memoir writers often get stuck at this point. They want to write about material that is unconnected or unrelated, but don't know how. Memoir Writing Technique #1 enables you to write coherently about unrelated items, such as: random memories, fun you had, childhood memories, collections of family sayings. We like to compare the random "bits and pieces" to pearls. The key to making a beautiful necklace is how you string the pearls together. 

Step One–Write and Organize the Bits

Write down the memory bits. Don’t worry about the order.  Then, group the bits into segments or sections by theme. For example: Let’s say you want your memoir topic to be about sayings you heard growing up.  Write them down in no particular order, as they come to mind. Then, categorize the sayings into segments or sections, for example:

• funny things your Uncle Bill always said—that’s one segment or section
• something a gas station attendant said to your mom which became part of the family lore—that’s a segment or sections
• Acronyms your dad quoted all the time because he had been in the Navy—that’s a segment or section

Lastly:

• Something your football coach lived by and which you adopted—that’s a segment or section

 These segments or sections will become paragraphs or parts of paragraphs, depending on how long they are. Note: if your bits and pieces are too short to turn into sections or segments, simply put them in a bulleted list. 

Step Two–Write an Introduction

The introduction must tell your readers what the memoir is about and must signal to the reader how the memoir is structured.  

Here’s how you do that. Look at all the segments or sections you’ve just created. Write an introductory sentence that is broad enough to encompass all of them. For example:

“These are the family sayings I heard growing up.”

“Here is everything I remember about living in Utica, New York, in no particular order.”

Step Three–Insert Transitions

Step three is to insert transition sentences between the sections or segments, as necessary. Transition sentences are like the string in a necklace. The string turns the separate pearls into a work of art. Transition sentences or phrases give the reader a heads-up about the structure you are using and provide coherence. Here are examples of  how transition sentences would start:

• “Another thing that happened was…”
• “Another time”
• “In addition,”
• “Also”
• “There is also”
• “He also said”
• “Nothing else meant more to me than…”
• “I don’t remember much more except”

Step Four: Re-Read and Edit 

Read through your memoir. Check whether your introduction is broad enough to cover all the segments or sections in your memoir. Check whether the transitions add the right amount of coherence.  Read it aloud to yourself. Ask a friend to read it. What you are checking is: will my audience be able to see the structure? Have I provided enough transition sentences? Is my overall topic clear? Bear in mind that someone reading this in the future may not know you, or anything about you.

Our Memoir Writing Technique #1 enables you to write a professional-quality memoir about unrelated or loosely related bits and pieces.

Let us know how your memoir turns out. Write to us at writeyourmemoir.com

If you are writing a “misery memoir,” sprinkle in some humor or no one else will want to read it.