PART II – Your Personal Memoir
final draft due Friday, January 16th / rough draft due Mon., Jan 12th
May begin turning final draft in on Tues., Jan. 13th for extra-credit
Characteristics of the Memoir Form:
... Focus on a brief period of time or series of related events
... Narrative structure, including many of the usual elements of storytelling such as setting, plot development, imagery, conflict, characterization, foreshadowing and flashback, and irony and symbolism
... The writer's contemplation of the meaning of these events in retrospect
... A fictional quality even though the story is true
... Higher emotional level
... More personal reconstruction of the events and their impact
... Therapeutic experience for the memoirist, especially when the memoir is of the crisis or survival type of memoir
... Explores an event or series of related events that remain lodged in memory
... Describes the events and then shows, either directly or indirectly, why they are significant
-- or in short, why you continue to remember them
... Is focused in time; doesn't cover a great span of years (that would be an autobiography)
... Centers on a problem or focuses on a conflict and its resolution and on the understanding of why and how the resolution is significant in your life
Notes on Writing your Personal Memoir:
Respect yourself, your personal vision. Cultivate an aware self-centeredness of the world around you and the worlds within you. You have your stories to tell—and a responsibility to tell them. Value what you catch out of the corner of your eye, hear from the next booth or from your own mouth, say when you talk to yourself, think when you are not thinking. Pay close attention to the obvious.
The more personal you are, the more universal you will be. It is the mission of the writer to articulate the inarticulate thoughts and feelings of the reader.
The personal must not be private. The personal must be in a larger context. The essay must have a significance beyond your life, an opinion on the meaning of your experience for you—and your reader.
Write with revealing, specific details. You have seen more than you remember until you write. Use these recovered specifics that resonate for the reader. Specifics make the writing lively, grant you authority, and, unexpectedly, provide universality.
Start as near the end as possible. Don’t tell the reader what you are going to do; do it. Weave in background information at the moment the reader needs it.
Take your reader on a voyage of discovery. Write a narrative that reveals what you didn’t know you knew. An essay works when I am surprised halfway through with an unexpected meaning I share with the reader.
Start with a line, not a subject. Start with a fragment of language or a haunting image that contains a tension, conflict, contradiction, irony, a problem: write to discover what you have to say.
Write with velocity. Write fast to outrun the censor, force significant accidents of meaning and expression, and create instructive failures.
Write out loud. Writing is read and believed because of voice more than any other element. Write out loud, hearing your draft as it heads toward the page, tuning your natural voice to your content as your reader so each draft has its own consistent voice that will be heard by the reader.
Say one thing. The personal essay must focus on one thing and develop it. Texture comes from the developing material.
Less is, indeed, more. I am surprised at how often 800 words is better than 1,200. Of course, there are times when more is needed, much more. But cutting usually makes a piece of writing stronger. Cut anything that does not move the draft toward meaning. This does not mean writing only in simplistic declarative sentences, but every pause, every detail, every change of tone must move the reader forward.
Don’t compress, select. Brevity is not produced by a garbage compactor; select the anecdote, idea, scene, opinion that is central; develop and document it fully.
Don’t tell, reveal. Do not insult readers by telling them what they should feel or think. Give them specific material by which they will create text out of their own needs and their own autobiography—and find in it their own meaning.
Writing the memoir
To write your memoir, begin by brainstorming on paper all the events you can remember from your life that were either very important to you in a positive way, or very important to you in a negative way. Talk to other members of your family to get ideas, help you remember events from when you were small, and to help fill in the details that might have been forgotten. Select the event, or series of related events, that seems most interesting to you right now. Brainstorm again but in more detail, trying to recall names, places, descriptions, voices, conversations, things, and all the other details that will make this turn into an interesting memoir. Work at this note-taking stage for a few days, until you feel you've got it all down on paper. Then begin to write. You will be surprised to see that even more details begin to appear once you start to write. For your first draft, write quickly to get all your ideas down from beginning to end. Don't worry about editing. Before you revise, share your first draft with someone in the family. Consider their response, but go with what feels right. Rewrite, and then start editing as needed. Good memoirs are about everyday things, but they are interesting, sometimes just as interesting to read as a good novel. But remember, a memoir is supposed to be true, so be careful not to exaggerate or embellish the truth.