“An unfinished manuscript cannot….”

You’re probably like me: a few choice one-liners have danced around in your mind for years.

Take, for example, Lee Roddy’s “An unfinished manuscript cannot change lives.” Years ago I read it for the first time in Marlene Bagnull’s Write His Answer, and it has always stuck with me.

Here’s Roddy’s entire quote:

“… An unfinished manuscript cannot change lives. Even a finished one cannot minister in a drawer or filing cabinet. Only in published form can a book go where you and I will never go, to people we will never meet. Only in published form can a book make a difference in eternity.”

(Interpret Roddy’s use of the word “published” as “finished and in the hands of your readers.” Today you have dozens of ways to publish your stories, so please don’t assume you have to find an agent and publisher for your memoir. We’ll consider your publishing options on another day.)

Roddy’s words hit close to home since, as you know from Saturday’s post, I’m struggling to write a vignette about Tom Durr. My heart and mind tell me that my kids, grandkids and, in the future, my great-grandkids need to know Tom’s story.

Like Andrew Zahn said, I have this story in me that’s begging to get out.

“Having a story of redemption and deliverance

isn’t enough.

It’s the telling of my story that brings victory.

As I put words to what God has done in my life,

I continue to overcome.

But if I keep it to myself,

God doesn’t get glorified in it

and I don’t move forward.…

We have to put words to our testimony.

You’ve got a story to tell.

Tell it."

by Alece at Grit and Glory blog,

http://www.gritandglory.com/2010/03/02/speak-up

Many thanks to those who left comments and advice for my vignette. I’ve taken every message to heart and you all have encouraged me to continue working on the story.

I’ve also puttered around The Bookshelf Muse blog, especially their Emotional Thesaurus, where I’ve found specific words and phrases to use in my vignette. (You’ll find a link to The Bookshelf Muse toward the bottom right column.)

Since your stories and mine serve as a ministry to our family and other readers, praying for God’s help is a must!

What else is a must for your writing?

What inner qualities define your memoir’s main characters?

Today we’ll dig deeper into the exercise of bringing life to your memoir’s main characters—people who shaped your life, for better or for worse.

Why is that important?

First: You want people to read your stories. The more interesting your characters, the more likely readers will keep turning pages.*

Second, related to the first: Writing your memoir is more than a hobby. It is an important ministry to your family.* Your stories contain important messages, lessons, and values you want to pass on to your kids, grandkids, and generations to come. If they don’t read your stories, however, they’ll miss the wisdom and significance you want to pass on to them. 

Look through your rough drafts for vague, one-dimensional strangers. When you find them, add details so that your main characters—not every person, but key people in your vignettes—have personality and emotions and traits.

How?

Last time we focused on sensory details* because they help readers feel they’re standing beside you, participating in your story. Write so your readers experience what you saw, smelled, felt, heard, and tasted.

For example, did he have body odor? Did she talk with a Scottish accent? Were his hands leathery? Did she comport herself like a ballerina?

It’s important, however, to go beyond sensory details, beyond physical qualities: Dig deeper and flesh out central people.

To do that, enlarge upon individuals who played significant roles in your life. What inner qualities define him or her? Tell readers about her moral fiber. What was going on in his heart, soul, spirit, mind?

How did she make decisions? What did his faith inspire him to do? Did he show you what courage is?

Did she model faithfulness? What did he teach you about forgiveness? Grace and mercy? Integrity? Honor? Tenacity? Hope? Self-control? How did he react in a crisis?

How and why did she turn the other cheek? How did he handle failure? What heartaches did she live with? What crosses did he silently bear?

Roy Peter Clark says it this way: “To bring a person to literary life requires not a complete inventory of characteristics, but selected details arranged to let us see flesh, blood, and spirit.” (from Keeping it real: how round characters grow from the seeds of detail, by Roy Peter Clark, at http://niemanstoryboard.us/2011/01/24/keeping-it-real-how-round-characters-grow-from-the-seeds-of-detail)

Sometimes a person’s negative character traits influenced you as much as another person’s positive attributes: 

What did bitterness do to her?

What prejudices did he hold and how did they impact family gatherings?

Did she act one way in public and another way at home?

What did her timidity prevent her from doing?

How did his fear hinder his faith in God?

How did she let disappointment shape her attitudes?

What were his blind spots?

Was she cold-hearted? Mean-spirited?

While you work on your central characters' "flesh, blood, and spirit," keep in mind the definition* and beauty and purpose of memoir:

Memoir includes pondering, examining, unraveling, musing, and retrospection. 

In light of your current knowledge, look for lessons God had for you in the people and events you write about.

How did key people—whether positive or negative influences—help you learn about yourself?

Did a vignette's main character strengthen your faith or turn your life around? 

Did he pull you down with him, or convince you to live your life differently? 

What did your experience teach you about God and His involvement in your life? 

Select details that pertain to your story and its focus. Write so your readers feel they’re acquainted with your most important characters.

Want some help? In this blog’s right sidebar, scroll down and click on The Bookshelf Muse icon. Once there, look through The Character Traits Thesaurus in the right column. You’ll have a lot of fun meandering through those resources!

*Related posts:

Write life into your memoir’s characters, http://spiritualmemoirs101.blogspot.com/2011/10/write-life-into-your-memoirs-characters.html

Are your stories important?

http://spiritualmemoirs101.blogspot.com/2011/05/are-your-stories-important.html

What is a memoir?

http://spiritualmemoirs101.blogspot.com/2011/04/what-is-memoir.html

Your story is important, but will anyone read it? http://spiritualmemoirs101.blogspot.com/2011/06/your-story-is-important-but-will-anyone.html

Capture your readers’ interest,

http://spiritualmemoirs101.blogspot.com/2011/10/capture-your-readers-interest-so-theyll.html

Write life into your memoir’s characters

Invite readers into your memoir by bringing life to key individuals in your stories.

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

“In the best of cases—when craft rises to art—the author conjures a character that seems fully present for the reader, a man standing against that very light post waving you over for a conversation.” (from Keeping it real: how round characters grow from the seeds of detail, http://niemanstoryboard.us/2011/01/24/keeping-it-real-how-round-characters-grow-from-the-seeds-of-detail) 

I like that: characters that seem “fully present for the reader.”

Write in such a way that central people in your story become more than a shadow in the corner—more than a stranger to your readers.

Write so readers feel they’re beside you and your characters, reliving your experiences with you.

How? By including specific details about the key people in your stories.

For starters, pay attention to sensory details: If your reader had stood with you in the presence of that person—a pastry chef, for example, or a dairy farmer—what would your reader have seen, smelled, felt, heard, and tasted?

Think about talking to your dad when you were a kid: Can you still smell his aftershave? Or the beer on his breath?

Kathleen Pooler, in her vignette Seeds of Faith, writes of the smell in her great-grandmother’s room: “I sat on the edge of the bed and she pulled me close.… ‘God bless, God bless,’ she whispered. The musty scent of age lingered as she gently rubbed my back.”

Kathleen also writes of her great-grandmother, “Her tiny hands felt smooth, like a soft leather glove.”  (Seeds of Faith, http://krpooler.com/?p=1747)

Pin down a character’s often-quoted sayings: “It doesn’t always happen to the other guy, y’know,” or “If you don’t stop crying I’ll give you something to cry about!” or “If I had a nickel for every time.…”

Write so your readers see a person’s idiosyncrasies and gestures. Did she live life at a half-run, or did she plod through life? Did he make people uncomfortable by standing too close when he talked to them? Did she bite her fingernails? Did he make a funny little noise in his throat when he was nervous?

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

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

Here’s how Jen Puckett describes her brother in A Great Cloud of Witnesses:

“… Austen was now in critical condition. ‘Wait,’ I began to question within myself. “My brother? The brother who is a handsome, rugged, solid mass of body-builder muscle? Whose fully tattooed arms I can’t fit both my hands around? My brother who has proudly walked away from many drunken bar fights with scars and wounds that he never even noticed? My brother whose square jaw, goatee, and gruff voice are characteristics of a down and dirty Harley Davidson lover? This brother? He can’t be lying almost lifeless in a hospital.…”

Note that Jen doesn’t include every detail about her brother’s appearance—she tells us nothing about his hair color, eye color, or height; they are irrelevant in this story. Jen gives us details only pertaining to Austen’s current predicament.

Pull out your rough drafts and breathe life into your stories' main characters. “… Pull your reader closer … into a sensory world that you and your readers can inhabit together” (Judith Barrington, Writing the Memoir).

Next time: Beyond sensory details

The power of color

“…Push your story deeper, pull your reader closer,

and lift the heart of the story out of obscurity

into a sensory world

that you and your readers can inhabit together.”

(Judith Barrington, Writing the Memoir)

Take out your WIPs—your rough drafts—and let’s have fun! Let’s spice up blah words.

Today, we’ll focus on colors.

If you’ve described something as “blue,” choose a word with more punch or charm. Try sky blue, powder blue, navy, royal, denim, cornflower, turquoise, indigo, or aqua. My daughter-in-law chose periwinkle blue for her bridesmaids’ dresses. What other shades of blue come to mind?


Instead of “red,” how about fire-engine red, cherry red, tomato red, blood red, rusty red, crimson, ruby, or scarlet. What other shades of red can you think of? Leave your ideas below in the comments, or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Spiritual-Memoirs-101/208789029139817


Below, you’ll find a resource you’ll treasure! For now, though, this little excerpt is a gem from James Kilpatrick, a man I’ve learned from for many years:

“This is the secret of good writing:

We must look intently,

and hear intently,

and taste intently.…

We must look at everything very hard.

Is it the task at hand to describe a snowfall?

Very well. We begin by observing

that the snow is white.

Is it as white as bond paper?

White as whipped cream?

Is the snow daisy white,

or eggwhite white,

or whitewash white?

Let us look very hard.

We will see that snow comes in different textures.

The light snow that looks like powdered sugar

is not the heavy snow that clings like wet cotton.…”

James J. Kilpatrick, The Writer's Art

Here’s that new resource—I’m so excited to tell you about it!—it’s a writer’s paradise! Hop on over to The Bookshelf Muse at http://www.thebookshelfmuse.blogspot.com. (I can't get this link to work, however, you can click over to it from right here on my blog—you’ll find an icon for The Bookshelf Muse in the right column, below.)


It contains a thesaurus for colors, for one thing. For example, to look up the color blue, use this link: http://thebookshelfmuse.blogspot.com/2010/03/color-thesaurus-entry-blue.html


You’ll find red at this link: http://thebookshelfmuse.blogspot.com/2009/07/color-thesaurus-entry-red.html


The Bookshelf Muse offers much more than a color thesaurus. The good people there have a thesaurus for weather, another for emotion, for character traits, settings, and more. Be sure to spend time there, and return often.


Soon we’ll work on other aspects of your written pieces but for now, spice up colors in your WIPs, and feel free to start a few new vignettes. They’ll be chapters in your finished memoir. Have fun!