Back to Basics: Beat back the past with grace and tell your readers “We are not victims”

It used to be that people didn’t include scandalous stuff in their memoirs. We lived in a modest, dignified culture. 

 

But then things changed. Memoirists tossed out gentility and decorum, and our society entered into what William Zinsser calls “The memoir-crazed 1990s.” 

 

It was a time, he says, when people disclosed shocking information, indulged in self-pity, and sought revenge, a time when “no remembered episode was too squalid, no family too dysfunctional, to be trotted out for the titillation of the masses.”

 

But, he points out, those types of memoirs didn’t stand the test of time. (Hooray!)

 

That era did have a few good memoirs, though.

 

“The memoirs we do remember from the 1990s,” says Zinsser, “are the ones that were written with love and forgiveness, like Mary Karr’s The Liar’s Club, Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes, Tobias Wolff’s This Boy’s Life, and Pete Hamill’s A Drinking Life.” (From “How to Write a Memoir” in The American Scholar.)

 

“Anyone might think” he says, “the domestic chaos and alcoholism and violence that enveloped those writers when they were young would have long since hardened the heart.” 

 

And yet they did not have hardened hearts. For example, “The marvel of Frank McCourt’s childhood is that he survived it. . . . The second marvel is that he was able to triumph over it in Angela’s Ashes, beating back the past with grace and humor and with the power of language.”

 

Each of those four authors “look back with compassion. . . .  These books…were written with love. They elevate the pain of the past with forgiveness, arriving at a larger truth about families in various stages of brokenness.  . . .

 

“There’s no self-pity, no whining, no hunger for revenge; the authors are as honest about their young selves as they are about the sins of their elders. (Writing About Your Life)  (If you missed it, be sure to read Don’t start writing your memoir until . . .)

 

“We are not victims, they want us to know. . . . We have endured to tell the story without judgment and to get on with our  lives. . . .”  (Zinsser, Writing About Your Life)

 

If you’re writing about pain caused by others, be cautious and honest about your motives.

 

Avoid writing:

• to get revenge, settle the score, or retaliate,
• to humiliate a person, company, or organization,
• to get readers to pity you,
• to get readers to take sides with you, or
• to indulge in self-pity.

 

Examine your heart and if you find even traces of writing for any of those reasons, stop! That’s not what memoir is about.

 

Extend to others the same forgiveness, grace, and mercy God has extended to you. (See last week’s post, How do you write about your family’s baggage?)

 

Let the following dwell in your heart and mind as you write:

 

“At our best,

memoirists hope it is silence we are breaking,

and not another person.”

(Kelly McMasters)

 

Zinsser counsels us:

 

“If you use memoir to look for your own humanity

and the humanity of the people who crossed your life,

however much pain they caused you,

readers will connect with your journey.

 

What they won’t connect with is whining.

Dispose of that anger somewhere else.”

 

That somewhere else could be in your journal—for your eyes only—or in a fictionalized version of your story.

 

Or it could be a first draft. Dr. Linda Joy Myers advises,

 

“Write your first draft as a healing draft.

Get out what you need to say.

Make it bold and real.

Then stand back and think about

how you want to revise it for publication.”

(Will My Family Get Angry About My Memoir?)

 

In that rough draft, write about the injustices, mistreatment, hurt feelings, anger, scars, and tears. Write about destroyed dreams, confusion, hopelessness.

 

Write it all. Write it as a prayer.

Write until you know God has heard you.

Write it as a way of asking Him

to help you forgive and move on.

 

Since that process usually takes time, set aside your private writing (rough draft) for a week or a month or a year. Listen for God, let Him work in your heart and mind.

 

Your goal is to move from anger to forgiveness, from pain to compassion. When you succeed in that, you can throw away that rough draft, or at least commit to keeping it private.

 

And then rewrite your memoir.

 

Rewrite deliberately to “elevate the pain of the past with forgiveness.”

 

Rewrite with integrity.

Delete the wallowing.

Write not as a wounded victim,

but as one who has triumphed,

as one who has forgiven, healed,

and moved forward in a good way.

 

Write like Frank McCourt did:

Beat back the past with grace—

and maybe even with a little humor.

 

  

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

 

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

Today I offer you more inspiration:

Write your memoir so that 

your “reader gets zipped into your skin,” 

in the words of memoir guru Mary Karr. 

When you include sensory details 

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

readers will feel drawn into your story with you—

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

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

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

Often the best way to learn how to describe a place 

is to study how others have done that.

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Butch Ward offers advice inspired by Jacqui Banaszynski: 

“Write cinematically. 

Movies pull us through stories with strong themes, 

compelling characters and revelatory details. 

Written stories can do the same thing. . . . 

Zoom in tight on details or images 

that have the most meaning; 

be descriptive and specific.”

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Include details that invite readers 

to encounter the same experiences you did. 

“Zip them into your skin.”

“Maybe you don’t think of yourself as a part of the sweep of history. Think again.”

 

“Maybe you don’t think of yourself as a part of the sweep of history. Think again.” So says Biff Barnes.

 

You are a witness to history.

 

Good details in your memoir about the history you experienced can make all the difference in whether you draw readers into your story. To pull them in is a must.

 

Think back.

Do you remember reading a book in which

you were in the story with its writer?

You tasted what he tasted. You smelled what she smelled.

You saw events he witnessed. You heard sounds she heard.

You felt the pain or textures or temperatures he felt.

We call those sensory details.

 

Think back again.

Have you ever read a book

that kept you at a distance—

a story that made you feel like an observer

on the outside, unable to get in?

 

If so, then you know how much richer it is

for a reader to live inside a story.

 

That’s what you want to do for your readers—

write your memoir so they get “zipped into your skin,”

in the words of memoirist Mary Karr.

 

You can “zip readers in” by including historical details of the era. To establish your story’s historical backdrop, the following details help create a sense of place and time:

• prominent values/philosophies
• that time period’s passions and culture
• the nation’s or culture’s major turning points (the Iraq war, for example)
• the place’s and era’s economic conditions
• health concerns during that period (polio, for example)
• scientific, technological, and medical advances
• political climate
• the nation’s struggles or victories
• major stories in the news
• and so on.

 

By age 25, I had witnessed Sputnik, rock ‘n’ roll, the Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK’s death, the Beatles, Dr. Martin Luther King’s death, the hippie era, the feminist movement, humankind’s first walk on the moon, and the Vietnam war. They all influenced and shaped me.

 

What history-making events influenced and shaped you?

 

Make a list.

 

Then ask yourself: Did one or more of them

• send your life in a different direction than you expected?
• lead you to change your college major? your professional career?
• change your faith in God?
• break your heart?
• introduce you to your spouse?
• destroy your home or life savings?
• cause you to relocate?
• make you wealthy?

 

Here’s another question: How did you influence and shape history? Take to heart what  Biff Barnes said: You have been “a part of the sweep of history.” What roles did you play in history-making events? Perhaps you played a small role, or maybe you played a prominent role.

 

I’m eager to tell you about a fun tool you can use to enhance your story’s historical context: Check out a website from The Atlantic called Life Timeline.

 

When you enter your birthdate, you’ll see a list of historical events that occurred during your lifetime, and you’ll find links to articles about those events. Enjoy this fun tool to enhance the vibrancy and power of your memoir and to create a story your readers can experience along with you.

 

Tuesday Tidbit: Writing a memoir changes you and your memories

In writing our stories, sometimes, maybe even often, we uncover different memories than those we start with.

“Your memories will change, as truths you long held about your life begin to unravel,” writes Bahar Gholipour, quoting from a conversation with memoirist Mary Karr. “Ultimately, you may end up a different person in some ways.”

Gholipour writes, “Your understanding of your life story will change, too.” That can lead to making peace with your past and with people in it. Another benefit can be better mental health. By taking a broader look at aspects and events of your life, and by connecting the dots, your assessment of yourself and your life can change for the better.

Gholipour continues,“But writing a memoir for therapeutic effect should not be your primary reason if you intend the draft for an audience of larger than one, says Sarah Saffian…. [I]f you as the storyteller are sitting at the computer roiling with emotion, then you’re probably not ready to tell your story.”

But when the time is right, get your stories into writing. You might not realize it yet, but penning your memoir could change your life.

You’ll enjoy reading the rest of Gholipour’s article, Writing a Memoir Is a Strange Psychological Trip….

And there you have it, your Tuesday Tidbit.

Fun historical resources for writing about YOUR life

Good details can make all the difference in whether you draw readers into your story—and pull them in you must.

Think back: Do you remember reading a book in which you felt you were in the story with its writer? You tasted what he tasted. You smelled odors she smelled. You saw events he witnessed. You heard sounds she heard. You felt the textures or temperatures he felt. We call those sensory details.

But if you’ve ever read a book that kept you at a distance—a story that made you feel like an observer on the outside, unable to get in—then you know how much richer it is for a reader to live inside a story.

That’s what you want to do for your readers—write your memoir so they get “zipped into your skin,” says memoirist Mary Karr.

You can also zip readers in by including historical details of the era. Besides establishing your story’s historical backdrop, such details help create a sense of place and time—

• prominent values/philosophies
• that time period’s passions and culture
• the nation’s or culture’s major turning points (Pearl Harbor)
• the place’s and era’s economic conditions
• scientific, technological, and medical advances
• political leanings
• the nation’s struggles or victories
• major stories in the news, and so on.

You are a witness to history. So am I. By age 25, I’d witnessed man’s first walk on the moon, Sputnik, JFK’s death, the Civil Rights Movement, rock ‘n’ roll, the Beatles, the hippie era, the feminist movement, and the Vietnam War. They all influenced me and shaped me.

Your historical setting influenced and shaped you, too.

And have you ever thought of this? You influenced and shaped history, sometimes in small ways, sometimes in big ways. Like Biff Barnes said, you are “part of the sweep of history.” Don’t overlook roles you played in molding and sculpting history.

Let me tell you about a fun tool you can use to enhance your story’s historical context:

Check out a website from The Atlantic called Life Timeline.

When you enter your birthday, you’ll see a list of historical events that occurred during your lifetime. And you’ll find links to articles about that event.

Use this fun tool to enhance the vibrancy and power of your memoir.

But wait! I have more for you—another way to enhance your story’s historical context. Have you created word lexicons? Word lexicons = collections of words and phrases.

In her delightful book, The Writer’s Portable Mentor, Priscilla Long describes the enjoyment and value of word lexicons. Especially significant are word lexicons that pertain to a specific piece—your memoir, for example.

Priscilla can tell by reading a person’s writing whether he or she collected words and phrases—what she calls The Lexicon Practice.

“Writers who do the Lexicon Practice have left in the dust what I call ‘conventional received diction.’ Writers who don’t do it . . . are pretty much stuck with television words, newspaper words, cereal-box words.”

Priscilla, a writing instructor at the University of Washington and a widely published author, collected words from her childhood for a collection of stories she planned to write: “greenbriar, dirt road, Neil Lindsey’s pig, 4-H Club… calf barn, gutter, manure pile, manure spreader, marsh grass….”

Each memoir—your memoir—has its own lexicon, its own unique set of words and phrases. Use them to define your story, to enrich it, to make it come alive for your readers.

Which words and phrases belong in the lexicon for your memoir?

You’ll want to compose several lexicons because, Priscilla points out, individuals have lexicons, places have lexicons, and “every craft, trade, profession, or job….”

I especially enjoy her lexicon for the Pacific Northwest, my home: “crow, Puget Sound, Steilacoom Tribe, western red cedar, Smith Tower, Emmett Watson’s Oyster Bar, Starbucks, Northwest jellyfish, geoduck (pronounced gooey duck), Stillaguamish River….” She nailed it with those words.

Now it’s your turn: Choose sensory details—details readers can smell, feel, hear, see, and taste.

Think about these possibilities for your story’s historical setting and physical location:

• iconic geographical references (rivers, mountains, deserts…)
• prominent buildings
• popular restaurants
• food trends
• lingo (“That’s a swell hot rod you have there.”)
• clothing and hair styles (poodle skirts, saddle shoes)
• popular songs
• popular hobbies/sports (hula hoops)
• specific car models
• weather
• typical sounds (birds, insects, factories, trains, children’s laughter)
• colors
• vegetation and wildlife, and so on.

Collect other words and phrases for main characters in your memoir, and professions/occupations.

Create as many lexicons as you need to enrich your memoir and draw readers into it.

If you're age 65 or older... I mean or better, you'll love Words and Phrases Remind Us of the Way We Word by Richard Lederer. And his post will give you a head start on compiling your own lexicon.

Just remember: avoid “television words, newspaper words, cereal-box words.”

“Zipped into your skin”

Write your memoir so that your "reader gets zipped into your skin," in the words of memoir guru Mary Karr.

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

That's the kind of memoir you want to write—one with sensory details (smell, taste, sight, sound, and touch) because they will draw your readers into your story with you.

And you want to draw them in, to "zip them into your skin," because that's the way your message will make its way into the hearts and minds of your readers.

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

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

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

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

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

Butch Ward offers advice inspired by Jacqui Banaszynski:

"Write cinematically.

Movies pull us through stories

with strong themes,

compelling characters and revelatory details.

Written stories can do the same thing.

Help readers see.

Zoom in tight on details or images

that have the most meaning;

be descriptive and specific.

(Not 'old boots.'

But 'blonde Fryes with scuffed toes

and heels worn down from years of walking the fenceline.')

Caution: Avoid subjecting readers to irrelevant details—details that don’t enhance your main characters or your setting, details that don’t pertain to the point of your story/vignette.

Extraneous details slow down your story. Even worse: They can bore your readers. If your Great-Aunt Louise visited you at a life-changing moment but was not a key player in that pivotal point, readers don’t need to know she was from St. Paul, wore hippie clothes, and smelled of pot. 

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

Ask yourself, "What noises were in the background?" or "What did her skin feel like?" If you were eating tadpoles in okra sauce, how did that feel on your tongue—what was the texture? the taste? the smell?

Include details

that invite readers into your story

and let them experience it like you did.

"Zip them into your skin."

Wayne Groner: Simplify Writing Your Memoir with Three Best Practices

You are in for a treat today: practical info and inspiration for writing your memoir from author and personal historian, Wayne Groner. Be sure to check out Wayne’s new book, A Guide to Writing Your Memoir or Life Story: Tips, Tools, Methods, and Examples.

Simplify Writing Your Memoir with Three Best Practices

The number one roadblock to writing memoir is where to start. Rolling in our heads are many wonderful stories involving a great number of learning and growing experiences. This is especially true as we consider God’s blessings and how he changed our lives. We want to get it all out and don’t know where or how to begin. The best way to begin is to simplify.

First, decide to write a memoir, not an autobiography or family history. This keeps you from wandering in uncontrolled directions and it defines your parameters for research.

Time periods are what distinguish the three story types.

Autobiography is from birth to today. It is an autobiography if you write about yourself and a biography if you write about someone else. Celebrities and politicians often are subjects of biographies and autobiographies.

Family history uses genealogy, photos, and stories to tell about your ancestors. You may start several centuries ago and stop at any date you choose.

Memoir covers a short time period or series of related events such as childhood, teenage years, military service, trauma, spiritual journey, and so forth. Your stories tell key experiences that influenced you and how you changed, such as Growing up Amish by Ira Wagler and The Liars’ Club by Mary Karr. 

Books of the Bible are mixtures of the three types. Biblical authors didn’t write to display types, but to show God’s compassion to humans with stories told through laws, history, wisdom, prophecies, hymns, poems, and letters.

Second, define your motivation for writing. All creatures feel the need to be connected, whether honeybees or humans, wolves or whales, amoebae or anteaters; whether by village, tribe, pack, household, school, work, neighborhood, city, county, state, country, religion, or politics.

What are your reasons for wanting to be connected?

Do you want to become famous?

Make loads of money?

Find personal enjoyment?

Honor family legacy?

Give back to the community?

Help your children and grandchildren

understand and appreciate their heritage?

Find personal or family healing?

Share your journey of faith to inspire others?

Set the record straight?

Marriage and family therapist, author, and memoir writing instructor Linda Joy Myers puts it this way:

“The most important ingredient in writing a memoir

is motivation–

a passionate reason to get the story on the page,

a ‘fire in the belly’ feeling

that what you have to tell is important

and significant.”

Aspiring Olympians become motivated by watching winning Olympians and noting their times or scores. The Olympians-to-be wrote the winning times on a note attached to a refrigerator door or cover of a spiral notebook. It’s okay to have more than one motivation, but more than three muddies your focus and can be overwhelming. Think of how your story not only will make a difference in your life but in the lives of those who read it.

Third, focus on key events by making a list of memory joggers, brief notes to help you remember experiences. Memory joggers speed up your writing process and give you freedom to write.

Your goal in listing memory joggers is not perfection in details; it is to remember that events occurred. 

You could outline your entire life story using memory joggers, similar to the approach Linda Spence takes in Legacy: A Step-by-step Guide to Writing Personal History. She divides a life into nine major segments: beginnings and childhood, adolescence, early adult years, marriage, being a parent, middle adult years, being a grandparent, later adult years, and reflections. In each segment, she lists questions to help you remember what might have been going on in your life. She has more than 400 questions throughout the book.

Start your list of memory joggers by preparing nine pieces of paper or computer files, each with one of Spence’s major life segments at the top, or whatever segments fit your memoir’s purpose.

In each segment, write a brief line or two about activities you were involved in during that time. Your list could include a handful of activities or dozens. Don’t write complete sentences or paragraphs and don’t try to write a story; just bits of information you will refer to later when writing your stories.

Here are a few prompts to get your juices flowing:

• Old family photographs
• School yearbooks
• Travel photos
• What you were doing when big news events occurred
• Your first car wreck
• When you learned to ride a bicycle
• Letters from family and friends
• Family Bible
• Newspaper on the day you were born or other dates you select; search your browser for vendors
• Family heirlooms: jewelry, books, furniture, clothing, dishes, and so forth
• Names of family members and friends
• Persons who most influenced you, for better or worse
• Those who guided your faith journey
• Firsts: first date, first driving lesson, first job, first child, and so forth
• Accomplishments and failures with lessons learned
• Saddest and happiest events
• Serious illness
• Death of a loved one
• Treasured friendships
• Friendships gone bad

      

With these three tools–story type, motivation, and memory joggers–you will be well on your way to a satisfying and successful journey of writing the memoir you want.

Personal historian Wayne E. Groner is author of A Guide to Writing Your Memoir or Life Story: Tips, Tools, Methods, and Examples, and other nonfiction books. He is president of Springfield Writers’ Guild (Missouri). Follow him at www.waynegroner.com and on Facebook.