Tuesday Tidbit: Use setting to ground your memoir and keep readers reading

“If the reader cannot visualize where and when your story took place … your memoir will suffer,” writes Victoria Costello in The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Writing a Memoir.

And I add to that: Your readers will suffer, too.

“A well-rendered setting,” Victoria says, “grounds your memoir in a specific reality that the reader can see in his mind’s eye.

“With vivid descriptions and sense imagery, a writer creates authenticity and immediacy, which make a story more compelling…. Even if it’s a familiar location, readers see it anew through your eyes, filtered by your experiences.”

Victoria continues, “… Your top priority is to put your personality into the perspective you take. Your experience of the place is inherently different from others’. Tell us why. Be original….”

“Don’t be vague in your rendering of place.

Concrete nouns and specific details convey a place

more vividly than abstract nouns.

Compare ‘honeybees hopping across a bed of violet petals’

to ‘a beautiful garden.’”

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Writing a Memoir

So then, strive for honeybees and violet petals!

In her book, Victoria offers more tips on settings. I highly recommend The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Writing a Memoir. Your local independent bookstore will be happy to order it for you.

And if you missed recent posts about creating a sense of place, click on these below:

Must-know info about your memoir’s sense of place

Make your memoir come alive through a sense of place

Creating a sense of place is essential for your memoir

So, there you have it, your Tuesday Tidbit.

Be sure to come back Thursday 

when we'll look at a different kind of setting for your memoir.