What are the ingredients for a memoir that resonates with readers? It’s not just story—although when someone like Jeanette Walls or Mira Bartók triumphs in the face of a challenging childhood and adolescence, the reader can’t help but cheer.
It’s not just voice—although when someone like Tobias Wolff or Mary Karr shares his or her family stories, the reader can’t help but empathize.
Nor is it merely the universality of any author’s particular story—although when Joan Didion examines her first year as a widow, the reader is riveted and grieves along with her.
What keeps us turning the pages of Eat, Pray, Love; Just Kids; Angela’s Ashes; and scores of other breakout memoirs is the way each author uses powerful storytelling strategies—what we call the “Fiction Writer’s Toolkit” for memoir—to find her or his story.
We come to this book after years of teaching memoir and even more years as fiction writers. While Lisa has written dozens of books of nonfiction and Lynn has worked in autobiographical performance for two decades, our philosophy in Find Your Story, Write Your Memoir is that key word: story.
Our work with students has shown us that while every person has a story to tell, few know, when they first set out, how to uncover its narrative potential or how to unleash its power.
That’s the catalyst behind the Fiction Writer’s Toolkit, the method that illuminates our theory and practice. In these pages, we’ll illustrate the difference between life events and a dynamic structure and plot that keep the reader glued to the pages or the screen. In this book, we’ll guide you, the author, through the beginning impulse to write your story, what we call the occasion of the telling, on to the dance of memory and experience, through plot, structure, character, landscape, and scene. Along the way, spotlight writing and reading exercises will help you to develop sections of your memoir as you explore the theory and practice we’ve developed through extensive analysis of both classic and contemporary memoirs and fiction.
We invite you to find your story as we take you through the process.
CHAPTER 1. THE OCCASION OF THE TELLING:
“IT BEGINS HERE BECAUSE IT’s ABOUT THIS”
A memoir’s opening pages set up the urgency and risk of telling this particular story at this particular moment. Whether there’s a deathbed confession or a Proustian madeleine, something in the “present” compels the author to revisit the past. In this chapter, we show the writer how she can best answer the question, “Why this story now?”
CHAPTER 2. THE TWO YOUS: FINDING A PLACE TO STAND
The memoir is told by an author in the present (the remembering self) who takes the reader to various stages of her past (the experiencing self). The journey of this past self—along with its lessons and conflicts—gives the story its tension and informs the author in the present. Because of the dual nature of memoir, the story is a journey of self-discovery not only for the author but for the reader as well. We’ll also explore the challenges and pleasures of this duality.
CHAPTER 3. BUILDING A NARRATIVE:
LAYING DOWN THE BONES
There are as many ways of constructing a memoir as there are individual stories. This chapter explores the many possible ways of arranging a story, the ways plot and structure intertwine, and provides tools for finding the structure appropriate to the author’s particular narrative. Structures explored include chronological, circular, associative, collage, parallel, and locational. In addition, readers will learn the importance of beginning a story with catalyst and conflict and how to map the tension.
CHAPTER 4. ARRANGING THE SCENES:
GIVING THEM MUSCLE
Yes, it really happened, but in order to re-create a scene for readers, authors must be aware of dramatic urgency. That’s why this chapter focuses on scene building. We look at traditional dramatic scenes, how internal scenes can rise in action via conflict and drama, the importance of silence and gaps for the reader to fill, and the use of dialogue as action.
CHAPTER 5. PAINTING THE PICTURE:
LANGUAGE AND SETTING
Plots for memoirs focus not only on the character telling the story but also on the actions of secondary characters, the use of landscape and setting—and the seemingly random moments in a life. The telling detail, the dominant image, sustaining metaphors and leitmotifs, and a sense of place provide a layering of the story scaffolding that adds texture and complexity to the memoir.
CHAPTER 6. YOUR STORY, YOUR VOICE: MAKE IT YOUR OWN
Every writer has his own unique style and voice. In the case of the memoir, style and voice inform the story being told as the author views his remembered self with compassion, humor, and even forgiveness. This chapter explores the voices and styles in breakout memoirs and gives writers tools to develop authentic voices of their own.
CHAPTER 7. HONORING THE MEMOIR PROCESS:
TAKING THE NEXT STEPS
You’ve written a chapter or more of your memoir, or perhaps you’ve finished the essay or book you wanted to write. As you look at what you’ve produced, you already feel a distance between the impulse that motivated you to begin writing and your self in the present. No matter how often we rewrite or how polished our product is, we question whether it’s of interest to others and whether we’ve captured our authentic journey. This chapter discusses the ethics of telling your own story, suggests possibilities for revision strategies and ways of getting your work out in front of readers, and sums up the value of the memoir-writing process.
We’ve tested our ideas in classes, workshops, and retreats as well as in our own writing, and we have found that our approach provides the lightbulb moments memoir writers are seeking. We’re thrilled to be sharing the Fiction Writer’s Toolkit with you, and we hope it will help you take your memoir to the next level.