Back to Basics: Write a believable story by including the stink, slime, and grime

 

Readers want stories that catch their attention and reach into their hearts. They want stories that will stick—stories that will make a difference in their lives. 

 

To that end, in recent weeks we’ve worked on creating well-rounded main characters your readers can relate to. (Click on How to create “a sensory world that you and your readers can inhabit together” as well as Refuse to let cardboard characters lurk in your memoir.)

 

We’ve also worked on crafting the best descriptions of your memoir’s key places so readers feel they’re with you at that place.  (See The importance of “place,” and How’s your progress in describing your memoir’s key places?)

 

In addition, you’ll want to write a believable story.

And for that, you must include 

the stink, the slime, and the grime.

 

In Walker in the City (1951), Alfred Kazin has returned to his childhood home in the Brownsville district of Brooklyn. He writes about everyday sights and experiences. He creates vivid images and includes sensory details:

 

“The greasy, spattered front steps, just off the Chinese hand laundry in the basement, led into what must have been the vestibule of a traditionally stately Brooklyn Heights mansion. Despite the metal shields holding up the battered front door, you could see that it once had been a beautiful door….

 

“…I step off the train at Rockaway Avenue, smell the leak out of the men’s room, then the pickles from the stand below the subway steps…. An instant rage comes over me, mixed with dread and some unexpected tenderness.

 

“It is always the old women in their shapeless flowered housedresses and ritual wigs I see first; they give Brownsville back to me. In their soft dumpy bodies and the unbudging way they occupy the tenement stoops, their hands blankly folded in each other as if they had been sitting on those stoops from the beginning of time, I sense again the old foreboding that all my life would be like this.” (From Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir, William Zinsser)

 

Perhaps your story is set in a country’s slums. Remember from our recent posts: Show, don’t tell.

 

Instead of telling people that children clawed through acres of garbage searching for something to eat—show readers. Describe the raw sewage flowing between row after row of rusty, crumbling, patched-together dwellings. Include sensory details:  smells, sounds, feels, tastes, and sights.

 

Show, don’t tell the extreme poverty of the slum-dwellers and their lack of good nutrition. Show the people too poor to get medical help for their diseases. Show the high mortality rate among children under age five. Show the dense population, filth, and environmental hazards. Include the high unemployment rate and the lack of educational opportunities. Show that almost no slum-dwellers have electricity or running water. Show the kidnappings and rapes.

 

“Some budding memoirists rush through a scene

without stopping to smell the rain on the pavement.

Granted, you don't want

to overwhelm your readers with details;

you have to keep the story moving along.

If the scene or event is crucial,

slow down and describe it so that the reader

can experience it with you.”

Sharon DeBartolo Carmack

 

Use specific words, compelling words. Gritty words.

Study old photos to discern specific details you might have forgotten. Did you write letters or emails about your experience? Did you keep a diary?  If so, they’re great resources for you.

 

Avoid sugar-coating.

Recreate your experience so readers will feel

they’re beside you, encountering what you did.

 

“ . . . feel the rush and throb of real life.”

O. Henry

 

Remember this good advice from Rhys Alexander:

 

“Detail makes the difference between 

boring and terrific writing. 

It’s the difference between a pencil sketch 

and a lush oil painting. 

As a writer, words are your paint. 

Use all the colors.” 

(“Writing Gooder”)

 

Back to Basics: Refuse to let cardboard characters lurk in your memoir!

 

“No one wants to be known for writing flat, boring, cardboard characters,” says Carly Sandifer.

 

“. . . Pick the particularly telling details that can make the difference between a cardboard character and a real, live person,” Judith Barrington says. It’s a matter “of selecting those few [details] that capture the essence of the person . . . .” (Writing the Memoir)

 

That’s your goal as a memoirist: “Capture the essence of the person.”

 

How, specifically, can you do that?

 

By employing the good old tried-and-true principle:

SHOW, DON’T TELL.

SHOW your main characters to your readers

rather than TELL readers about them.

 

“Why do we need to show?” asks author Cecil Murphey. “Telling is like overhearing someone talk about another person. Showing is like meeting the person.”

 

For example, instead of telling readers that a lady was “beautiful,”

show readers—describe her in such a way

that your reader will conclude for himself, “She was beautiful.”

 

Mark and Delia Owens could have told readers that Lionel was a problem drinker and a partier, but instead, they showed readers. They wrote:

 

“Lionel Palmer, deeply tanned, his dark hair brushed with grey, was dressed in baggy jeans, a cowboy shirt, and a bandana. He sauntered out to greet us, holding a glass of whisky in his hand. The oldest and most experienced professional hunter in the area, Lionel held considerable social position in Maun. He was famous for his parties, where bedroom furniture sometimes ended up on the roof, and once a Land Rover had been hung in a fig tree—and for his capacity for Scotch. Once, after several days of intoxication, he woke up with a stabbing earache. The doctor at the clinic removed a two-inch-long sausage fly—a reddish-brown tubelike, winged insect—which had taken up residence in Lionel’s numbed ear while he slept off his drunkenness in a flowerbed. For a week Lionel carried the fly’s carcass bedded down in a cotton-lined matchbox, proudly showing it to everyone he met, whether or not he knew them.” (Cry of the Kalahari)

 

Notice the way author Kristin Hanna showed Anouk to readers:

 

"Isabelle looked up, expecting to see German soldiers, but it was Anouk. She was dressed, as usual, more for her temperament than the season, in all black. A fitted V-neck black sweater and straight skirt with a black beret and gloves. A Gauloises cigarette hung from her bright red lips.

 

"She paused at the open doorway. . . . The Germans turned. Anouk let the door shut behind her. She casually lit her cigarette and inhaled deeply. . . .

 

"Anouk walked forward with a regal, disdainful air. . . . The Germans fell silent, watching her, moving sideways to let her pass. Isabelle heard one of them say ‘mannish’ and another ‘widow.’

 

"Anouk seemed not to notice them at all. At the counter she stopped and took a drag on her cigarette. The smoke blurred her face, and for a moment, only her cherry-red lips were noticeable. . . .

 

"Anouk turned and left the bookshop. It wasn’t until the bell tinkled that the spell broke and the [German] soldiers began speaking again.” (Nightingale)

 

Here’s another example, this one from Fred Craddock’s “Preaching as Storytelling”:

 

“‘There was this beggar sitting at the gate.’ Wait a minute. Give me a chance to experience the beggar at the gate. See the rags, smell the odor, hear the coins in the tin cup, see the hollow eyes.” (from The Art and Craft of Biblical Preaching)

 

Think about your memoir’s main characters.

 

If one of them was smarmy, find words to craft a scene showing readers he was creepy.

 

If she was weird, create a scene to show she was strange. Bizarre. Eccentric.

 

If he was intellectual, use words to show he was cerebral. Scholarly.

 

Let readers in on a person’s idiosyncrasies and gestures. Did she live life at a half-run, or did she plod through life?

 

Did he make people uncomfortable by standing too close when he talked with them?

 

Did he make a funny little noise in his throat when he was nervous?

 

Instead of telling readers “He was angry,” show them his clenched jaw, flared nostrils, red face, or cold flashing eyes. Let readers hear the yelling and the slammed door.

 

Capture sweet moments, hilarious times, personality quirks, demonstrations of courage, integrity, tenacity in the face of obstacles, or high adventure—all make for great reading.

 

Consider the following when developing your main characters. Was he/she:

 

Generous or selfish

Dull or quick-witted

Charming or dreary

Stand-offish or welcoming

Gentle or gruff

Thoughtful or insensitive

Tall or short

Plump or skinny

Young or old

Agile or awkward

Generous or stingy

Composed or nervous

Gloomy or merry

Foolish or wise

Erratic or steady

Polished or frumpy

Uncouth or refined

Hilarious or humorless

 

“This is the recording of everyday gestures, habits, manners, customs, . . . clothing, decoration, styles of traveling, eating, keeping house, modes of behaving toward children, servants, superiors, inferiors, peers, plus the various looks, glances, poses, styles of walking and other symbolic details that might exist. . . .” (Roy Peter Clark quoting Tom Wolfe)

 

Your job is to develop multi-dimensional,

memorable, compelling, well-rounded personalities.

 

Capture unique details about your main characters—

physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual.

Reveal personality, beliefs, idiosyncrasies, and heart.

 

Develop characters your readers can experience

in the ways you experienced them.

 

 Take a minute to read Cecil Murphey’s post, “Show me! Show me!”

 

You’ll also enjoy Carly Sandifer’s post, “What I learned from Truman Capote about character description.” In it, Carly wrote, “Capote didn’t have to write about [tell readers about] his character, ‘She was a moral person,’ because he shows it.”

 

Back to Basics: How to create “a sensory world that you and your readers can inhabit together”

 

I can’t remember the book’s title or author but, some fifteen years later, I still recall the main character—but not in a positive way. I knew almost nothing of her physical appearance or inner qualities.

 

The author had created a stick figure. I had little interest in the longings of the character’s heart or the setbacks she faced. I wasn’t cheering for her.

 

When you write your memoir, avoid making the same mistake. Make key people come alive! Help readers to sense they’re with you in your experience, seeing what you’re seeing, smelling what you’re smelling, hearing conversations alongside you.

 

Roy Peter Clark, one of my favorite writing mentors, says:

 

“In the best of cases—when craft rises to art—the author conjures a character that seems fully present to the reader, a man standing against that very light post waving you over for a conversation.” (“Keeping it real: how round characters grow from the seeds of detail”)

 

I like that: Characters that seem “fully present to the reader.”

 

Write so your memoir’s central characters become more than a shadow in the corner.

 

That’s often easier said than done.

 

In his webinar entitled “They Walk! They Talk! Secrets to Writing Engaging Characters and Vivid Dialogue,” Dinty Moore said:

 

“Characterization in memoir is always a challenge:

how can we make the people we know feel as real

and alive for readers as they do to us?

 

As writers, we must remember that

our readers have never met the people in our memoir;

they know only what we tell them.

 

And sometimes, we know our characters—

family, friends, enemies—so well

that we forget we need to introduce them

in all their complexity. . . .”

(Dinty Moore)

 

How do you do that?

 

For starters, this week we’re paying attention to sensory details: sight, smell, feel, sound, and taste.

Judith Barrington explained, “This is not a matter of throwing an abundance of details—say, of a person's visual appearance—at the reader, but of selecting those few that capture the essence of the person . . . a quirk of speech, a mannerism, the way his hair falls across his face, an item of clothing, the smell of her, or how she walks.” (Writing the Memoir) 

 

Study William Kent Krueger's uses of sight (what a reader would see—would envision) in this example about a man named Wally Schanno in Iron Lake:

“In his mid-fifties, he was tall and lean, had hollow cheeks, thick pale lips, and a nose like a big ragged chunk of granite shoved in his face. . . . His enormous feet required shoes factory-ordered straight from Red Wing, Minnesota. . . . He had a penchant for suspenders—nothing wild, just plain red, or black, or gray—and he almost never sported a tie.”

Let me share a personal story. We were attending a gathering in Seattle, Washington, when my daughter Karen overheard someone—someone she didn't know—refer to her three sons as “surfer boys.” Now, Karen and her husband live in Malibu, California, and indeed their boys are surfers. But she was surprised a stranger could look at her boys and recognize they were surfers.

It shook her up. “Mom,” she whispered, “how could they know my boys are surfers?” Karen was so immersed in the surfer culture that her boys looked normal to her, no different from other people. She needed to step back and pin down her surfer-sons' prominent attributes.

Take a fresh look at key persons in your memoir. 

What unique features would others like or need to know?

For example, what makes surfers look different from most other Americans? Their hair often gives them away. Surfer guys' hair is longer than most guys' hair, unruly—tousled and tangled—sun-bleached, and often stiff from saltwater. Surfers usually have deep tans on their muscular bodies. They often have salt caked on their eyelashes. They walk around with sand sticking to their feet and legs, which they bring with them into their trucks and homes. You'll often see a black wetsuit drying on the porch railing.

What does a surfer sound like? Pin down his vocabulary. If something is  “gnarly,” it is awesome. If he describes a fellow surfer as being “goofy-footed,” he's talking about someone who places his right foot (instead of his left foot) at the front of the surfboard.

What distinctive features can you include in describing your key people? Maybe a woman in your story spoke with a Canadian accent and pronounced “out” and “about” in that distinctive Canadian way. (I can poke fun at Canadians because I'm related to a number of them. In fact, I'm told I have a Canadian accent.) If a character was a ballerina, did she walk tall and straight and gracefully? Use sensory details to describe them.

For example, if a reader had stood with you in the presence of a pastry chef or a dairy farmer, what would your reader have seen, smelled, felt, heard, or tasted?

 

Think about sitting on your dad’s lap when you were a little kid. Did you smell his aftershave? Or the beer on his breath?

 

Kathleen Pooler, in her vignette “Seeds of Faith,” wrote of what she smelled, heard, and felt when visiting her great-grandmother:

 

“I sat on the edge of the bed and she pulled me close. . . . ‘God bless. God bless,’ she whispered. The musty scent of age lingered as she gently rubbed my back. . . . Her tiny hands felt smooth, like a soft leather glove.”

 

Incorporate a person’s facial expression. What did your boss’s eyes look like when he was mad at you?

 

When you hid in the woods and smoked cigarettes after school, how could you tell, when you got home, that your mother had already found out? What did her face look like—her eyes, her mouth? Did her nostrils flare? What did her voice sound like? Did she yell, or did she give you the silent treatment? Did she cry? Or laugh?

 

Look over your rough drafts and breathe life into your memoir’s main characters.

 

“Pull your readers closer . . . into a sensory world

that you and your readers can inhabit together.”

(Judith Barrington, Writing the Memoir)

 

Come back next week: I’ll share more secrets

on how to develop your memoir’s main characters.

 

Back to Basics: Who are the significant people in your life?

 

Think about an individual who made a significant impact on your life—someone who changed you, whose life still ripples through yours today even if you live far apart, or even if that person has died:

• A soldier
• Fireman
• Parent
• Grandparent
• Aunt or uncle or cousin
• Preacher
• Teacher
• Singer
• Supervisor
• Janitor
• Missionary
• Neighbor
• Doctor
• Store clerk
• Professor
• Farmer
• Policeman
• Classmate
• Teammate
• College roommate

 

What, specifically, did she do that impacted your life?

What words did he say that made all the difference?

What good example did she live which inspired you to live in the same way?

How did his choices give you the courage to shape yours?

How different could your life have turned out without that person’s involvement?

 

You’ll want to include some of these people in your memoir.

 

Memoirist Kathy Pooler (who recently passed away) reminded us: “Hindsight seems to bring about new clarity and wisdom,” so take time—make time—to seek clarity and wisdom to discern how God brought people into your life and made you who you are today.

 

You might not have recognized, back then, 

the significance of that person’s mark on your life, 

so dig deep into your memory.

 

Note the ways God used them to protect you, give you hope, maybe redirect you, and strengthen your faith.

 

Start writing even before you have remembered everything,

even before you know where your story is going,

or how it will end.

 

Why?

 

Because much more hides within your experience than you realize right now. Writing leads to discovery. Roger Housden says it this way:

 

“[A]s much as we think we know about our story, there is far more waiting to surprise us when our own words hit the page.”

 

So, write your stories!

 

Write them not as a hobby,

but as a ministry to your family and friends

—and even to strangers.

 

Your kids and grandkids and great-grands—and all your readers—need to know about the people who invested in you and guided you—and probably even kept you from doing something stupid.

 

Just think: Your stories could have a life-changing impact on your readers, passing the original blessings on to future generations.

 

“There are generations yet unborn

whose very lives will be shifted and shaped

by the moves you make and the actions you take today. . . .”

(Andy Andrews, The Butterfly Effect)

 

Come back next week: I’ll offer specifics to help you write about key people in your life.