7 .
THE MAGIC SPELL
—NARRATIVE

THE SPELL OF narrative saved Scheherazade’s life. She was a beautiful young woman who lived with her father, the Caliph. One day she was sent for by the King. She had to think quickly; the King was in the habit of calling for a virgin each evening and next morning having her killed so that he could be sure he would not be cuckolded. (The King clearly had his problems but let’s not go into his story.) Scheherazade’s father told her the King liked stories, so, that evening at the palace, she settled herself on the cushions and began to tell him a fabulous story. She continued the story through the night and, in the morning, stopped before the tale was finished. The King, of course, had to keep her alive so that she would finish the story. He had to know what happened next. The following night she continued on with the story and began another, again stopping at dawn before it was complete. Again, the King had to know how things turned out and spared her life. In this way, night after night for one thousand and one nights, she kept herself alive — and the King tantalised. Finally he married her so that she would keep telling him stories and they lived happily ever after.

The story of Scheherazade is, of course, the frame for the Thousand and One Arabian Nights, one of the world’s most famous collections of folktales, but it is also an allegory of the irresistible attraction of narrative — and its capacity to heal and to save both the teller and the hearer. It seems to me that this capacity comes from the fact that, within a narrative, the random fragments of life are connected to create a meaningful, continuous whole. If one has had an overwhelming experience, the mind either shuts it out or goes over it obsessively, trying to come to terms with it. Writing the narrative or story takes it out of the mind and onto the page where it can be connected to other elements of life. The fundamental nature of narrative is to make causal links between things — in other words, to show that things happen for a reason, that they make sense. Narrative, then, by its very nature, is integrating. By making the links between events, narrative helps us understand — and as the philosopher Spinoza remarked, ‘To understand something is to be delivered of it’.

But narratives are also told of the joyful and remarkable events of life. They are told to celebrate, to acknowledge, to remember, to weave community, to persuade, to create beauty, to make meaning. I would go so far as to say that a meaningful narrative is necessary to human life. Without a story, it becomes impossible to act. Why get up in the morning if you do not have a convincing inner story that says this is a worthwhile thing to do?

Story or narrative is also,as Scheherazade knew,immensely attractive. A mediocre novel or film can hold attention because of the narrative alone. Few people can resist an ‘addiction’ to narrative; it is one of the most powerful human structures. There is an expectation, perhaps formed in earliest childhood from the stories read to us, that all the elements introduced will unfold and connect and come to some kind of satisfying conclusion.

What is narrative, exactly?

Narrative, or story, is simply a way of arranging information or material to create the desire to find out what happens next. This desire is created by narrative pull or narrative tension. It is based on a pattern of withholding and giving information in an enticing fashion — like drawing a bird along a path with bits of bread. If you want the reader to follow you in a certain direction, then the ‘breadcrumbs’ need to be spaced out, but not so far apart that the reader loses interest and flies off. In the case of stories, they also have to be laid out in an unfolding order, not a jumbled pile, and they have to appear to be going somewhere, preferably not around in circles.

This might seem like manipulating your reader — and some narratives are manipulative. I don’t enjoy a narrative when I can sense information is being deliberately withheld for too long. To me, the best memoir narratives are the ones that appear to unfold ‘naturally’, meaning that the reader finds something out at the same time as the writer appears to.

You might see that your memoir has an overall narrative, and start plotting its structure. This simply means making a chart of the main narrative points in the order that you want them to unfold. For example: telephone call saying your husband has lost his job in Los Angeles weeks of despair decision to sell the house decision to buy a boat and set sail violent storm at sea arriving in Hawaii beginning of a new life. Of course, there are any number of ways that one narrative can be plotted (plot being the order and emphasis of the narrative elements).You could decide to start in the middle of the storm, then, leaving your readers dangling, jump back to the telephone call and recount the various plot points that eventually bring the reader back to the storm.

None of this is to say that a good memoir must have a strong overall narrative. You might prefer a meditation on ideas, where you are walking back and forth over a terrain rather than a linear narrative. In such a structure, however, there is normally a narrative of ideas, the unfolding of insights and thoughts. Look at Annie Dillard’s Pulitzer prize winning Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, in which, on the surface, very little happens. There is no action, adventure or romance in the usual meaning of the words; there is no violent childhood or broken heart, no fabulous journey to an exotic place. It consists simply of observations of nature and, thus, of life, centred on an American creek, yet it is one of the most absorbing and beautiful memoirs I have read.

Alternatively, consider whether a series of narratives suits your material better. If you cannot see that there is an overall narrative then it is best not to force one. A series of short stories might be more effective. If your story is about your life on a cattle ranch in Texas or a sheep farm in New Zealand, then a set of stories evoking the landscape,people, animals and way of life might be effective. Each story could be self-contained, a complete story on its own, while building up an overall picture of Texan — or New Zealand — farm life.

Or you might want to write a set of stories around a single image as English chef Nigel Slater did in his memoir Toast. It consists of many short narratives, some only half a page, each one centred around food. He tells the story of his childhood and young manhood, but it is not a conventional continuous narrative. It tells the story of his life in relation to food, and because food is a constant factor in life, he is able to recount all his major experiences through this one topic. A forward-moving narrative is created piece by piece, held together by food being grown, prepared, eaten, shared.

You could also use a series of short narratives which combine to build up an ongoing central narrative using a series of themes. In Whatever The Gods Do, I used many short pieces which, together, built several ongoing narratives around the central theme of transformation. I did not begin with the theme — it did not emerge until the final draft — but with the desire to tell the stories as honestly as I could.

Whether you want to write a strong central story or a series of stories, how do you construct narrative out of the shapelessness of life? Start by reminding yourself that you already know how to construct a narrative. It may be difficult to accept that you innately know how to do something as complex as construct a narrative out of the thousands of elements of your life, but it is in fact something that all humans do every day. You automatically sift and sort and arrange the events that happen to you each day — and if you get the chance, you recount those events as a narrative to friends and family. And then, each night as you sleep, your unconscious, your dream self, constructs more narratives, even if they are bizarre and unlikely.

Narrative is natural. All human beings tell stories. Some might argue it is a cultural construction — and its various forms undoubtedly are constructed — but the urge to make a narrative out of what has happened appears innate. Still, when you sit down to write a narrative, it can be difficult to trust that storytelling ability.

It is important not to be overwhelmed by techniques or instructions on how to do it. If you were writing a detective story or a thriller, then yes, you would have to plot in a detailed way. But with memoir writing it is not so much a controlled intellectual process as one that happens under the surface. The millions of neurones in the brain are already going about their business of making connections between things. It’s their job. Sit quietly for a while, hold the elements of the story in your mind and they will gradually find their place. It is often a matter of feeling your way, piece by piece.

Some people are at ease with this process and it flows naturally. For others,here are a few tips. They are not intended to be things you must do, or step-by-step instructions, but simply a few suggestions to try when you feel unable to begin or move forward, or feel that you have lost the track. Some of the advice not only sounds contradictory, it is — that’s because everyone’s approach is different. We don’t all need the same advice. You will see what suits you.

A few tips on making a narrative

• Sit quietly, letting events play over in your mind, then begin jotting them down in any order. When you think you have all the elements, start arranging them in a coherent sequence. You don’t have to start at the beginning — you can start, for example, at a key turning point — but remember the reader needs to be able to move between times and events without confusion. Often, when you are first starting out, a chronological approach is best.

• Remember the question. At or near the beginning, a narrative needs an unanswered question, or a series of unanswered questions. It is not an openly stated question, but one that ought to form in the mind of the reader.

• If you are clear about the story line, select only those elements of your life that contribute to the narrative. Don’t include the visit to Brighton Pier in your ‘year in England’ memoir if it does not contribute to the story.

• Let there be light — and shade. If you give everything the same emphasis, the narrative will become flat. Some incidents deserve to be written about at greater length and with more intensity than others.

• Include enough information — be aware the reader does not know what you know. Too many gaps and the reader will fall through.

• On the other hand, you don’t need to spell everything out. Readers like to make a few leaps of their own. It can be very tedious to be told everything — let the reader make connections sometimes.

• Withhold. You don’t have to spill the beans on the first page. Because you recount the story from the perspective of knowing what has happened, you may be tempted to tell everything you know right away — but hold back. Sense the right moment for information to be revealed.

• Don’t withhold too much. Holding back information can just feel manipulative and annoying. Teasers and cliffhangers are mostly corny.

• Maintain the narrative tension. Be aware of not preempting important narrative points. If you let slip that your son became a surgeon while you are writing the scene where he is lost in the mountains of Colorado, then the narrative tension is loosened.

• Remember pacing. Sometimes you might need to slow down the unfolding events — write more on each event rather than recounting the affair, divorce and remarriage in two pages. Or sometimes you might need to speed up, not spend quite so much time on the end of the affair.

• Remember the pleasure of a narrative of ideas. An inner journey of the unfolding of the self in relation to theworld, or the story of an idea, can be very engaging. For example, Lucinda Holdforth’s True Pleasures unfolds the idea of Paris as a city which supports and nourishes women.

• Think of good narrative as akin to good sex. Seduce your reader by tempting them into your story. Awaken their desire to keep reading, and satisfy their need to find out. Try not to be too predictable, or too slick, or too fast — or too slow.

• Be truthful to the essential shape of the story that has formed or is forming under the surface of your mind.

Don’t tempt or seduce if that does not fit the integrity of your story — it will only seem forced or artificial.

• Re-read narratives you have enjoyed in memoir, fiction and folk and fairytales and see how the narrative unfolds. The latter are fundamental story-shapes and have formed many people’s sense of how a narrative unfolds.

Myths and fairytales

In all cultures and religions there are folktales, fairytales, myths and legends handed down over hundreds, if not thousands of years. These are the narratives that make sense of the elements of life, explaining the natural and human world and celebrating important events and characters. It could be said that they are the archetypes for all our stories. Because these story-shapes have endured for so long, it may be worth looking at them more closely to see whether they might be useful for writing the narrative of a memoir.

There are many researchers, such as Joseph Campbell, who have written at length on the story structures of myths and fairytales. One of the key structures which has been described is the quest myth. It has a three-part structure: departure, initiation, return. Departure involves a sign that something is about to change and often includes a gift of some kind, a talisman from an elder or even an animal. Initiation involves a journey and struggle against difficulties or temptations, but also, regularly, another gift or assistance of some kind — a magic spell perhaps. Return involves the resumption of what might look like the old life, but it is a life transformed, or at least renewed.

It is easy to see how the quest myth structure might echo the pattern of many life experiences, from a sequence of events as terrible as the death of someone loved, to events as light-hearted as sailing around the Mediterranean. If a quest structure appears to fit your memoir, then use those divisions and that shape as a way of organising your material. You don’t have to foreground it, or even mention it if you don’t want to, but use it as your organising principle. If you are interested in this idea, The Gift of Stories by Robert Atkinson explores mythic structures in detail.

Look also at other fairytale structures. Remember the fairytales and folktales from your own childhood. Recall particularly those stories that either delighted or horrified you. It is remarkable how, most often, the tale that makes an impression, either positive or negative, contains an important personal theme, the story symbolically echoing a key story in an individual’s own life. For example, for one woman in writing class, the folktale of ‘The Man, the Boy and the Donkey’ had always horrified her as a child. The essence of this tale is that the man listens to conflicting advice about how to travel with the boy and the donkey, changing his actions with each new piece of advice. Eventually, as a direct result of him trying to please everyone, the man, the boy and the donkey fall off a bridge and drown. After exploring this folktale in relation to her own life, it was clear to this woman that she had lived too much of her life trying to please others, rather than working out for herself the best course of action. This insight helped her select which incidents to tell and which ones to emphasise. It gave her the shape of her story.

Re-read fairytales and folk stories looking at the shared or common narrative points, objects, landscapes and characters. You will notice there are many recurring motifs which can be seen to represent events and people in daily life.

• Narrative points include such life events as loss of a parent, introduction of an evil force, denial of rightful inheritance, banishment, a contest for love, a journey. These are as much a part of ordinary life as of lives in fairy stories.

• Objects such as wands, caskets, shoes (glass slippers?), talismans and amulets, thorns, spinning wheels. In your own life, these objects might correspond with talents, gifts from others, burdens, enticements.

• Landscapes such as mountains, dark woods, swamps, paths, mazes, caves, towers. It is easy enough to see how one can see these symbolic landscapes in ordinary life!

• Characters such as witches and wizards, dragons, wolves, tricksters, stepmothers. Again, these symbolic characters are easily recognisable.

Consider what each element might symbolise and see whether your story contains the same elements. You can use these correspondences in a number of ways, such as selecting a fairytale to use as a prologue for your story, or using elements such as objects or landscapes as chapter titles, or simply keeping the tale and its elements in mind as a shaping device underneath your writing without necessarily mentioning it.

My journey

The first draft of my manuscript, Whatever The Gods Do, was a misshapen creature. It had begun as notes on singing lessons I took one summer, but I had no idea where the narrative was going. The death of a friend of mine, and the life of her young son, crept into the notes so that there were two narrative strands. Memories from childhood surfaced — another strand, but more thematic than narrative. My father had died around the same time as my friend — a connecting theme of death. My body was changing according to a biological cycle — another thematic strand.

I didn’t know how they were linked. I tried to force them together into bulky chapters. It didn’t work.

Time and solitude were necessary to sort it out. I took the manuscript away to a beach-house for a few weeks alone.

There I read through the whole draft and all my notes for it — and sat and stared at the lagoon at the bottom of the garden. I realised I had to throw away over half of the draft and rewrite and restructure.

I spread the manuscript all over the bed in separate chapters, made notes on cards of the different elements of the stories and themes, drew long charts of the narrative development. I rearranged the chapters, shuffled the cards, put the chart aside. Days passed as I wrestled with it.

On the thirteenth day I wrote in my journal: ‘Disastrous day. I’ve lost all sense of being able to save this manuscript. It would be easier to start from scratch.’

The next entry was two days later:

I have started to play with the ms. I have abandoned the notion of long continuous chapters and let the small pieces exist as they are. Something falls into place. Even this beach-house has become part of the process. A frame. I can see that all the narrative strands are about transformations — some slow and underground, some instantaneous and horrifying. The manuscript feels lighter and suddenly I know I am dancing with it, not boorishly pushing and shoving it. And it starts to respond — it starts to dance with me — pieces are lightly falling into place by beat, by rhythm, as if I were writing a song. It has never happened before — it’s a feeling like no other. The narratives are intertwining and moving forward — I think of it as a piece of music, many different instruments playing at once.

As you can see, I tried hard to control the story, to force narrative links, but it didn’t work. Narrative is like that. It has its own mind and, despite the best efforts of the intellect, the story it wants to tell will eventually out. You have to give in to its demands. It is a joyful process, the telling of stories, and only becomes difficult if it is too controlled.

Trust that the story is already there. The Renaissance artist Michelangelo said that when he approached his block of marble, he started by trusting that the form of the sculpture was already in the stone. What he was actually trusting was that the shape was already in his mind. It was simply up to him to chip away the unnecessary thoughts that had collected around it. Trust that somewhere in your mind the story is known and set to work, writing down what is necessary, leaving out what is not.

READING

Forever Today

by Deborah Wearing

That Sunday, 10th March, I proposed fresh air, a walk after lunch. Clive did not want to go.

‘You’ll feel better,’ I said.

‘I doubt it,’ he said.

But I could not let the storm brew any blacker. We had to get outside, to move, to breathe.

‘Look,’ I said, ‘let’s drive to Hampstead Heath. If you don’t perk up, we’ll come straight home.’

He was too poorly to argue.

We parked in a red sandy car park full of potholes.

‘It’s about to rain,’ said Clive.

‘Not yet,’ I said.

My optimism was at odds with the gathering gloom above our heads.

‘Come on, love,’ I said, ‘let’s just walk to Jack Straw’s Castle and back, stretch our legs.’

The heath at this north edge made a kind of low mound. I thought we could at least duck into the pub if the rain started. We held onto each other as we always did but the rough terrain was throwing us somehow out of step. Clive stomped, kicking up tufts. He said little. It was as if we had to press against invisible forces to make any ground at all.

We had reached the middle of this expanse of stubbled green when a low rumble filled the sky. We stopped. A double crack split the air above our heads and a cold rain was upon us. We turned, heads bowed. Thunder rolled across the sky. The noise was everywhere, like a fury held in too long, unleashed. The sky pelted us with bullets of ice, stinging our faces. We ran, arms over our heads, all the way back to the muddy car park where the potholes had become puddles bubbling and splashing high into the air where the hail struck. I fumbled with the keys and we got into our car, slamming the doors. It was shelter, but it didn’t feel safe. A curtain of white rain surrounded us and sheet lightning lit up the heath. We sat puffing and steaming up the windows. The hail drummed so hard on the roof, I expected dents. Stones bounced high off the bonnet and off the ground. It was a good five minutes before we could see to drive home. The streets were awash with fast-running streams. Waters swelled around clogged drains and our wheels sent up a wave to left and right. It was raining like it would never stop.

The rain had washed our windows clean. I fetched the ironing. It towered above my head as I walked. I must have looked like a stack of laundry on legs. Clive sighed.

‘So much?’ he said.‘We mustn’t let it get this bad.’

‘We’ve not been here,’ I said. ‘Mind if I switch on the telly?’

‘Has the lightning stopped?’

I watched the window for a moment. It was dark outside like twilight, though still only three.

‘Uh … think so.’

‘I can’t cope with a film or anything with a plot,’ he said.‘My head aches.’

I fetched an aspirin and put the sport on low. At some point, Clive left the room and then came back.

The iron bubbled and spat, burning the back of my hands. Another bubbling sound. I looked behind me. Clive was perched awkwardly on top of the laundry, mouth open, eyes shut, head back. His feet barely touched the ground. He lay at an angle as if he’d fallen from a height.

‘Darling!’ I called out.

He opened his eyes and looked across at me.

‘Why are you there?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know,’ he said.‘I must have been asleep.’

‘Go to bed properly,’ I said.

I took his hand and led him into the bedroom. He seemed lost and sleepy so I undid his buttons and found pyjamas. He was shivering.

‘I’ll make you a hot-water bottle,’ I said.

In the kitchen I had the tap running to fill the kettle but there was a noise from the bedroom. I turned off the tap. A terrible kind of moan. I dropped the kettle in the sink and ran the length of the corridor. I thought heart attack.

‘What’s the matter?’ I called out as I ran. My voice was on the way to a scream.‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

His teeth were chattering. He did not look at me but lay with eyes half closed beneath the trembling bedclothes.

‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘I think I’ve got a chill.’

‘Why did you make that noise?’ I asked.

It’s only my m-m-my teeth chattering,’ he said through a new wave.‘Bb bw I’mmb fr-fr-freezing.’ He sucked in breath through his trembling jaw.

Clive’s pale face floated on the dark-brown bed linen against dark brown carpet. I took his temperature. It was above normal.

‘I’m calling the doctor.’

‘No need,’ he said. ‘I’m probably fighting off something.’

He was the husband. I was used to taking his word for it.

I believe that shuddering was the first slight jar to Clive’s brain, perhaps a momentary seizure.

Our cousin Lawrence felt only a slight jar one night on a voyage to America. He went on deck and spoke with people playing cards. They’d felt it too but went on shuffling. Our cousin never saw them again. They were on the Titanic. Lawrence got out alive in a half-full lifeboat as so many women refused to leave their husbands, preferring to drown with them than to survive widowed.‘In some cases,’ said our cousin, ‘they were torn from their husbands and pushed into the boats, but in many instances they were allowed to remain, since there was no-one to insist.’

Wearing’s memoir, Forever Today, tells the story of the illness which struck down her husband, a gifted conductor and music producer, leaving him with a total amnesia, trapped in the constantly recurring moment. This passage from near the beginning creates a strong narrative tension as almost everything that happens,from the sudden storm to Clive’s comment, ‘I can’t cope with a film or anything with a plot,’ resonates with ominous feeling. Even the expression ‘That day’ in the first line creates a narrative pull. Read this memoir for its absorbing story of a love that endures despite the loss of a remembered self.

WRITING EXERCISES

1. A day in the life

Select a recent day in your life, within the last couple of weeks, and simply recount what happened that day. Do not plan it; simply write what you can remember. See whether it has a narrative. If you can see narrative elements, start cutting away what is not necessary and perhaps writing in more detail whatever seems significant. (20 minutes)

2. Scenes

Write ten separate short pieces from a period or a relationship in your life, taking no more than half a page for each one. Do the exercise over a few days if you need to. Write the scenes in any order, just as you think of them, but note which one you wrote first, second, etc. Then sort them into what you think is the best order for the unfolding of the narrative. See how close that is to the order in which you wrote them. (15 minutes for each piece)

3. Plotting forwards and backwards

Select an event that has unfolded in your life, one where you can see a beginning, a middle and a conclusion.Write it in three paragraphs, one for each section, first of all in that order. Then try it beginning at the end and telling it backwards. This does not mean simply shuffling the paragraphs but writing them again, so that the story works told backwards. A number of films have used this technique, starting at the end of a relationship and then showing scenes progressively back in time to the beginning. It can be a very poignant way of plotting a story. See whether forwards or backwards works best for your story. (1 hour)

4. Once upon a time

Begin a story from your life with the words ‘Once upon a time’ and continue to unfold the story, but use fairytale vocabulary only. If someone helped you, they were a ‘wise woman’ who gave you an ‘amulet’. If you had difficult times, you were ‘lost in a swamp’ or ‘traversing dark caves under the mountains’ or ‘lost in the dark wood’. The key to this exercise is the use of symbolic language and the translation of events in your life into mythic events. Do not use modern jargon, nor personal names, nor precise historical occurrences. Write it briefly, no more than three pages. See whether it has revealed the bones of the story you want to write. (30 minutes)