Back to Basics: How to craft dialogue that brings life and personality to your characters

 

Are you having fun crafting dialogue for your main characters? I hope so!

 

Today let’s look at another aspect of effective dialogue. (If you missed it, click on Dialogue enriches your memoir—but how can you reconstruct old conversations accurately?)

 

This can be enjoyable: Create dialogue that sounds like the person speaking, natural and unforced, something readers can really hear. Spend time pinning down your key characters’ unique speaking styles.  

 

Here’s an example of people who talk with accents taken from Marie Bostwick’s The Second Sister:

 

I was just about to leave when I heard someone calling my name. . . .

 

“Lucy? Hey, der! C’mon over here, why don’tcha? Got an open spot here on da end.”

 

The Wisconsin accent was thick and very familiar. . . .

 

Clint laughed. “Well, until four years ago, dat was about it. After Dad died I decided t’spruce da place up a little. . . . [The old guys:] Dey kept dyin’ off, don’tcha know. . . .” (The Second Sister)

 

The next example contrasts the distinct speaking styles, and even cultures, of three people. It’s taken from Jamie Ford’s The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet about a Chinese family in 1940s Seattle.

 

The older generation, Henry’s parents, spoke like this:

 

“No more. Only speak you American.”

 

“. . . I send you to school. I negotiate your way—into a special school. I do this for you. A top white school. . . .”

 

Henry and his wife always imagined their son Marty would marry a Chinese girl, however:

 

“Dad, I’m engaged. . . . She’s inside, Pops. I want you to meet her.”

 

Henry heard a click as the door opened behind him. A young woman poked her head out, then stepped out smiling. She had long blond hair, and cool blue eyes. . . .

 

“You must be Marty’s father! . . . I’m Samantha, I’ve been dying to meet you.” She stepped past his hand and threw her arms around him. . . .”

 

Do you like the way the author captured and contrasted the speech and personalities of Henry’s father, Henry, and his fiancée, Samantha?

 

I also appreciate Jamie Ford’s respectful way of portraying Henry’s father’s culture and his generation. That’s important.

 

As you draft your memoir, identify the speaking style of each key character.

 

If you’re writing about a cowboy from Texas, make him sound like a cowboy from Texas. Or if she’s from Quebec, make her sound like she’s from Quebec.

 

How would the following people speak?

• a Ugandan lady
• an introverted pathologist
• an idealistic first-year teacher
• a person whose mother just died
• a grumpy old man
• a woman with dementia
• a preacher
• a surfer
• a spinster from Boston
• a teenager from Atlanta

 

If two people habitually interrupt each other, or if they finish each other’s sentences, write your dialogue in the same way.

 

If a character routinely starts a sentence five times in different ways, work that into your dialogue. (But don’t overdo it—it can get old.)

 

If your character grew up in a slum and didn’t finish high school, how would his speaking and vocabulary be different from that of a CEO with a Ph.D.?

 

To reacquaint yourself with distinct speaking styles, Brooke Warner recommends: “Listen to dialogue—around you, on shows, on YouTube if you need to jog your memory of regional dialogue.”

 

Experiment. Then set your manuscript aside for a week or so.

 

Read it aloud. (Your ears will catch what your eyes overlook.)

 

Does it accurately convey the character’s manner of speaking and his/her personality? And is it respectful of him or her, rather than poking fun?

 

Does it sound natural—or is it stiff? Too formal or too informal?

 

Revise your rough draft

until you make your dialogue and your characters

come alive.

And have fun!

 

Tuesday Tidbit: Your memoir’s takeaways can change lives

 

Where do you put takeaways in your memoir? (If you missed last week’s post on what takeaways are, click on Your memoir’s all-important takeaways.) 

 

“Takeaway happens within a reflection,” point out Brooke Warner and Dr. Linda Joy Myers. (To read more about the importance of reflection in memoir, click on Reflection and the words we use.)

 

“Takeaway can be a reflection, but not all reflection is takeaway,” they continue. “… [W]herever there is reflection, there is an opportunity for a takeaway, but that doesn’t mean that necessarily all reflections are going to be takeaways.”

 

In other words, takeaways accompany segments in your memoir in which you reflect. You will reflect multiple times throughout your memoir. Some if not all of them will be opportunities for you to include a takeaway for your readers—those bits of wisdom to live by.

And don’t beat around the bush! Pinpoint your message. Clarity is your goal. (Please, please, read my blog post about writers who circle all around The Point but never state The Point. Click on What’s the point?)

 

Dedicate quality time to crafting your takeaways. Specify what was the most important message or lesson you took away from that experience (the one you’re reflecting on). Boil it down, write a concise message for your readers.

 

Here are examples of takeaways:

“Life is composed of cycles and seasons. Nothing lasts forever.” Dr. Henry Cloud

“Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, 'I will try again tomorrow.'" (Mary Anne  Radmacher) 

“We find by losing. We hold fast by letting go. We become something new by ceasing to be something old.” (Frederick Buechner)  

 

In this example from Steve Pemberton’s A Chance in the World, I’ve underlined the takeaway: “Looking back, this was a galvanizing moment. The Robinsons had taken away any semblance of my childhood, something I could never get back. But now this new edict, vile and ignorant, threatened my future. At some point in our lives, we all have to make a decision to take a stand, knowing full well the potential harmful consequences. For me that decision came in the fall of 1982, at the age of fifteen.”

 

Most memoirists place takeaways throughout their memoirs. If you have a conclusion, a postscript, or an epilogue in your memoir, reiterate your most important takeaways in them, too.

 

Your takeaways are the most powerful part of your memoir.

They offer readers hope,

or wisdom, or courage, or laughter,

or a solution, or a new way of living or loving.

 

Your takeaways, then, communicate to readers:

“I know this is true because I have experienced it,

I have lived it. It changed my life.

Perhaps it will change your life, too.”

 

 

At first your takeaways will resemble diamonds-in-the-rough. Your job is to cut and polish and make those gems sparkle. Doing so adds to their value for both you and your readers.

 

There you have it: Your Tuesday Tidbit.

 

Your memoir needs an outstanding subtitle

Have you noticed that a novel seldom has a subtitle? Subtitles usually belong to the realm of non-fiction—and what a gift someone gave us when he or she invented subtitles. (A subtitle follows a title, and the two are separated by a colon.)

 

Let’s be clear about subtitles: “Your subtitle is not just some front-cover formatting slot to fill,” writes Susan Kendrick.

 

Susan is right. Your memoir’s subtitle has hard work to do. It helps accomplish your title’s goals.

 

A title’s goals are to:

• establish a distinct identity for your memoir,
• catch potential readers’ attention,
• entice them to buy your book,
• read it when they get home,
• and recommend it to their friends.

 

A subtitle sheds light on a book’s title.

 

A subtitle also:

• tells how your book is different from others,
• hints at what a reader will find within the book,
• expands on the title,
• entices readers,
• and might allude to secrets within.

 

Brooke Warner wrote recently, “The most popular trend in memoir . . . is to identify your key theme or themes, and build a simple subtitle around that: A Memoir of Faith, A Memoir of Resilience, A Memoir of Love and Loss.”

 

Brooke says that type of title works “because generally memoir readers are seeking out memoirs based on themes they’re drawn to or exploring in their own lives.”

 

You’ll want to read Brooke’s post, "An Author's Guide to Book Subtitles." In it she includes Eight Key Takeaways for Book Titles.

 

Look at these memoir titles without their subtitles:

 

The Perfect  Storm

Jackie’s Girl

Love, Africa

What Remains

A Long Way Gone

Thin Places

Thirteen Days

Plunder

Little Matches

Falling Awake

 

Did they intrigue you and make you want to buy them? Do you have a good idea what they’re about? Probably not.

 

Now look at them with their subtitles and notice how they reveal the book’s contents:

 

The Perfect  Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea, by Sebastian Junger

Jackie’s Girl: My Life with the Kennedy Family, by Kathy McKeon

Love, Africa: A Memoir of Romance, War and Survival, by Jeffrey Gettelman

What Remains: A Memoir of Fate, Friendship, and Love, by Carole Radziwill

A Long Way Gone:  Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, by Ishmael Beah

Thin Places: A Memoir, by Mary DeMuth

Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis, by Robert F. Kennedy

Plunder: A Memoir of Family Property and Nazi Treasure, by Menachem Kaiser

Little Matches: A Memoir of Grief and Light, by Maryanne O’Hara

Falling Awake: An America Woman Gets a Grip on the Whole Changing World One Essay at a Time, by Mary Lou Sanelli

Kisses from Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption, by Katie David Majors

 

Review the goals of a title (above). Do the subtitles help accomplish those goals? I say yes, except for two.

 

Mary DeMuth’s Thin Places: A Memoir, is still vague. I’d prefer a subtitle that offers better hints about what readers will find within. People acquainted with the definition of “thin places” will have some insight into the book’s contents, but many people don’t know the term. From the back cover, thin places are the “places where the division between this world and the eternal fades. . . . snatches of holy ground . . . where we might just catch a glimpse of eternity.”

 

Also Kisses from Katie’s subtitle doesn’t work well. Readers need to read the back cover to learn that at age nineteen, Katie moved to Uganda and adopted thirteen children.

 

How long or short should a subtitle be? Mary DeMuth’s subtitle is two words, “A Memoir.” Mary Lou Sanelli’s is a whopping sixteen words long. There are no “rules” for how long a good subtitle should be, but it’s best to avoid unnecessary wordiness.

 

Here are tips for crafting a strong title/subtitle: 

• Choose an easy-to-understand title.
• Choose an easy-to-pronounce title.
• Choose an easy-to-remember title.
• Consider the benefits of a short, crisp title.
• Witty can be good—if it really works.
• Even if your title isn’t short, be concise: Does every word need to be there?
• Read your title aloud. How does it sound? (See Priscilla Long’s advice from last week as well as Susan Kendrick’s “What Makes a Good Subtitle and How Long Should it Be?”)
• Beta readers, and others who have helped you with your manuscript, might suggest titles.
• Choose a title that feels just right to you.

 

Finally, let me once again encourage you to read—even study—Susan Kendrick’s post, “What Makes a Good Subtitle and How Long Should it Be?” It’s packed with helpful info, not just subtitle length.

 

Have fun crafting your memoir’s perfect subtitle!

 

How can you hand your readers a coherent, organized story?

If you’re in the beginning stages of writing your memoir, now is a good time to think about how you will structure it—that is, how will you organize it?

Before we continue, click here to review the definition of memoir. A memoir focuses on a segment of your life—a specific time period or theme. 

If you choose a time period for your memoir, you’ll probably use a chronological format. (More on this in a future blog post.)

But if you’re basing your memoir on a theme, you’re writing a collection of stories pertaining to that theme. (See our recent post, Must-know info about your theme, by clicking on that link.)

You might base your theme on a Bible passage or a poem that means a lot to you. In that case, you’re writing vignettes (stories, chapters) to illustrate key phrases within that passage.

For example, you could use this Thomas à Kempis prayer as an outline—as a structure or framework for your memoir:

Give us, O Lord, steadfast hearts

that cannot be dragged down by false loves;

give us courageous hearts

that cannot be worn down by trouble;

give us righteous hearts

that cannot be sidetracked

by unholy or unworthy goals.

Give to us also, our Lord and God,

understanding to know You,

diligence to look for You,

wisdom to recognize You,

and a faithfulness

that will bring us to see You

face to face.

      Thomas à Kempis

If you were to use that prayer, you’d have your structure pinned down from the get-go.

• For example, our first vignette/chapter would illustrate something you experienced—or watched someone else experience—about maintaining a steadfast heart and refusing to be pulled down by “false loves” (which could take many forms). Be sure to include specific the ways “false loves” presented themselves and how you fought to remain steadfast.
• Your second vignette/chapter would illustrate something you experienced or witnessed about living with courage despite enduring ongoing troubles. Be specific about those ongoing troubles about how they threatened to break the person. And tell the story of choices made to defy fear and choose courage.
•  Continue through each phrase of the prayer, using examples of personal experiences or those you witnessed in other people.

Another example might be If by Rudyard Kipling:

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor walk too wise. . . .

Don’t miss the rest of Kipling’s poem—it’s so inspiring! Read the rest of it by clicking here.

And, just like the example above, use each phrase of the poem to write a vignette/chapter about personal experiences, or those you witnessed in other people, to illustrate the validity and power of each. What a powerful memoir that would be to inspire and guide others!

Your goal is to hand your readers a coherent, organized, satisfying story. Your memoir’s structure can play a big role in making that happen.

Come back next time for more help on structuring your memoir.

Your memoir’s all-important subtitle

Your memoir’s subtitle will help you accomplish your title’s goals, which are to:

• establish a distinct identity for your memoir,
• catch potential readers’ attention,
• entice them to buy your book,
• read it when they get home,
• and recommend it to their friends.

A good subtitle explains—illuminates, sheds light on—a book’s title. It:

• tells potential readers how your book is different from others,
• hints at what readers will find within your memoir,
• expands the meaning of your title,
• and might allude to secrets within.

Brooke Warner writes, “The most popular trend in memoir right now is to identify your key theme or themes, and build a simple subtitle around that: A Memoir of Faith, A Memoir of Resilience, A Memoir of Love and Loss.” She says that type of subtitle works “because generally memoir readers are seeking out memoirs based on themes they’re drawn to, or exploring in their own lives.”

Don’t miss Brooke’s post, An Author’s Guide to Book Subtitles. In it she includes eight Key Takeaways for Book Subtitles.

Let’s experiment. Look at these titles without their subtitles:

Spiritual Misfit

Hillbilly Elegy

The Perfect Storm

Jackie's Girl

Love, Africa

Kisses from Katie

Did those titles intrigue you? Make you want to buy them? Give you a good idea of what you’ll find inside the book? Probably not.

Now look at those same titles with their subtitles. Notice how much more they reveal about the memoirs’ contents:

Spiritual Misfit: A Memoir of Uneasy Faith, by Michelle DeRusha

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of Family and Culture in Crisis, by J.D. Vance

The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea, by Sebastian Junger

Jackie's Girl: My Life with the Kennedy Family, by Kathy McKeon

Love, Africa: A Memoir of Romance, War, and Survival, by Jeffrey Gettleman

Are you pleasantly surprised at how well those subtitles work? They catch a potential reader's attention, offer a distinct identity for the memoir, and hint at what readers will find within the book.

The only subtitle that's too vague is Kisses from Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption, by Katie David Majors. Readers will need to look at the back cover to learn that at age 19, Katie moved to Uganda and adopted 13 children.

Below you'll find tips for crafting a strong title and subtitle:

• Choose a title that’s easy to understand.
• Choose a title that’s easy to pronounce. Read your title aloud. If it’s clunky or if it’s hard to pronounce, revise it.
• Choose a title that’s easy to remember.
• Consider the benefits of a short, crisp title.
• Witty can be good, but only if it really works.
• Be concise—be sure every word needs to be there.

Don't miss Susan Kendrick's What Makes a Good Subtitle and How Long Should It Be? It's packed with helpful info. 

Remember, if a traditional publishing house publishes your memoir, that company will probably have the final say on your title. On the other hand, if you self-publish, you'll choose your title.

Either way, work hard to create an excellent title.

We don’t know what we don’t know about publishing memoirs

If you plan to self-publish your memoir (rather than publish in the traditional way), do your best to make it professional. (Too many self-publishers fail to do so nowadays.) Promise yourself you’ll publish a memoir that’s of professional quality!

Writing coach, publisher, and author Brooke Warner says, “There are so many things authors omit…because they don’t know what they don’t know.”

To remedy that, Brooke says those who wish to self-publish “must be a student of publishing.”

It takes a long time to become a pro, but we all can be students of publishing. The more we study and apply what we learn, the more proficient we become. With the help of others, we can publish a book of professional quality.

And Brooke Warner helps writers do just that in her blog and her book, Green-Light Your Book: How Writers Can Succeed in the New Era of Publishing.

If you’re serious about being a student of publishing, you’ll appreciate tips Brooke shared in a recent blog post, The Top 10 Mistakes Authors Make and How It Costs Them. She writes about the following:

1. Bad book cover and interior book design
2. Foregoing editorial work
3. Pricing books too high
4. Not purchasing ISBNs
5. Making books non-returnable
6. Setting the wrong discount
7. Omitting metadata that matters
8. Using fake blurbs or endorsements
9. Not embedding the price in the barcode
10. Omitting things that matter to book industry people

To study Brooke’s post, click on The Top 10 Mistakes Authors Make and How It Costs Them.

In Joel Friedlander’s recent post, 7 Signs Your Book is “Professionally Published,” he writes, “As the movement to self-publishing has grown…publishing industry insiders urge authors to take the time and trouble to make sure their books are ‘professionally published.’”

He points out that if we fail to do so, others will surely notice that “it’s an amateur production, and that won’t speak well about the care you’ve taken with your book.”

To avoid publishing an amateur product, Friedlander offers the following seven tips, along with helpful links to additional important tips. (Don’t miss them!)

1. Proper editing
2. A cover that works
3. Text that’s readable
4. Market positioning
5. Distribution that’s appropriate
6. A marketing plan
7. Metadata

You can study Friedlander’s post by clicking on 7 Signs Your Book is “Professionally Published.”

Publishing your memoir might seem like a lot of work but be encouraged: Stories are important. That’s why we work so hard to publish a book that’s professional in quality.

Think back: Whose stories, written or spoken:

• brought you to a major turning point? 
• Gave you courage to do the right thing?
• Revolutionized your life?
• Shaped your values and goals?
• Kept you from doing something stupid?
• Kept you from ruining your life, and maybe other people’s lives?
• Brought you healing and hope?
• Led you to new opportunities?

You know from personal experience how powerful other people’s stories can be.

Believe this: Your story can impact your readers in the same way.  

Someone, or probably several people, need to know your stories. Make them as professional as they can be. You can do that by networking with pros and being a student of writing and publishing.

Are you available and ready?

“A seed of an idea.”

Do you feel ideas sprouting up inside you, stories you need to include in your memoir?

Or, on the other hand, are you overwhelmed at the thought of coming up with ideas for writing a memoir? If so, relax. Ideas are endless!

Make yourself “available and ready.”

Listen to your silent thoughts and imaginings because

while you’re driving to work,

or folding laundry,

or getting ready for a board meeting,

or preparing a sermon,

or reading posts on Facebook,

or tucking the kids into bed at night,

or grocery shopping,

or brushing your teeth—

ideas will pop into your mind.

When they do, jot them down. If you don’t have a piece of paper to write on, use your cell phone to list those ideas when they come to mind. And then pat yourself on the back, because by doing that, you’ve started your memoir!

For example, give yourself time to think about following questions if you want to write a memoir about your childhood:

• Who was your best friend when you were 13 years old? 18 years old? 20 years old? How did those friends influence you (good or bad)?
• What was the most unusual adventure of your childhood?
• Who was your favorite teacher or coach or Scout leader or church youth group leader? Why?
• What were your favorite books when you were a kid? a teenager? a college student?
• What did you want to be when you grew up? Did that change over the years? Why?
• What was the best day of your childhood? Why?
• What was the saddest day of your childhood? Why?
• What event changed your life forever (good or bad)?
• What were your parents and grandparents like? aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbors?

Like I said, the ideas are endless. Have fun exploring them. Over time, you’ll begin to notice patterns, you’ll be able to connect the dots. Then start writing your rough draft. And have fun!

Your memoir’s all-important takeaways

People will read your memoir for its takeaways.

What’s a takeaway?

It’s a gem you unearthed that provided you with clarity and helped make sense of your life—a universal truth you discovered—which you offer to your readers.

Takeaways are what readers “take away” from your memoir, the important lessons they’ll carry with them after they’ve read the last page and closed the back cover.

When a reader stumbles upon a takeaway, a meaningful sentence or two that speaks to something deep inside, he will pause to think, to re-read the words, slowly. He might underline the passage. Or maybe highlight it. Or write notes in the margin.

So how do you create a takeaway?

Think back. At some point you had an A-ha moment and a light came on. Puzzle pieces began falling into place. You were not the same person after that.

That’s good, that’s exciting. Such discoveries can be defining moments, life-changers—but go beyond that. Share the benefits of that experience with your readers by crafting a takeaway. Offer them their own A-ha moment.

In other words, in a concise way give words to the principle you learned—think of the takeaway as a precept, a moral, a proverb, a saying, a guideline, an adage—something readers can live by, a principle that can be life-changing for them, too.

Use your takeaway to offer readers hope,

or wisdom,

or courage,

or laughter,

or a solution,

or a new way of living or loving.

You, the writer, encounter such precepts—such truths to live by—through epignosis. To gnosis (compared to epignosis) is to have head knowledge of something, but to epignosis something is to know it from experience. (Read my earlier post about epignosis: Understanding epignosis can help you write your memoir.)

Your takeaways, then, communicate to your readers: “I know this is true because I have experienced it, I have lived it. It changed my life. Perhaps it will change your life, too.”

Where do you put takeaways in your memoir?

“Takeaway happens within a reflection,” point out Brooke Warner and Dr. Linda Joy Myers. (If you missed our recent blog post about the importance of reflection in memoir, click on Reflection and the words we use.)

“Takeaway can be a reflection, but not all reflection is takeaway,” they continue. “… [W]herever there is reflection, there is an opportunity for a takeaway, but that doesn’t mean that necessarily all reflections are going to be takeaways.”

In other words, takeaways accompany segments in your memoir in which you reflect. You will probably have a number of reflections throughout your memoir. Some if not all of them will be opportunities for you to include a takeaway for your readers.

Avoid Christianese—jargon that might be distasteful to readers, or lingo that might hinder your readers’ understanding.  For example, resist using phrases such as “I’ve been washed in the blood of the Lamb.” Instead, use everyday language to make your point.

And don’t beat around the bush! Pinpoint your message. Clarity is your goal. (Please, please, read my blog post about writers who circle all around The Point but never state The Point. Click on What’s the point?)

Dedicate quality time to crafting your takeaways. Specify what was the most important message or lesson you took away from that experience (the one you’re reflecting on). Boil it down, write a concise message for your readers.

Here are two examples: 

“We find by losing. We hold fast by letting go. We become something new by ceasing to be something old.” (Frederick Buechner) 

“Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the ed of the day saying, 'I will try again tomorrow.’” (Mary Anne Racmacher)

Most memoirists scatter takeaways throughout their memoirs. If you have a conclusion, a post script, or an epilogue in your memoir, reiterate your most important takeaways in them, too.

Your takeaways are the most powerful part of your memoir—

they’re packed with punch.

They’re the part of your memoir that

makes a difference in people’s lives.

At first your takeaways will resemble diamonds-in-the-rough. Your job is to cut and polish and make those gems sparkle. Doing so adds to their value for both you and your readers.

Reflection and the words we use

Reflection is a key part of every memoir—a key part of your memoir.

“Without reflection,” writes Amber Lea Starfire, “you do not have a memoir—you have a vignette or series of vignettes that describes events, but does not imbue the events with meaning and relevance. Meaning and relevance come from reflection.”

So, you, the memoirist, reflect on the past:

The first part of reflecting is the kind you do privately: introspection.

• You set aside time to take a new look at what happened in the past—to search for something you missed that was hiding just under the surface, or something that went over your head.
• See with older, wiser, more mature eyes.
• Unravel, analyze, look for meaning, and piece together.
• Make sense of the event.

The second part of reflecting is sharing with readers what you’ve discovered.

How do you communicate to your readers

that you’re interrupting the flow of your story

to reflect on the past?

These phrases help readers know you're pausing to reflect:

• Reflecting on this now...
• I couldn't have put it into words back then, but now...
• It occurs to me now that...
• Back then I didn't understand that...
• Though I didn't understand it forty years ago, now I see that...
• It would be years before I understood that...
• I didn't notice it at the time, but...
• Looking back now, I see that...
• Now I see that I...
• Remembering those days/weeks/years, I...
• When I remember those events, I...
• I had never known that...
• If I had known then...
• I wish I had known then that...
• Little did I know back then that...
• If only I'd known back then that...
• We couldn't have known at the time that...
• I never realized...
• I came to realize...
• It took me many years to realize...
• While it happened three decades ago, I realize now that...
• I have come to realize, over the years, that...
• If we could've looked into the future, we'd have seen...
• It didn't occur to me back then...
• Ten years later I would ask myself...
• Years later I discovered...
• Over the years I've come to accept...

A word of caution from Brooke Warner and Dr. Linda Joy Myers: 

“Some critics of memoir believe that reflection is the navel-gazing part of memoir, and it is possible to be overly reflective. In an article called ‘Writing the Z-Axis,’ Sean Ironman refers [to] overly reflective writing as the ‘bar essay.’ This kind of writing, he says, ‘reads as if the writer is on the barstool next to you rambling about their life over a Guinness.’” 

So, consider your reader:  Reflection is a must for memoir, but avoid navel-gazing and rambling. Discern how much reflection is just right.

Be sure to come back next Thursday when we’ll look at the connection between reflection and takeaway.