“Before you can write clearly, you have to be able to think clearly”

You labor and toil to write your memoir and place it in the hands of others. I know you do—because I’ve done it myself. Twice. I want to encourage you: If you persevere, in the end, you’ll find your effort worth it!

 

Remember significant motivations for telling your story: You want to bless your readers in any number of ways—you want your story to inspire them in their lives:

• to never give up, never quit fighting, and always hope
• to make good choices and be trustworthy people of integrity
• to speak up when something’s not right
• to always love, always forgive, and always extend grace
• to grow in their faith
• to laugh and love—to love God and others. 

The list goes on and on.

 

But all that depends on whether they can understand—really understand—your message. That’s why lately we’ve been talking about clarity. We need to write clearly and concisely if we want readers to (a) read our memoirs and (b) understand them—to get all the richness and wisdom and blessing out of them.

That means you and I need to find—have a good grip on—that clarity ourselves first.

Sometimes that’s a problem.

I’ve read thousands of passages

written by others in rough draft form

and it’s very revealing. And convicting.

Because here’s the deal: In reading someone else’s writing, we spot all the gaps in communication, the ambiguities, the words and sentences that leave us confused.

When that happens, I stop and re-read sentences, paragraphs, and maybe even pages, trying to make sense of the writer’s message, trying to figure out what his point is.

Here’s what I’ve learned: The writer doesn’t always know what he’s trying to say. (And by the way, that makes it pretty much impossible for me to edit or critique the person’s writing.)

Jesse Hines says it this way: “Before you can write clearly, you have to be able to think clearly. A big reason [writers fail to convey] their message is that they were not focused on a clear message. Good writing usually stems directly from clear thinking.”

Ask yourself, then, “Am I thinking clearly?”

• Do you know the point of the paragraph you’re writing? What purpose does it serve?
• Where do you want it to take your readers—that is, does it take readers from one significant point to the next significant point? In the right order?
• Does the passage hold relevance for the main point of the larger vignette or experience?

 

If you’re confused, your readers will be confused, too.

Outlining your paragraphs

(the ideas and points within each)

should help you think more clearly,

rearrange words and sentences, and delete others.

Figuring out what you want to say is only the first step. Next, you need to write with clarity.

“Take great pains to be clear,” wrote C.S. Lewis. “Remember that though you [can] start by knowing what you mean, the reader doesn’t. . . . It is terribly easy just to forget that you have not told the reader something he wants to know—the whole picture is so clear in your own mind that you forget that it isn’t the same in his.” (C.S. Lewis, Writing Advice, “To a Schoolgirl in America”)

Think clearly, write clearly.

  

In penning your memoir, don’t “discount simple writing”

 

Last week we considered how important it is for you to communicate clearly with your readers. (If you missed it, click on Put yourself in your readers' shoes.)

This week I have tips for you on how to accomplish that.

 

Years ago, when I studied journalism, instructors taught us to aim our writing at eighth graders—that is, to write material that eighth-grade students can easily understand.

Recently I saw the same advice so it must still be the best practice.

 

What’s true for journalists is true for memoirists: Aim at an eighth-grade audience.

 

Ken Follett, Welsh author, says his goal is to make his prose “utterly easy to understand.” He calls it “transparent prose.”

 

“I’ve failed dreadfully,” Follet says, “if you have to read a sentence twice to figure out what I meant.”

 

Write clearly.

Concisely.

Transparently.

Simply.

 

Shane Snow says it this way: “We shouldn’t discount simple writing, but instead embrace it. . . .

 

“We should aim to reduce complexity in our writing as much as possible.

 

“We won’t lose credibility in doing so,” Shane says. “Our readers will comprehend and retain our ideas more reliably. And we’ll have a higher likelihood of reaching more people.”

 

“Writing text that can be understood by as many people as possible seems like an obvious best practice,” write Rebecca Monteleone and Jamie Brew. “But . . .

 

“ . . . from news media to legal guidance to academic research, the way we write often creates barriers to who can read it. Plain language—a style of writing that uses simplified sentences, everyday vocabulary, and clear structure—aims to remove those barriers.” (Read more at “What Makes Writing More Readable?”)

 

Read your manuscript aloud.

Listen for words or sentences or paragraphs

that could confuse readers.

 

Rewrite them,

fixing anything that’s not precise.

Make your writing easy to understand.

Your readers will thank you.

 

Come back next week. We’ll look at additional ways to write your memoir with clarity.

 

Tuesday Tidbit: Put yourself in your readers’ shoes

 

A few days ago, I was reading an award-winning book when I got stuck on a paragraph—only two sentences long—that made no sense.

 

I stopped and re-read that paragraph, but I still couldn’t figure out what it meant.

 

I read it again, and again, but it still made no sense.

 

On about my fifth try, I realized the word “him” was referring to a different male than I originally thought. Also, the author had used a noun that had several definitions, and I had interpreted the word in a different way than she intended.

 

The experience reminded me how important it is for us memoirists to put ourselves in our readers’ shoes.

 

Because . . .

 

“It has long been a guiding principle of writing that,

if there is any possible way

for readers to misread

and misinterpret

what you write,

they will.

The purpose of laborious

and tedious editing

is to make the writing so precise

that it cannot be misread

and misinterpreted.”

(Kendall Haven)

 

That means that, for the sake of your readers, you, the writer, must, clarify.

 

Choose words carefully.

 

Give specific details.

 

Be accurate. Unambiguous.

 

Explain.

 

Simplify. Simplify. Simplify.

 

Ask yourself, “Will they understand my story? Is it clear?”

 

Refine your story. Enhance it. Polish it. Make it shine.

 

And enjoy your writing!

There you have it, your Tuesday Tidbit.

 

How to craft the best chapter titles for your memoir

 

Recently we looked at:

• how to most effectively begin your memoir’s chapters (click on “Your chapter openings: Do they intrigue readers?”), and
• how to successfully craft your chapters’ endings (click on “Give your chapter endings extra love.”)

 

Today we’ll look at how to develop excellent chapter titles.

 

You could take the easy way out and just give your chapters numbers. But how boring is that?!?

 

Instead, create curiosity in your readers, entice them to keep turning pages. Increase their enjoyment of your book by crafting intriguing chapter titles. You want to hook your readers—make them want to know what comes next without giving it away in your title.

 

Keep in mind that with each new chapter, you’re introducing either new information or a shift in information. A new chapter can indicate a change in time, location, topic, perspectives, plans, emotions, success, well-being, and so on. Your chapter title can signal to readers what to expect and help them transition into it.

 

Use chapter titles to propel your memoir’s story arc (narrative arc)—the trajectory of your account. (What’s a story arc? you might be asking. “A well-written memoir utilizes the same elements of a novel, including . . . a beginning-middle-end structure,” writes Cate Macabe. “A story arc moves the main character . . . from one situation to another, one state of being to another.” Learn more by clicking on this link to our earlier post, “Do you know what a story arc is? And why it’s important?”)

 

Tension and foreshadowing (a setback, disaster, or danger) captivate and motivate readers to keep reading. For example, in my recent memoir, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir, I entitled one chapter “Terrorism was to affect our lives very significantly.” Here’s another title from my memoir: “A matter of life and death.”

 

A chapter title can be a phrase from within the chapter. For example, again from my memoir, “Three vulnerable women, three small children—easy targets.”

 

Or you can use a quotation or proverb that highlights the significance of the chapter’s contents. For example, I used this Winston Churchill quote for one of my titles: “Failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts.” Another quotation I used is this from Walt Whitman: “Happiness, not in another place but this place. . . .”

 

You can also fashion a title from dialogue within the chapter, such as this one from my memoir, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir: “We’re coming back later and if you’re here, we’ll kill you.”

 

And sometimes it’s okay to choose a title that simply tells readers what the chapter will be about. It might seem boring but I encourage you to develop a title that makes them wonder what they might miss if they don’t keep reading. Get creative with your word choice—add a little spice or sparkle—or maybe even a shock. I entitled such a chapter “Another bomb threat, and a dead pig on the kitchen floor.”

 

Give yourself time to craft just the right chapter titles. Experiment as you write your rough draft. You will probably change your titles several times during the rough draft stage. That’s good.

 

Here’s a bit of advice from memoirist Matilda Butler:

 

“Try writing four titles for each chapter. Then ask your writing group, or even friends, to tell you the ones they like the most and why. Even if you don’t take their advice or suggestions, you will learn a lot about how readers of your memoir may react to your titles.”

 

Your goal, then, is to create chapter titles that will:

• grab your readers’ interest,
• enhance your story, and
• add to your readers’ enjoyment.

 

Creating chapter titles can be fun.

Enjoy the creative process!