More tips for beginners: The power of photos

 

“Listen to the music of the carousel,

The tinglelingle, lingle of the ice cream bell,

The splishing and the splashing of a moonlight swim,

The roaring of the waves when the surf comes in. . . .

 

Summertime is here, wake up and come alive,

Put away the scarf and glove.

Here come summer sounds,

The summer sounds I love.”

(excerpts from “Summer Sounds,” Roy Benett/Sid Tepper)

 

The day my mother died, my daughter Karen sent me those song lyrics in response to a picture I had posted of her and her brother Matt with their grandma a year earlier.

 

To my surprise, that photo generated one of Karen’s most vivid memories of happy times with her grandma.

 

Several times when my kids were little, Mom loaded them into her car and drove across the state to Spokane, Washington, to visit their great-grandmother and other beloved relatives.

 

Mom sang all the way across the state and the kids sang with her. Especially memorable was “Summer Sounds.” All these years later, my kids can still hear her singing those words.

 

Upon seeing the picture and reading Karen’s words, Matt wrote, “When I hear this song, I can also smell Grandma's Mercury Bobcat and hear the crinkle of brown paper sacks that had rewards in them for each fifty miles of the Seattle-to-Spokane trip.”  

 

My kids’ memories led me to other memories: I could picture my mom behind the wheel singing at the top of her lungs—and she would be leaning forward. She rarely sat back against the seat, being the high-energy, intense person that she was.

 

And that led me to another memory. Mom sprinted through life. If the phone or doorbell rang, she jumped up and jogged to see who was there.

 

And that led me to another memory: Her fellow schoolteachers used to call out during recess, “No running on the blacktop!” But they weren't hollering at students—they were calling out to Mom. She hurried through life at a trot—until she had one leg amputated, but that's another story.

 

Just think!

That one photo generated all those memories.

 

Pictures can trigger your memories too,

memories that are crucial in the development

of your memoir’s significant people.

 

That's important because you don't want—

and especially your readers don't want—lifeless characters,

what Carly Sandifer calls “cardboard characters.”

 

So, find a photo of a prominent person in your memoir. Take time to study it and let it stir up memories.

 

Rediscover—and find words for—that person's quirks, gestures, body language, habits, appearance, and talents.

 

Let the picture remind you of the five senses: sights, smells, taste, feels, and sounds.

 

Set the picture aside and let your brain and heart work in your subconscious for a day or so.

 

Then get the photo out and let it inspire you to dig deeply into your story.

 

Who were you back then?

 

What was going on under the surface?

 

Find words to describe the person’s heart, mind, character, and faith.

 

What difference did that person make in your life?

 

What if you hadn't had that experience with him or her? How would you have turned out differently?

 

What emotions does the picture bring to mind?

 

Photos can help you write life and personality and depth

into your story’s key people.  

 

Create multidimensional, memorable, compelling characters.

 

Your readers will thank you.

 

Tuesday Tidbit: Three tips for writing a compelling memoir

Listen to the advice of this pro. Take in his message.

Jerry addresses writers of fiction but his instruction pertains to writers of memoir, too.

Click here to read Jerry B. Jenkins’ post about studying the art and craft of storytelling.

Click here to read his post on creating compelling characters.

Click here to learn from Jerry how to be a ferocious self-editor.

Your memoir and the power of photos

“Listen to the music of the carousel,

The tinglelingle, lingle of the ice cream bell,

The splishing and the splashing of a moonlight swim

The roaring of the waves when the surf comes in.…

“Summer time is here wake up and come alive,

Put away a scarf and glove.

Here come summer sounds,

The summer sounds I love.”

(excerpts from the song Summer Sounds, Roy Bennett/Sid Tepper)

The day my mother died a month ago, my daughter Karen sent me those song lyrics in response to a picture I’d posted of her and her brother, Matt, with their grandma last summer. To my surprise, that photo generated one of Karen’s most vivid memories of happy times with her grandma.

Several times when my kids were little, Mom loaded them into her car and drove across the state to Spokane, Washington, to visit their great-grandmother and lots of other beloved relatives.

Mom sang all the way across the state, and the kids sang with her. Especially memorable was Summer Sounds. All these years later the kids can still hear her singing those words.

Matt, upon seeing the picture and reading Karen’s words, wrote: “When I hear this song, I can also smell Grandma’s Mercury Bobcat and hear the crinkle of brown paper sacks that had rewards in them for each 50 miles of the Seattle-Spokane trip.”

When I read my kids’ memories, I could picture my mom behind the wheel singing at the top of her lungs—and she’d be leaning forward.  She rarely sat back against the seat, being the high-energy, intense person that she was.

And that led me to another memory. Mom’s energy and intensity reminded me that she sprinted through life. If the phone or doorbell rang, she leapt to her feet and jogged to see who was there.

And that led me to another memory: Her fellow school teachers used to call out during recess, “No running on the blacktop!”—but they weren’t hollering to students, they were calling out to Mom. She hurried through life at a trot—until she had one leg amputated, but that’s another story.

Just think, all those memories were generated by that one photo.

Photos can trigger your memories, too—memories that are crucial in the development of your memoir’s significant people. That’s important because you don’t want—and especially your readers don’t want—lifeless characters, what Carly Sandifer calls “cardboard characters.”

So, find a photo of a prominent person in your memoir. Take time to look at the picture and let it stir up memories.

Rediscover that person’s quirks, gestures, body language, habits, appearance, talents, strengths, and weaknesses.

What relationship did you have with that person?

What emotions does the picture bring to mind?

Set the photo aside and let your brain and heart work in your subconscious for a day or so.

Then let your photo help you dig deeply into your story. Let yourself revisit your relationship with the person.

Think back: Who were you back then?

Let the picture remind you of sights, smells, tastes, feels, and sounds.

What was going on under the surface? What difference did that person make in your life? What if you hadn’t had that experience with that person? How would you have turned out differently?

Write life and personality into your memoir’s main characters. Create multi-dimensional, memorable, compelling characters. Your readers will thank you.

Related post

Let no cardboard characters creep around in your memoir

Minimize using “I” vs. Don’t be ashamed to use “I”

Recently I heard that a some experts urge Some experts urge writers to minimize the use of “I” and “me” and “my” in their memoirs.

I can see their point. Who wants to read about someone else’s navel-gazing and narcissism?

Because of that advice, in my rough drafts I’ve been looking for ways to remove references to myself, crossing out phrases or sentences the way I did in the first and second paragraphs above.

But did you notice? In the third paragraph, I used personal pronouns four times. Instead, I could have made this revision  here’s a potential revision: “Writers can often remove references to themselves without diminishing a sentence’s meaning and message.”

I encourage you to Look over your rough drafts and, if you find yourself too much in the spotlight, make changes. I think You’ll like the end result. But—

But don’t stop there! Because—

Phillip Lopate makes a strong case in favor of referring to ourselves: “Nothing is more common in a personal essay than the letter I. It is a perfectly good word, one no writer should be ashamed to use.…”

Lopate is a pro: an essayist, film critic, editor, and novelist (author of eight books). His advice comes from Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers’ Guide from the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University (Mark Kramer and Wendy Call, editors).

Memoirists need to pay attention to such folks.

So which advice is correct? Should we minimize using “I” or, instead, take Lopate’s advice?  

Both bits of advice can be appropriate.

Here’s how it works:

Lopate comes to the discussion from a different viewpoint than the group at the top of this post.

He writes: “The problem with I is not that it is in bad taste but that fledgling personal essayists and memoirists may think they have conveyed more than they actually have with that one syllable.”

Read that again.

He explains what he means: “In [the writers’] minds, that I swarms with a lush, sticky past and an almost fatal specificity, whereas the reader encountering it for the first time in a new piece of writing sees only a slender telephone pole standing in the sentence, trying to catch a few signals to send on.”

In other words, you, the writer, are a stranger to your readers, so let them get to know you. Introduce them to a well-developed individual rather than to a dull, distant, shadowy type. Lopate applauds writers “whose teeming inner lives readers come to know.”

Think back to your favorite books or stories. You probably felt you knew—felt a connection with—the main character, and that’s one reason you kept turning pages and didn’t want the story to end.

To let readers know and connect with you, Lopate says, “You must be able to pick yourself apart. The first step is to acquire some distance from yourself.… See yourself from the ceiling, know how you are coming across in social situations,… [know] when you charm and when you seem pushy, mousy, or ridiculous. You must begin to take inventory of yourself so that you can present that self to the reader as a specific, legible character.

“Start with your quirks,” he recommends, “the idiosyncrasies, stubborn tics, and antisocial mannerisms that set you apart from others. To establish credibility, resist coming across as absolutely average. Who wants to read about the regular Joe?”

Include details about yourself that pertain to, and advance, your story’s message; leave out irrelevant traits and quirks: If you are charming, pushy, mousy, or ridiculous but those details have no relevance to your vignette’s meaning, leave them out. (Save them. They might be just what you need for a different vignette.)

Bottom line: Avoid self-absorption and conceit, but also avoid being a stranger to your readers. Leave out unnecessary personal pronouns, but do let your readers get acquainted with you. 

Readers want and need to know you in order to hear your message.