Back to Basics: How’s your progress in describing your memoir’s key places?

 

Are you making progress in describing the key places—the key settings—in your memoir? I hope our recent blog posts have inspired you. (Click on Details, a must for your memoir;  It’s super fun to gather “crackly” words. . . . ; and The importance of “place”. . . . )

Today I offer you more inspiration:

Write your memoir so that 

your “reader gets zipped into your skin,” 

in the words of memoir guru Mary Karr. 

When you include sensory details 

(smell, taste, sight, sound, and touch), 

readers will feel drawn into your story with you—

and when they’re “zipped into your skin,” 

your message will make its way into their hearts and minds.

Think back: Think of a book that made you feel you were in the story, smelling scents she smelled, tasting flavors he tasted, seeing sights he saw, hearing sounds she heard, feeling textures he felt. 

Often the best way to learn how to describe a place 

is to study how others have done that.

With that in mind, notice sensory details of sight and sound that Naomi Benaron used in her novel set in Rwanda, Running the Rift:

 

“He stood until the truck became a speck in the red swirl of dust. When even the speck had disappeared, he broke into a run down the road, where life paraded on as if nothing had changed. He strained up the hill, sacks of sorghum and potatoes draped over bicycle handlebars or stacked in rickety wooden carts. Children herded goats fastened with bits of string, lugged jerricans filled with water, trotted with rafts of freshly gathered firewood on their heads. Women chatted on the way to and from the market, basins filled with fruits and vegetables balanced like fancy hats.”  

 

Because I lived in East Africa for several years, Benaron’s details transported me back. For those not acquainted with that culture, her details offer an authentic view of life there. Her words make the reader feel he’s in the scene.

 

Notice details of sight, sound, and smell in another excerpt from Running the Rift:

 

“Market goers created a congestion through which the truck barely moved. In the dying afternoon, hawkers called out bargains, packed up unsold tools and clothing, used appliances held together with hope and string. Flies swarmed around carcasses of meat. The aromas of over-ripe fruit and gamy animal flesh made Jean Patrick queasy. A bicycle taxi swerved into their path. . . . The woman on the back loosed a stream of insults in their direction. The radio droned; the truck engine whined and coughed. Their bodies jostled together from the potholed road. . . .”

 

Butch Ward offers advice inspired by Jacqui Banaszynski: 

“Write cinematically. 

Movies pull us through stories with strong themes, 

compelling characters and revelatory details. 

Written stories can do the same thing. . . . 

Zoom in tight on details or images 

that have the most meaning; 

be descriptive and specific.”

 

Caution: Avoid subjecting readers to irrelevant details—details that don’t enhance your main settings, details that don’t pertain to the point of your story/vignette.  Extraneous details slow down your story.

 

Revisit key places and scenes in your rough draft and ask yourself, “What did the place smell like?” Were you in a stable, or at the perfume counter in Macy’s?

 

Ask yourself “What noises were in the background?” The rumble of trains? The hush of snowfall?

 

What did you see in the distance? Mountains? Unending desert? Jungle? What did you see within your immediate surroundings?

 

If you were with a group of individuals eating tadpoles in okra sauce, how did that feel on your tongue? What was the texture? Find words to describe the taste and smell.

 

Include details that invite readers 

to encounter the same experiences you did. 

“Zip them into your skin.”

Back to Basics: The importance of “place” in your memoir

 

In your memoir, you’ll introduce readers to places where you experienced significant events. Since readers weren’t there—and since reading your memoir could likely be the first time they’ll experience those places—develop them well.

 

Why? Because readers need to identify with you, they want to live your experience with you.

 

“Whether you write fiction or non-fiction (especially memoirs), you’ve got to completely engage your readers,” writes Sheila Bender. “Create vivid scenes using images that appeal to all the senses. . . .” 

 

So, then, be deliberate in describing the place, the setting, of major events in your memoir: Include sensory details—details pertaining to the five senses: seeing, touching, tasting, smelling, and hearing.

 

Step back in time, look around, and describe the place as if you were seeing it for the first time.

 

If your scene is indoors, take your readers into a building or a room. What would they see, feel, taste, smell, and hear? Was it dusty or polished, cluttered or tidy, warm or cold, old or new, welcoming or unfriendly?

 

If your scene takes place outdoors, what will readers see, feel, taste, smell, and hear? Include weather, seasons, time of day, landscape and geography—ocean, desert, rainforest, island, mountain. Describe plants, animals, and maybe even the place’s culture, traditions, folklore, races, languages, and mood or atmosphere. 

 

Below you’ll find examples of well-developed places. (The first two are from works of fiction, but the craft of describing a place is the same whether fiction or nonfiction; nonfiction—memoir, in our case—is always true.)

 

Here’s an excerpt from Amanda Coplin’s The Orchardist:

 

 “They always went the same way, south along the Wenatchee River until its confluence with the Columbia. The Wenatchee River was narrow and familiar, clattering and riffling, surrounded by evergreens and then, later, rocky gravel banks, but the Columbia was different. It was kingly. Serious, roiling, wide. It looked as if it was not flowing very quickly, but Talmadge told Angelene that it was. No matter how many times she saw the Columbia, she was always struck by it. She sometimes dreamed about it, about walking along it and staring at its strange opaque quality, or trying to cross it by herself. . . .” 

 

This next excerpt is from Marilynne Robinson’s Lila:

 

“When they were children they used to be glad when they stayed in a workers’ camp, shabby as they all were, little rows of cabins with battered tables and chairs and moldy cots inside, and maybe some dishes and spoons. They were dank and they smelled of mice. . . . Somebody sometime had nailed a horseshoe above the door of a cabin they had for a week, and they felt this must be important. . . .

 

“They were given crates of fruit that was too ripe or bruised, and the children ate it till they were . . . sick of the souring smell of it and the shiny little black bugs that began to cover it, and then they would start throwing it at each other and get themselves covered with rotten pear and apricot. Flies everywhere. They’d be in trouble for getting their clothes dirtier than they were before. Doane hated those camps. He’d say, ‘Folks sposed to live like that?’. . .”

 

Here's an excerpt from my second memoir, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: AFoot-Dragger’s Memoir:

           

Our mission center “was into the dry season with cerulean skies and hardly a wisp of a cloud. Daytime temperatures soared to over a hundred degrees in the shade—cruel, withering.

 

"The green scent of rainy season had given way to the spicy fragrance of sun-dried grasses. As far as the eye could see, immense open stretches of deep emerald had disappeared, leaving the llanos stiff and bleached and simmering under unrelenting equatorial sun.

 

"Muddy paths and one-lane tracks turned rock-hard and, with use, changed to dust. Yards and airstrips and open fields turned to dust, too. From sunup to sundown, a stiff wind blew across the llanos from central South America, a gift from God because it offered a little relief. On the other hand, dust blew through slatted windows and into homes and offices and we used rocks and paper weights and other heavy objects to keep papers from blowing away. Dust settled on our counters and furniture and in cracks and crannies and on our necks and in our armpits and up our noses.” (Linda K. Thomas, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir)

 

To help you recall details, look up sites on the internet like “You might be from Seattle if. . . .”

 

For example, if you’re from Seattle, you:

• know what Lutefiske is
• know lots of people who work for Microsoft and Boeing
• know how to pronounce Sequim, Puyallup, Issaquah, and Dosewallips
• know how to pronounce geoduck, know what it is, and how to eat it.

 

And Jeff Foxworthy says that if you’re from Seattle, “You know more people who own boats than air conditioners. . . . You can point to two volcanoes, even if you cannot see through the cloud cover,” and “You notice that ‘the mountain is out’ when it’s a pretty day and you can actually see it.” (And I would add:  You know which mountain is “the” mountain.)

 

Recreate your memoir’s places for your readers. Ask yourself: What were the sounds of those places? Whispering, yelling, praying, arguing? Construction noises? Traffic noises? Or only wind in the trees? (If so, what kinds of trees were they? Douglas fir? Aspen? Palm?)

 

Spend time recollecting the four other senses pertaining to your special places: the sights, the textures, tastes, and smells.

 

Reconstruct your key scenes’ places

and invite readers to experience them in the way you did.

 

And remember from last week—use “crackly” words,

“. . . the juicy words, the hot words.”

(Priscilla Long, The Writer’s Portable Mentor)

(Click on It’s super fun to gather “crackly”

words for your memoir.) 

 

Back to Basics: It’s super fun to gather “crackly” words for your memoir

 

Last week we stressed the importance of inviting readers to experience your story as if they were with you. You, the writer, can make that happen by helping them to see, feel, hear, taste, and smell what you saw, felt, heard, tasted, and smelled. We’re talking about sensory details.

 

We’ll continue working on sensory details in the coming weeks but today we’re taking a slight—and fun!—detour which will enhance your use of sensory details.

 

A number of years ago I bought The Writer’s Portable Mentor by Priscilla Long, and it became one of my favorite writing books.

 

Oh, how I’d love to sit at her feet and take classes from her! But she has retired—sigh. However, second-best is her book: a treasure chest packed with jewels.

 

Priscilla praises writers who “collect words the way some numismatists collect coins.”

 

She also recognizes writers who, on the other hand, approach “language passively. . . . The writer is using only words that come to mind, or words he grew up with, or words she stumbles upon while reading The New York Times. . . .

 

“He strives for expression with rather general, conventional diction [word choice] that has little to offer in the way of echo, color, or texture.”

 

Priscilla continues, “The writers of deep and beautiful works spend real time gathering words. They learn the names of weeds and tools and types of roof. They make lists of color words (ruby, scarlet, cranberry, brick).

 

“They savor not only the meanings, but also the musicality of words,” she says. “They are hunting neither big words nor pompous words nor Latinate words but mainly words they like. . . . They are not trying to be fancy or decorative.”

 

Did you get that? Not big, pompous, fancy, or decorative.

 

Words that don’t require a dictionary.

 

One caution:

Avoid using words that draw attention to yourself,

words that might cause readers to say,

“Oh, what a clever writer he is!”

That interrupts. That lures readers out of your story.

 

Instead, use words that keep readers involved in your story,

words that make your places, characters,

and experiences come to life.

 

Priscilla quotes Annie Proulx who admits to collecting and reading dictionaries (!) and to gathering words:

 

“I have big notebooks, page after page of words

that I like or find interesting or crackly . . . .

From time to time I will,

if I feel a section [of writing] is a bit limp,

take a couple of days and just do dictionary work

and recast sentences so that

they have more power because their words are not overused.”

 

That’s important: Avoid overused words.

 

Priscilla encourages The Lexicon Practice: a deliberate, ongoing gathering of words and phrases. She explains:

 

“There are two parts to the practice. One is to make your own Lexicon [word book] and the other is to collect words and phrases in a list that pertains to the piece you are currently working on. . . .

 

“Writers who do the Lexicon Practice have left in the dust [those who don’t]. Writers who don’t do it . . . are pretty much stuck with television words, newspaper words, cereal-box words.”

 

I’ll let you in on a secret—a confession of sorts. I thought I was the only one who collected words! I was giddy upon learning from Priscilla that I was not a weirdo. A nerd—yes. A geek—yes. But a weirdo—no! (Whew!)

 

So, now that I feel okay about being a word nerd, I’ll share a few words I once gathered, words that would meet with Priscilla’s approval. They are not big words, not pompous, fancy, or decorative words. They don’t require a dictionary.

 

Whimsy

Wry

Beguiling

Chummy

Sluggard

Wiley

Paunchy

Irascible

Thrumming, thrum

Mirth, jollity, glee, merrymaking

Jolly

Jovial

Peerless

Cull

Kafuffle

Befuddle

Canter

Miserly

 

I’ve also worked on a second type of lexicon Priscilla recommends, a word book for an era, such as 1950-1960. It was so fun! More on that another day. . . .

 

For now, though:

 

Are you a word nerd? If so,

leave some of your words in a comment below

(or on Facebook) so we all can enjoy them.

 

If you’re not a word nerd, don’t settle

for “television words, newspaper words, cereal-box words.”

Instead, give Priscilla’s Lexicon Practice a try.

Enrich your vocabulary.

 

 Creating your own word book

could lead to a new realm of writing for you.

 

Happy writing!

 

Back to Basics: Details, a must for your memoir

 

The holidays are over—!! So . . .

we’re returning to our Back to the Basics series

for our newcomers—and for all of us,

no matter where we are

in the writing of our memoirs.

 

You want your story to come to life so readers will feel they’re a part of your experience. Sensory details can do that for your readers.

 

Your task is to write so readers connect with you. Invite them to see, feel, hear, taste, and smell what you saw, felt, heard, tasted, and smelled. That way they can enter into your story with you.

 

Make your story happen all over again, this time for your readers.

 

The following quote will help you understand sensory details and why they’re important:

 

 

“You must recreate how you experienced the places,

people and situations of your life experiences

through the senses.

Where you were and what was happening to you

originally came in through your ears,

nose, tongue, skin, and eyes.

That is what the reader needs, too,

to experience your world

and draw the conclusions you did . . . .

 

As writers we must learn to rely on the outer world

for the images a situation provides,

rather than relying on thoughts and summaries.

Sure, those will come into our writing, at times,

but using them sparingly . . .

makes them all the more powerful.”

Sheila Bender,

“Letting Images Do the Talking”

 

 

Below, I offer you additional quotes for inspiration:

 

 

“In writing, imagery is the key

that can unlock a reader’s imagination.

When an image is rendered with the right combination of words,

it magically appears in the reader’s mind

like a photograph or a film clip.”

Melissa Donovan,

“Creative Writing Prompts for Crafting Compelling Imagery”

 

 

“Concentrate your narrative energy on the point of change. . . .

When your character is in a new place,

or things alter around them,

that’s the point to step back

and fill in the details of their world.”

Hilary Mantel,

“23 Writing Tips from Booker-Prize Winning Authors”

 

 

“If you’re like most writers

the dominant sense is visual.

That’s because most of us write ‘by sight.’

That is, we include what we see and, sometimes,

what we hear.

Rarely what we smell, taste, or feel (as in the sense of touch).

If your writing tends to fall within this ‘mostly sight’ category,

you may fail to engage your readers.

If you want to write vivid memories,

then you must learn to remember vividly—

not just see, but smell, taste, feel, and hear those memories. . . .”

Amber Lea Starfire,

“From Memories to Memoir, Part 3—Remembering Vividly”

(See Amber’s whole post for step-by-step tips

on how to remember vividly.)

  

Look over your rough drafts and have fun crafting scenes that include what you want your readers to see, smell, taste, feel, and hear.

 

Are you too busy to write?

 

Life has been busy, busy, busy for the past few weeks, and I suspect you haven’t had time to write your stories.

 

But that’s not a problem.

 

Why not?

 

Because your brain and heart

are working even when you don’t have time

to sit down and get serious about

working on your memoir.

 

Christmas is a time of remembering. So many memories pop into our heads at this time of the year. If your memoir will include a vignette about Christmas, you’ll like today’s post.

 

What memories came to mind when you put decorations on your Christmas tree? Do you have ornaments that used to be your grandmother’s? Decorations you made as a child? Or that your kids made when they were little?

 

What memories came to mind when you sang Christmas songs at church, or when you watched your favorite old Christmas movie, baked a recipe from your childhood, or watched kids or grandkids perform in a Christmas pageant?

 

When you have a spare moment,

jot down a few key words and images

that will help you remember

those details later.

As George W. Carver said, "Do what you can, with what you have, and do it now."

 

For now, don’t worry about

composing a well-written vignette

for your memoir.

A few hurried notes to yourself

will be a big help later

when you compose

your detailed, polished stories.

Happy New Year!