Back to Basics: “Make ‘em cry” by re-living the painful parts so that you can write them

 

Have you made progress in applying “make ‘em cry” to your memoir? I hope so! (Click on last week’s Make ‘em cry, make ‘em laugh, make ‘em wait.)

If you’re a writer, or want to be a writer, follow Wilkie Collins’ counsel, “Make ‘em cry, make ‘em laugh, make ‘em wait” because those three keep readers engaged in your story.

 

By “engaged,” I mean that if readers can get into your story,

they can grasp what you’re offering them.

 

Yes, I said, “what you’re offering them.”

 

Readers want to get something for themselves from your memoir.

 

Ron Hutchcraft explained how that can work:

“Often, a major life-storm means a major life-loss of some kind: your health, your income, your future plans, your marriage, your loved one.  And that loss leaves a gaping hole. . . .

“But after the storm, you have a choice. Let your loss—and the hole it leaves—define your life from now on. Goodbye, hope.

“Or begin to rebuild your life around that hole. And to rebuild your life on what you've learned from that loss. Now that's a blueprint for hope.  From the devastation of one storm comes a new strength to withstand future storms.”

  

That’s what you can offer readers:

Tell them what you ascertained about hope,

and how you learned that

 “from the devastation . . . comes a new strength

to withstand the storms.”

 

You see, if they recognize they have something in common with you,

they can find courage and healing and solutions the way you did.

 

Readers are looking for the takeaways you extend to them.

 

Takeaways are your insights—the lessons you learned—

which they can apply to their own lives,

gems you uncovered that will guide them in the future,

a reason to trust God,

a better understanding of themselves,

and a resource for living well.

 

That means you must write your story.

 

But that means you must re-live the painful parts so that you can write them.

 

And today I offer you help with that: 

 

When you’re ready to write—even the blistered parts—Bill Roorbach, in his Writing Life Stories, explains a creative, helpful way to (a) recall situations that made you cry, and then (b) write about them.

 

Bill suggests you utilize method writing, a spin-off of method acting.

 

Here’s how method acting works:

 

Before the curtain rises, the actor remembers an occasion in which he experienced the emotion he needs to act out. He spends time reliving that emotion so that when he steps on stage, he’s all wrapped up in the ache or the passion or the anger and succeeds in playing his part.

 

Method writing, then, requires you to step out of the present and into the past. If you’re writing about a tragic event, take time (set aside time) to remember the event and relive it so you can rediscover the emotions you felt.

 

Avoid over-the-top hysteria

but be honest in admitting your emotional response.

 

In the midst of the reliving, ask yourself:

 

• What was at stake? What did I have to lose or gain?
• What dreams would never come true?
• At the time, how did I envision my life would never be the same?
• Where would I find courage to live another day?
• What were my fears?
• My hopes?
• My prayers?

 

When you’re caught up in the emotion, get it onto paper or computer screen.

 

Your “emotion should be so realistic and gripping that the reader can’t help but feel it too. . .” (Becca Puglisi)

 

To paraphrase Larry Brooks, make your readers happy they are not there, yet grateful to feel what it was like to be you.

 

Emotion: That’s how you create a way for readers to join you in your story, to make them care, to compel them to keep reading, and to find the gems and blessings you’re offering them.

For now, make 'em cry. In future weeks, we'll make 'em laugh and make 'em wait.

Using method writing to make ‘em cry: Your memoir must evoke an emotional response

 

“Leave your readers with their mouths open in awe, or laughing hysterically, or crying tears of sympathy and sadness—all three,” writes The Write Life Team.

 

Why?

 

Because that keeps audiences engaged. And that’s important because it enables them to join you in your experience, learn from you, and apply your life lessons to their own lives.

 

I’m talking about offering readers takeaways: your insights that they can apply to their own lives, lessons you learned that will guide them in the future, a resource for living life well, a reason to hope, a reason to trust God, and a better understanding of themselves.

 

And so, your memoir needs to evoke an emotional response in readers.

 

“Take them on an emotional journey which will provoke them to read the next chapter, [and] wonder about you well after they finish the last page,” the Write Life Team continues.

 

“The best way to evoke these feelings in your readers is to connect your emotions . . . with pivotal events happening through your narrative arc [plot].”

 

Regarding that narrative arc, or plot, the Team says, “In school, our teachers used to draw a ‘mountain’ and once we reached the precipice, we were to fill in the climactic point of the book. . . . You need to create enough tension to shape your overall story, as well as each individual chapter, with that narrative arc.” (The Write Life Team)

 

With that in mind, let’s get back to what we’ve been studying in recent weeks, Wilkie Collins’s advice to writers: “Make ‘em cry, make ‘em laugh, make ‘em wait.”

 

Making readers cry means that in order for you to write about your painful experiences, you must re-live that pain. (See Make ‘em cry along with you as you cry.)

 

When you’re ready to write the seared, charred, blistered parts, Bill Roorbach, in his Writing Life Stories, suggests you utilize method writing, a spin-off of method acting.

 

Here’s how method acting works: Before the curtain rises, the actor remembers a time in which he experienced the emotion he needs to act out. He spends time reliving that emotion so that when he steps on stage, he’s all wrapped up in that emotion and succeeds in playing his part.

 

Method writing, then, requires you to step out of the present and into the past. If you’re writing about a tragic event, take time (make time) to remember the event and relive it so you can discover the emotions you felt.

 

Avoid over-the-top hysteria but be honest in admitting your emotions.

 

While reliving that situation and emotion, ask yourself:

 

• What was at stake? What did I have to lose or gain?
• What dreams would never come true?
• At the time, how did I envision my life would never be the same?
• What did I fear most?
• Where would I find courage to live another day?
• What did I pray for??—beg God for?

 

When you’re caught up again in that emotion, get it onto paper or computer screen. Remember: You’re only writing a rough draft. You can revise it later. For now, begin by searching for the best words.

 

Your “emotion should be so realistic and gripping

that the reader can’t help but feel it too.”

(Becca Puglisi)

 

Before people buy your memoir, they’ll check out its opening

Reading time: 2 minutes, 10 seconds

Anne R. Allen points out that when potential buyers check into a book, “. . . All readers want to see that a book looks professional and polished.

“They don’t want to invest time in a book—even if it’s free—unless they feel they’re in competent hands.”

And your competence, or lack of it, will be apparent from the first paragraph and first page so you need to work hard to make them shine.

Craft an opening that catches potential readers’ attention, stirs their emotions, and makes them curious to know more—in other words, an opening that inspires them to plunk down money for your memoir and read it.  

Keep this in mind: You’re not on your own in fashioning your memoir’s opening:   

• You can get outstanding help from a quality critique group, either in person or online. Such groups are invaluable! Let your critique partners experiment with you on crafting a powerful lead (opening, beginning).
• We here at SM 101 are also here to help.

We’ve already covered the following types of leads—The Quote Lead and

The Scene-setting Lead. (If you missed recent blog posts, click on links below.)

So today let’s continue with more options for creating a powerful start to your memoir:

The Action (or Narrative) Lead: “The dusty earth vibrated and bushes crashed, snapping the silence of the tawny African plain. . . . We caught a blurred glimpse of some creature approaching us, carving a path through the dense thorn scrub brush. Two tick-eating birds flapped frantically off a massive iron-grey back as their resting place lunged out from under them. Now we saw clearly what was heading our way. It was a rhinoceros, one of Africa’s most unpredictable animals.” (Dr. Jon Arensen, Rhino!)

(Jon and I worked together in Africa. Besides being a great storyteller and author, Jon is an anthropologist, linguist, Bible translator, and university professor. Look into Jon’s other books on Amazon.)

The Anecdote Lead: Use a short story to illustrate or personalize your story’s broader topic or main point.

For example, this anecdote kicks off a story about a broad topic, the proliferation of gun violence across America:

“Even before the fireworks launched from the French Quarter’s Jackson Square, 2006 went out with a bang in New Orleans—a handful of them, actually. At 7 p.m. on December 31, several of those bangs felled a 42-year-old man, who was found inside his FEMA trailer with multiple gunshot wounds to the back of his head. At 8:45 p.m., another man was shot several times and left dead on the sidewalk. At 10:12 p.m., a third was killed inside his home.” (The New Math on Crime, by Will Sullivan, U.S. News and World Report, January 15, 2007).

A Statistics Lead, if brief, can effectively catch readers’ attention and persuade them to keep reading.

For example, “Around the world, 925 million people—more than the populations of North America and South America combined—go hungry on a daily basis,” and Guatemala “has the highest percentage of chronically malnourished children in Latin America (the fourth highest in the world). In some areas, chronic malnutrition causes 90 percent of children to suffer.” (World Vision)

Lead-writing can be hard work, even for pros. Like Bill Roorbach said,

“ . . . Most first lines weren’t first till after much revision. . . .”

That means: Give yourself permission to take weeks, or months, or even years to settle on your memoir’s opening. 

An effective beginning can motivate a person to buy your book,

but a weak one could persuade him to close your memoir 

and walk away.

Next week: More ways to begin your memoir!

Related posts:

The Quote Lead

The Scene-setting Lead

Does your memoir’s beginning pass the test?

Does your opening make your memoir a must-read?

If you don’t get this right, you’ll lose readers. 

Why should you wait to write your memoir’s opening?

Share your memoir’s first seven sentences with us

Memoirist Kathy Pooler tagged me and several others on Facebook recently, inviting us to share the first seven sentences of our WIP (work in progress). That was fun!

Today we invite you to share your openings, as well.

But first, for inspiration, read four brief sample openings, below:  

Here’s an excerpt from the Prologue of Kathleen Pooler’s second memoir, Daring to Hope: A Mother’s Story of Healing from Cancer and Her Son’s Alcohol Addiction:

For as long as I can remember, it has always been my role to mother my children whether that meant jumping in to fix every little mishap or showing love for their hurts and boo-boos. Eventually as they grew up, I would need to learn to let go and let my children navigate their lives on their own.  

This has been by far, the hardest lesson for me as a parent to learn. As a mother of an addicted son, my understanding of mothering was fearfully tested. 

I always loved my son but hated what he was doing to himself with his drinking which time after time left him foundering and me wringing my hands in angst in an endless series of self-defeating activities.
          
When he was a toddler, I could just pick him up and remove him from a dangerous situation. I could protect him. But as he grew, he tested my limits. I could not have known that the seven-year-old who screamed, “Look Ma, no hands” at the top of the pine tree would one day as a young adult find himself stranded, homeless, jobless and utterly alone.

Below are the first few sentences of my soon-to-be-published memoir, working title Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go!

I sat shoulder-to-shoulder with Roland, a seasoned bush aviator, as he piloted the custom twin-engine toward a Colombian airfield. I’d flown in our planes several times, but this was a first—watching the landing from the copilot’s seat. 

Dipping low, three or four seconds from touchdown, the wing on my side catapulted into the air and the plane veered to the left, lopsided and convulsing. Red lights flashed in the cockpit. A buzzer blared. Roland jerked levers and slapped switches and punched buttons.  

Please, God! I prayed, but I couldn’t say more—I couldn’t breathe. Of all the potential dangers I’d worried about for that trip—kidnapping, murder, and guerrilla activity aimed toward U.S. citizens—I’d never imagined a plane crash.

The next excerpt is from the beginning of Abigail Thomas’s A Three Dog Life: A Memoir:

This is the one thing that stays the same: my husband got hurt. Everything else changes. A grandson needs me and then he doesn’t. My children are close then one drifts away. I smoke and don’t smoke; I knit ponchos, then hats, shawls, hats again, stop knitting, start up again. The clock ticks, the seasons shift, the night sky rearranges itself, but my husband remains constant, his injuries are permanent. He grounds me. Rich is where I shine. I can count on myself with him.

And his is from the Prologue of Richard Gilbert’s Shepherd: A Memoir:

Childhood dreams cast long shadows into a life. As if the strong feelings they stir prove their validity, dreams propel the dreamer through an indifferent world. Which explains how I, a guy who grew up in a Florida beach town, find myself crouched beside a suffering sheep in an Appalachian pasture. 

“Richard, I think you should call the vent,” says my wife. Kathy and I flank the ewe’s prostrate body. 

Our third lambing has just begun this spring of 2001, and Red is in trouble. I’d found the little ewe in distress and had urged her up and nudged her inside an old shed, where she’d collapsed and resumed straining, panting as if in labor. But nothing happens; no lambs, hour after hour.

Okay, now it’s your turn! Post your first few sentences (up to ten sentences) below in the comments, or as a comment on SM 101’s Facebook Page, or in a private message.

The following posts will help you craft your memoir’s opening:

First lines    

Readers don’t want us to dilly dally around   

Openings: the hardest part

Readers don’t want us to dillydally around

We mustn't waste our readers' time. We need to grab their attention from the outset, from the first sentence and the first paragraphs of our memoirs.

How do we do that? By deliberately crafting an opening to draw them in.

We need to make our readers curious. To hook them. To keep them reading.

But most writers don't know how to craft an effective opening. In fact, many of us don't even know what, specifically, we want to communicate.

So we scatter a few words and sentences across our computer screen and then we add or delete or move a few words—until we realize we're just flailing around. And we thank God nobody is reading over our shoulder because first attempts can be really embarrassing.

But don't worry. Believe it or not, we are making progress. We are experimenting and, in the process, we're constructing scaffolding which will help us build a sturdy opening. Really.

Our scaffolding gets us going, provides momentum, and helps us zero in on the story we want to write.

"As the tennis player rallies before the game begins,

so must the writer.

And as the tennis player

is not concerned with where those first balls are going,

neither must the writer be concerned

with the first paragraph or two.

All you're doing is warming up."

Leonard S. Bernstein

Decades ago, I learned about scaffolding from Donald Murray, and later from Roy Peter Clark and Don Fry, authors of Coaching Writers: Editors and Writers Working Together. They say, 

". . . Sometimes the writer must write her way into the story, creating sentences that can't appear in the final version but do get the writer to where she wants to go. So the writer erects a scaffold to build the story, but dismantles it to let the story show through."

So then, scaffolding is temporary, a structure that supports the construction of what will eventually stand alone.

Bill Roorbach describes scaffolding this way:

"Good stories . . . leap right to their subjects, perhaps not in draft one, or draft six, but at some point, the introductory apparatus is cut, seen for what it is: scaffolding. You put up the elaborate and complicated and even beautiful scaffolding and build the cathedral. When the cathedral is complete, well, you take the scaffolding down." (Writing Life Stories)

So begin writing, knowing that later you might delete some or all of those initial attempts. (And nowadays, deleting and rearranging and rewriting are so much easier than they used to be—back when we used typewriters, sometimes manual typewriters, and later electric. If you've never typed compositions or articles or books on a typewriter, you have no idea how computers have revolutionized writers' lives!)

Readers will like us and our memoirs better 

if we remove the scaffolding.

Why?

Because they don't want us to dillydally around. They want us to get right to the point.

When we do, our stories have punch, focus, and power.

Look over your memoir's opening. Read it aloud.

And answer these questions:

What is my memoir's main point—the story's purpose? Its signficance?

Do my first few paragraphs focus on or aim toward that main point?

Do my readers need to know this information? Or is it scaffolding—did I write it only to find my way into my story?

Dismantle your scaffolding. Let your story stand strong.

Tuesday Tidbit: Does your memoir’s opening grab readers?

You want readers to keep reading, to keep turning the pages of your memoir, right?

That means you need to rewrite and edit to make it the very best it can be!

Start by examining your memoir’s beginning. Ask yourself, Will this catch the attention of my readers and make them want to keep reading?

Experiment with several versions of your opening paragraph. Work on making it strong and vivid and inviting. And have fun doing it!

Come back Thursday and we’ll look at specific ways to craft powerful openings and pull readers in.

Writing your untold stories

Pain. Ache. 

Heartbreak. Grief. Anguish.

All of us have experienced such woes, but too often we avoid writing about them.

How about you? Have you avoided writing the painful stuff?

Which of your stories remain untold?

Mick Silva says writers must be willing to take a chance—to risk examining our hard bits and pieces—and then to risk writing about them.

“That necessity to risk is why writing takes courage above all else,” he says. “Risking pain to seek the deeper truths about yourself and life, risking sharing what you know. Risking paying close attention when you experience pain or fear, knowing it means you’ve been chosen to understand, express and explain this particular view of it best….”

Writing about our sorrows can bring us healing, but there’s more: God can use our stories to give others hope and faith to get through their own heartaches.

God even planned for us to do so:

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 tells us that the God of all comfort reaches out to comfort us in our troubles so that we can comfort others with the comfort we have received from Him. That means writing about God helping you through your painful experience is a sacred calling, a ministry.

Take, for example, Dana Goodman’s experience: “During my intense grieving moments, other people’s stories gave me words to describe the ache that was indescribable. They gave me hope that a new day would dawn, and I would not be stuck in the black forever.” (Dana Goodman, author, In the Cleft: Joy Comes in the Mourning)

And so, we write:

“In a world that groans of brokenness

and screams of injustice,

it matters that we hold our creative candles

right up next to the pain.”

Settle Monroe

A word of caution: Writing about heartaches and tragedies can be excruciating—because to write them requires us to relive them. If we haven’t healed enough to write those stories, we must wait until we can relive them and write them.

When we’re ready to write the hard stuff, remember: Readers need to enter our emotion and live through the experience with us. They need to make an emotional connection with us.

To “hold our creative candles right up next to the pain,” we can employ method writing, a concept Bill Roorbach explains in Writing Life Stories.

Bill’s method writing is a spin-off of method acting. Here’s how that works: Before the curtain rises, the actor remembers a time in which he experienced the emotion he needs to act out. He spends time reliving that emotion so that when he steps on stage, he is wrapped in that emotion and succeeds in playing his part.

Method writing, then, requires us to step out of the present and into the past. We must take time (make time) to remember the event and rediscover the emotions that enveloped us.

Once we are reliving that emotion, we need to find the best words to describe it. That can take a long time, but it’s worth the effort.

We also must reflect on our accompanying thoughts and imaginings. We ask ourselves:

• What was at stake? What did I have to lose or gain?
• What life-shaking questions did I ask myself?
• At the time, in what ways did I envision this situation would change my life?
• What were my hopes, fears, and prayers?

When you’re caught up again in that event, get it onto paper or computer screen because that’s how you reach your readers—that’s how they join you in your experience, that’s how they learn from your experience.  

We need each other’s stories! We need each other’s hope!

What untold stories do you need to write? Others will benefit if you’ll put them in writing.

Ask God to help you.

Abba…

Help me write in all my weakness,

in vulnerability,

bruised and broken,

in tears,

crippled,

in poverty and pain,

waiting for your strength and your timing….

Bob Hostetler’s poem, A Weak Writer’s Prayer

  

Cry, sweat, tremble, bleed

After all our toil and struggle to write our memoirs, how do we get people to read them?

We “Make ‘em cry, make ‘em laugh, make ‘em wait,” in the words of Wilkie Collins.

Speakers and writers follow that advice for obvious reasons: it keeps audiences engaged.

Over the past few weeks we’ve looked at how to ‘make ‘em laugh’

so now how do we make ‘em cry?

If you’ve tried writing your emotion, you know that can be a tough challenge, but in Writing Life Stories, Bill Roorbach suggests we employ method writing, a spin-off of method acting.

Here’s how method acting works: Before the curtain rises, the actor remembers a time in which he experienced the emotion he needs to act out. He spends time reliving that emotion so that when he steps on stage, he’s all wrapped up in that emotion and succeeds in playing his part.

Method writing, then, requires you to step out of the present and into the past. If you’re writing about a tragic event, take time (make time) to remember the event and relive it so you can rediscover the emotions you felt.

Avoid over-the-top hysteria, but be honest in admitting your emotions.

In the midst of reliving that situation and emotion, ask yourself:

• What was at stake? What did I have to lose or gain?
•  What dreams would never come true?
•  At the time, how did I envision that my life would never be the same?
•  Where would I find courage to live another day?
•  What were my fears, my hopes, my prayers?

When you are caught up again in that emotion, get it onto paper or computer screen.

Your “emotion should be so realistic and gripping that the reader can’t help but feel it too.…” (Becca Puglisi; emphasis mine)

To paraphrase Larry Brooks,

make your readers

happy they are not there,

yet grateful

to feel what it was like to be you.

Emotion: That’s how you make a way for readers to join you in your story, to make them care, to make them want to keep reading.

“Our best stories evoke an emotional response,

touch a deep cord,

and motivate action and change.”

 (Peter Guber; emphasis mine)

OK, are you ready? Go make ‘em cry!

Tuesday Tidbit: First lines

Here’s your 15 seconds of inspiration

for this week’s Tuesday Tidbit.

If you’re polishing an opening paragraph

for the contest at Women’s Memoirs,

keep this in mind: Openings require a lot of work.

Make ‘em cry

You want your memoir to bless others, right? You want it to comfort, encourage, and change readers for the better.

But your memoir will not impact others unless they read it.

After all your effort to write your memoir, how do you get people to read it?

You must make a way for readers to get into your story—

to join you in your story—

to make them care—

to make them want to keep reading.

How do you do that? By including emotions.

“The heart is always 

the first target 

in telling purposeful stories. 

Stories must give listeners 

an emotional experience 

if they are to ignite a call to action.” 

(Peter Guber)

You bring emotion into your story by following Wilkie Collins’ advice, “Make ‘em cry, make ‘em laugh, make ‘em wait.”

Last week we covered “make ‘em laugh,” and I hope you’ve had fun writing humor into your rough drafts. Humor is important—readers will give you only so long before they decide whether they like you and your story—so if you missed last week’s post, check it out.

This week we’ll look at “make ‘em cry.”

Sometimes people wonder—mainly men, I suspect—why we should include sorrows and struggles and angst in our memoirs.

The reasons to include the hard things are many:

“Our sufferings and pains are not simply bothersome interruptions of our lives.” (Henri Nouwen)

Often during the hardest times, we learned our most important lessons.

Difficulties can get our attention.

They can make us cling to God.

They can give us a holy discontent over things that are not right in our lives.

Sorrows can be the stuff of turning points and second chances.

They can lead to personal victories.

Furthermore, sharing our struggle benefits readers. When we make ourselves vulnerable and write about our hurts, readers recognize they have something in common with us.

That, in turn, serves as an invitation to enter into our stories and learn lessons for themselves through our experiences because:

“…Stories can be a stand-in for life, allowing us [readers] to expand our beyond what we could reasonably squeeze into a lifetime of direct experience.… We can take in the stories of others who escaped life-threatening situations without taking on the risk … [and we have] an opportunity to try out solutions.” (Peter Guber)

So there you have yet another reason to share painful parts of our lives:  We offer readers experience, wisdom, and choices. We can point them to God.

“Your story should incorporate some joy. But pain is the Great Teacher,” says Donald Miller. “By bringing meaning to the pain, you bring meaning to the pain of the world.  This is why people need story. They want to know they’re not alone. Others suffer just like them. They want to know their suffering has a purpose, that there is hope, redemption.… You think you’re just telling a story. But the truth is you’re bringing life.” (emphasis mine; from Joe Bunting's blog post, The Meaning of Pain)

Things that made you cry shaped you. They gave you a story to tell for the benefit of others.

If you want readers to see how God brought beauty from your ashes, they have to see, smell, hear, taste, and feel the ashes with you. You have to make ‘em cry with you.

If you write your memoir well, you will bring the story to a hope-filled, satisfying resolution. You will accomplish what Donald Miller calls “bringing life.”

So how do you make ‘em cry? It can be a tough assignment.

First, be honest. Avoid exaggeration. Your reader needs to be able to trust you.

Second, practice what Bill Roorbach calls Method Writing, a spin-off of method acting.  (from his Writing Life Stories)

Here’s how method acting works: Before the curtain rises, the actor remembers a time in which he experienced the emotion he needs to act out. He spends time reliving that emotion so that when he steps on stage, he is gripped in that emotion and succeeds in playing his part.

Method writing, then, requires you to step out of the present and into the past. If you’re writing about a tragic event, take time (make time) to remember the event and rediscover the emotions you felt.

In the midst of reliving that situation and emotion, ask yourself:

What was at stake? What did I have to lose or gain?

At the time, how did I envision that this situation could change my life?

What were my fears, my hopes, my prayers?

When you are caught up again in that event and emotion, get it onto paper.

Your “emotion should be so realistic and gripping that the reader can’t help but feel it too.…” (Becca Puglisi)

To paraphrase Larry Brooks, make your readers happy they are not there, yet grateful to feel what it was like to be you.

Emotion: That’s how you make a way for readers to join you in your story, to make them care, to keep them reading.

"Our best stories 

evoke an emotional response, 

touch a deep cord, 

and motivate action and change." 

(Peter Guber)

OK, are you ready? Go make ‘em cry!