Back to Basics: How do you write about your family’s baggage?

 

Your relatives and mine include a lot of fine people, but let’s be honest: Our family trees include at least a few dysfunctional people—parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles.

 

And our generation has skeletons in the closet. And maybe our kids and grandkids do, too. Every family has baggage.

 

You know—

• the one who should have protected you but didn’t
• the bully
• the controller
• the know-it-all
• the manipulator
• the narcissist
• the gossip
• the petty one who always looked for ways to take offense
• the wife-beater
• the critic
• the egotistical and self-absorbed
• the double-crosser
• the drunkard
• the liar
• the murderer
• the adulterer
• the sex addict
• the drug addict
• the thief.

 

Imperfect people have influenced you.

 

Some have played major roles in your life.

 

So . . . how should you write about them

and their baggage?

 

First, examine your motive. That is all-important!

 

Promise yourself to refrain from humiliating anyone. Refuse to get even. Avoid shaming. Remember: “Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:17, 21). (See last week’s post, Don’t start writing your memoir until. . . ”) 

 

Writing a memoir can bring

much-needed healing to you, so that’s good.

 

And you can help break the cycle

of hand-me-down hang-ups

that crippled your family’s generations—

just focus on the right reason

to write about people in your past.

 

“God’s Word clearly expresses what a good and effective teacher the past can be. The past will be a good teacher if we will simply approach it as a good student, from the perspective of what we can gain and how God can use it for His glory. (Beth Moore, Breaking  Free)

 

First, seek to be at peace with God:

 

Recognize that like your family members, you have made and will make mistakes in raising your children and relating to your grandchildren. Your flaws might be different than those of your relatives, but you have your own shortcomings. And failures. And dysfunctions. (Don’t miss an earlier post: A sobering reality: Everyone’s dysfunctional.)

 

Banish bitterness.

Ask for God’s forgiveness.

Accept His forgiveness.

Allow God to wrap you in His grace and mercy.

 

Wrapped in God’s grace and mercy—that’s where you find peace with God.

 

In writing your memoir,

you don’t have to act as if sins against you

and others were okay.

They were not.

 

But I encourage you offer your family members

the same forgiveness, grace, and mercy

God has extended to you.

(You might want to meet with a therapist—

just be sure he or she is competent.

Not all are trustworthy!)

 

Read the following slowly, and then read it again. Take in its message:

 

“Thank God that although you cannot change the past,

He can help you change what you’re doing with it!

And the changes He makes in you in the present

can certainly change the future!”

(Beth Moore, Breaking Free)

 

Next week we’ll continue with insights from William Zinsser, such a dear man, about how to write about those who wounded you. Don’t miss it. His message is powerful!

 

Don’t start writing your memoir until. . .

 “Do you love?” asks Beth Kephart. “Are you still learning to love?”

 

“It’s a question . . . we must repeatedly ask ourselves, especially when we’re writing memoir.” (Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir)

 

Beth, award-winning author of 23 books, including several memoirs, says:

• if we don’t know what we love,
• if we’re not capable of loving,
• if we’re focused too much on self (“if we’re stuck in a stingy, fisted-up place”),
• if we’re too angry,
• if we haven’t allowed grace to take the edge off disappointments,
• if “we haven’t stopped hurting long enough to look up and see the others who hurt with us,”
• if we “only have words . . . for our mighty wounds and our percolating scars,”
• . . . then it’s likely too soon to begin writing a memoir.

 

Beth says, “No memoir is worth reading if it is not leavened with beauty and love. And no memoirist should start her work until she can, with authority, write about the things she loves.”

 

She offers this starting point:

 

Make a list of little things that bring you happiness, those things that embrace beauty and goodness and love.

 

Beth’s not suggesting

you cover up your sorrows and wounds.

 

She says,

 

“Rest assured

you’ll be given a chance to tell the whole story soon.

But start, for now, with love.”

 

Read that again:

 

Beth’s not suggesting you cover up

your sorrows and wounds.

 

“Rest assured you’ll be given a chance

to tell the whole story. . . .

But start, for now, with love.”

 

Beth’s suggestion reminds me of Philippians 4:8, “Fix your thoughts on what is true and good and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely, and dwell on the fine, good things in others. Think about all you can praise God for and be glad about.” (The Living Bible)

 

The Message says it this way: “You’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.”

 

Eventually, you’ll likely include many types of vignettes/anecdotes in your memoir—adventure stories, sad stories, funny stories, heartbreaking stories, heartwarming stories.

 

By incorporating Beth’s suggestions,

by including love and gratitude,

writing your God-and-you stories

is a way to extend grace and mercy to others,

as well as to thank Him for all He has done for you.

 

Beth’s Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir is a rich resource for you. Consider adding it to your library.

 

Come back next week: We’ll look at how to write about baggage-carrying people. 

Back to Basics: How to make your memoir’s suspense reader-friendly

 

Donald Maass asks:

 

“Do you hope your [story] can change people

or even history?”

 

Maybe it has never occurred to you that your memoir could change people, and maybe even change history. Some people might think that a story is merely a form of entertainment. That reading is just for fun. Or maybe even an escape—a pleasant distraction from real-life situations.

 

What a mistake that is! Stories can be utterly powerful. Life-changing. Even life-giving. Even life-saving.

 

If you believe—or at least hope—that your memoir can impact people, and generations of your family, as Donald Maass suggests, he continues:

 

“Your hope is not in vain.

It actually can. That power, however,

cannot exist unless and until

a story has a strong emotional impact.”

(Donald Maass)

 

To give your memoir that strong emotional impact, you must include suspense. When readers experience the suspense you did, they’ll keep reading to learn the outcome.

 

And when people keep reading, they will benefit—their lives will change because they read your story. Believe it: Your memoir has the potential to change your readers’ lives.  (See last week’s post, “Make ‘em wait”.)

 

While it’s important to include suspense,

make those passages reader-friendly.

Readers don’t want to waste time with long,

drawn-out moaning and groaning.

 

“Readers don’t buy books that ponder problems,” writes Chip MacGregor. “They buy books that offer great solutions to their problems. So offer good solutions.” (Memorable Words)

 

In MacGregor’s opinion, we should reveal the cause of the suspense—the dispute, the unwelcome surprise, the emotional tug-of-war, the threat, the challenge—in a condensed way. And then we should get on with the rest of the story.

 

But wait! We don’t want

to downplay the suspense

too much, either!

 

K.S. Davis teaches her students (both fiction and memoir-writers) to avoid a “failure to sustain key moments.” That is, moments of tension and suspense and emotion.

 

In some of her students’ rough drafts, Davis discovered key moments “were just going by too quickly.” To remedy that, she advises, “. . . Writers, don’t be afraid to slow down and ‘linger.’

 

“Make sure you are devoting sufficient space to the ‘key moments’ in your manuscript so that they register with your readers. Your writing will resonate much more clearly and vividly if you do.”

 

Davis says we can achieve that by using dialogue, summarizing unspoken thoughts, and using nuance.

 

So, the combined message

from Chip MacGregor and K.S. Davis is this:

Find a healthy balance

in writing passages of suspense

and drama and emotion.

 

K.M. Weiland says it this way:

 

“Stories are about balance. A tale in which there is no conflict is going to be just about as boring as watching condensation dissipate.

 

“But a tale that never pauses to let its characters (or its readers) catch their breath is boring in its own way. We have to find ways to adjust the level of conflict.”

 

You’re probably muttering, “Easier said than done.” I agree. Here’s what I’ve found helpful:

 

I draft a couple of versions of a vignette or chapter and play around with the conflict and suspense. I condense. Reorganize. (I’m so glad we live in the days of computers instead of typewriters! Back in my younger years, if I wanted to change just one word—or even one comma—I had to retype the entire page!)

 

Then I set aside the manuscript for a week or so. Later I’ll take a fresh look at it. By then I will have a better perspective on what works and what doesn’t.

 

Also, if you’re not part of a writers’ critique group, I highly recommend you join one. Just be sure it’s a quality critique group. Not all of them are helpful, professional, and supportive.

 

Write your stories!

And have fun!

 

Back to Basics: “Make ‘em wait”

  

Continuing with

“Make ‘em cry, make ‘em laugh, make ‘em wait.”

Wilkie Collins (1824-1889)

 

Why should you avoid opening a story in the following way? 

 

“We eventually found Old John, alive, buried under four feet of tree limbs—the elephant had buried him the way elephants bury their own—but for six hours we didn’t know if we’d ever find him, dead or alive.”

 

If you begin your story this way, you have given away your ending. That weakens the power of your story. It diminishes readers’ involvement.

 

Giving away the ending spoils 

an essential element of a good story: 

suspense.

 

Remember this definition:

 

A quality story “will consist of a real person who is confronted with a significant problem, who struggles diligently to solve that problem, and who ultimately succeeds—and in doing so becomes a different character” (Jon Franklin, Writing for Story). Note the tension and suspense: (1) a significant problem which (2) the character struggles diligently to solve.

 

In other words, “A story consists of a sequence of actions that occur when a sympathetic character encounters a complicating situation that he confronts and solves” (Jon Franklin, Writing for Story). Note the tension and suspense: (1) a complicating situation which (2) the character confronts. (Jon Franklin is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and a well-known pioneer in creative nonfiction.)

 

Writers develop what Franklin calls “a sympathetic character” and “a real person” when they make readers cry and laugh, which we covered in previous blog posts, based on Wilkie Collins’ quote, “Make ‘em cry, make ‘em laugh, make ‘em wait. (See recent posts if you missed them.)

 

Today let’s take a closer look at Collins’ advice to “make ‘em wait” for resolution.

 

After all, as you lived the stories in your memoir, you endured a time lag—maybe months, maybe years—before you found resolution.

 

You didn’t know how the incident would end.

You had to wait. Make your readers wait, too.

 

Here’s why: Readers open the pages of your book because they want to learn from you. They know you weren’t handed an easy fix—that’s not the way life or God work—so they don’t want you to offer them a trite, instant, easy fix.

 

“We desperately want our situation solved. We want resolution. But God unfolds the plot in his own time. It is in our months or years of waiting that our story comes to maturity” (Dan Allender, To Be Told).

 

James wrote about coming to maturity when he penned, “the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its good work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:3-4).

 

Readers know you came to the maturity

that James and Allender highlight

—they just don’t know how—

and they want to discover it.

They want to mine the gems that formed

during your coming to maturity.

 

Pat answers or platitudes won’t do.

They want the real thing:

 

They want to tag along with you

to see how, step by step, you dealt with your problem

so they can deal with theirs.

 

Step by step means you let readers experience the suspense you experienced. “Make ‘em wait.”

 

Perhaps your calamity, your unwelcome surprise, your tragedy arose from cancer, or an addiction—yours or someone else’s.

 

Maybe, like friends of mine, you were kidnapped by Marxist guerrillas.

 

Perhaps you were a victim of road rage or of a mass shooting.

 

Or maybe you said, “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15), and that led to being misunderstood and scorned, and it required sacrifice and courage beyond your expectation.

 

Perhaps your child got into trouble with the law, or your spouse betrayed you. Or you lost your job and health insurance, and then you lost your house.

 

Whatever your incident, spell it out for readers.

 

Keep in mind that making ‘em cry

will be a companion to making ‘em wait;

they will be intertwined.

Specify, in sufficient depth,

why your crisis made you “cry”

and invite readers to “cry” with you.

 

Just be sure to hold readers captive.

 

Explain what was at stake. What were the possible outcomes? Which did you hope for? Why? Which outcome did you fear most? Why?

 

Detail the complications and disappointments and setbacks.

 

Share your doubts.

 

Unravel the story as you lived it—unable to see into the future—and let readers unravel it with you.

 

Pull readers in. If you gave in to despair, write in such a way that readers experience your despair with you.

 

Admit to weeks or years of faltering faith.

 

Tell about your tears, sleepless nights, and prayers.

 

Describe the times God seemed silent.

 

Keep your frustrated goals before your readers. Leave them hanging.

 

Make them curious: Leave readers wondering about the outcome.

 

When they finish a chapter of your memoir, make ‘em worry for you. Make ‘em wonder what will happen in the next chapter.

 

Save the resolution for the conclusion. When that time comes, tie everything together. Make sense of your crisis.

 

In good memoir form, tell how you changed and matured, how you knew God better than before, how you came to understand His ways and His love. How did the experience strengthen your faith for future situations? What new person did you become as a result of the experience?

 

Keep up the suspense.

 

Don’t tell readers the end until the end!

 

Back to Basics: Use humor “like a sneak attack”

 

Years ago, I ran across a brilliant technique you can use in writing your memoir.

 

Johnny B. Truant told a story from his high school years when 1,200 students gathered for an assembly—but no one knew why.

 

Two men took the stage and, instead of telling why they were there, they told jokes and funny stories, commiserated with students about how bad high school is, and poked fun at teachers and administrators.

 

“We liked these guys,” Johnny said. “They thought like we did. Their stories were interesting and fun. We settled in and relaxed.”

 

“We stopped caring why we’d been called to the assembly. Someone made a mistake and had booked pure entertainment, but we weren’t about to complain.”

 

“But everything changed about halfway through the talk.

“It was like a sneak attack:

it was on us before we knew it was coming.”

 

The guest speakers started talking about AIDS, abstinence, teenage drinking, and drug use.

 

“It was all the stuff that adults usually talk to teenagers about—the stuff teenagers usually roll their eyes at.

 

“But we weren’t rolling our eyes. We were listening. We’d been transfixed.”

 

The speakers didn’t preach that AIDS is something to avoid.

 

Instead, they brought the crowd back to a girl they’d talked about in their funny stories—and told them she died of HIV.

 

They didn’t tell the students not to drink and drive.

 

Instead, they brought the crowd back to a boy they’d heard about earlier in the funny stories—and told them he was hit by a drunk driver and spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair.

 

Afterward, when those 1,200 kids filed out of the auditorium, Johnny says, “Most of the kids who streamed past me were silent or crying.”

 

Those guest speakers had come to urge the teens to avoid dumb choices and reckless living and peer pressure and, instead, to be smart, to make the right choices.

 

Usually, high schoolers thumb their noses at adults who try to tell them such things, “But because they did their selling through stories, we’d bought it all,” remembers Johnny.

 

What do you think? Isn’t that a brilliant technique? A winning method?

 

Using humor in the beginning was a factor in their story’s success—which brings us back to last week’s post and the importance of making ‘em laugh in your memoir.

 

Humor establishes a bond between you and your readers. It makes you seem real. Humor endears you to them. It makes them enjoy you. They’ll remember you and your story.

 

Including at least a little humor early in your memoir can do all that for your readers. (Maybe your memoir does not lend itself to humor—a small number don’t—but I encourage everyone else to consider using it.)

 

If you can get your readers to laugh, they’ll let their guard down a bit. That will make them more interested in what you tell them later—in the takeaways you will offer them. (Click on Your memoir’s all-important takeaways.)

 

Think of this:

You don’t know who your readers might be.

You’re writing your memoir

for people who come after you,

perhaps generations not yet born.

You can’t look into the future

to know what their situations and challenges might be.

 

But you do know everyone has hardships and heartaches.

Everyone needs wisdom to make important decisions

and to live their lives well,

and your memoir’s stories could help readers

find their way through the bumps 

and potholes in the road of life.

 

Remember: God used other people’s stories

to help make you who you are.

Their stories rubbed off on you.

It’s as if other people’s stories are infectious. Contagious.

 

Someone’s story:

• taught you how to be courageous
• showed you how to live an honorable life
• helped keep your faith strong
• helped you not give up hope
• kept you on the right track
• inspired you
• passed on wisdom
• pointed you to God.

 

Now it’s your turn. In the same way other people’s stories helped you, you can help others.

 

Your stories are important, so try the techniques those guest speakers did:

 

Win over your readers with comedy, and then carry out your sneak attack: Bring out the deeper lessons of your stories.

 

To help you get started:

 

Who impressed upon you the importance of safe driving, or standing up to peer pressure, or the consequences of cheating or lying? What are your stories? Write them. Try to include some humor.

 

Who taught you the merits of keeping a promise, or arriving at work on time, or being loyal? What are your stories? Write them. Search for ways to include something funny.

 

If you want to pass on

important lessons

to future generations,

write engaging stories

with well-developed characters.

And consider using humor

to draw them in.