Make our memoir come alive through a sense of place

Today we continue creating a sense of place within your memoir, a setting for key scenes. (If you missed Thursday’s post, click on Must-know info about your memoir’s sense of place.)

Why is a sense of place important? Because it helps draw your readers in—it gives them a sense of being there with you.

C.S. Lakin explains it this way: “Without setting, how can you have a story? Some (many) scenes I’ve edited and critiqued appear to be floating in space or some nebulous location. The writer seems so intent on conveying dialogue or explaining about characters that he forgets (or thinks it is unimportant) to mention where his characters just happen to be.

“And then there are other manuscripts in which setting is occasionally mentioned in passing, but almost as an afterthought…. [H]e throws out a few token lines that objectively name the place or sketch a vague description and moves on.

“And that’s a shame, because a writer like that is missing out on a great opportunity to bring his [story] to life. The more real a place is to readers, the easier they can be transported there to experience the story.” 

Your goal: Make those settings tangible for your readers.

Look for spots in your manuscript that leave yourself, your memoir’s characters, or readers “floating in space.” Make revisions to anchor each key setting. 

And remember to use sensory details (sight, sound, smell, touch, taste).  

There you have it, your Tuesday Tidbit.

Come back Thursday for more on 

how to create top-notch settings for your memoir.

Must-know info about your memoir’s sense of place

Have you ever read a book that left you on the outside, not welcomed in? Maybe the story felt a little cold. Unsatisfying. The problem might have been the story’s sense of place—or, rather, lack of it.

In writing your memoir, you need to establish a setting, a sense of place, because that helps draw your readers in—it gives them a sense of being there with you.

Think of all the settings within your story—

• a significant room or home or office,
• or a geographical location with its features and weather,
• or a culture with its unique smells and sounds and sights,
• or a group setting with various personalities and voices and appearances.

We’ll look at all of those in coming days, but today, let’s concentrate on creating a sense of place within a room or home or office.

Good writing is good writing, whether fiction or nonfiction (memoir is nonfiction), so let’s look at how New York Times bestselling author Rosamunde Pilcher created a sense of place in her novel, The Empty House.

Pilcher writes of Virginia approaching a solicitors’ office in England:

“Smart, Chirgwin and Williams … were the names on the brass plate by the door, a plate which had been polished so long and so hard that the letters had lost their sharpness and were quite difficult to read. There was a brass knocker on the door, too, and a brass door knob, as smooth and shining as the plate, and when Virginia … stepped into a narrow hall of polished brown linoleum and shining cream paint … it occurred to her that some hard-working woman was using up an awful lot of elbow grease.”

Pilcher has you standing beside Virginia, doesn’t she? And you conclude the brass plate, knocker, and doorknob were old, and the place’s owners had enough money to hire cleaning help, probably a woman, and that she took pride in her work.

What kind of people do you envision Virginia will encounter after she turns that brass doorknob, steps inside, and makes her way down the hall?

I expect that Smart, Chirgwin, and Williams wore black suits, starched white dress shirts, and gray-striped silk ties. And the men drank their morning tea in gold-rimmed china cups. And they spoke precise, proper English.

Contrast their setting with that of a tough ex-convict, Socrates Fortlow, in an abandoned building in Watts:

“He boiled potatoes and eggs in a saucepan on his single hotplate and then cut them together in the pot with two knives, adding mustard and sweet pickle relish. After the meal he had two shots of whiskey and one Camel cigarette.” (from Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned by New York Times bestselling author Walter Mosley).

You don’t see any of Joanna Gaines’ touches in Socrates’ smoky room. Do you picture him eating out of the pan? And wiping his sleeve across his mouth when he finished eating?

Let’s go back to Pilcher’s story with Virginia in a later scene in a different place:

“She went down the steps and along the dank pathway that led along the side of the house towards the front door. This had once been painted dark red and was scarred with splitting sun blisters. Virginia took out the key and … the door instantly, silently, swung inwards. She saw … a worn rug on bare boards. A fly droned, blundering against the window-pane.”

Stop and think. You’re walking beside Virginia, aren’t you? You’re seeing the splitting blisters on the red door, and a worn rug, and bare wooden floors. You’re hearing that irritating buzz of the fly tapping against the window glass.

There beside Virginia, you notice a stained kitchen sink and “the sitting-room cluttered with ill-matching chairs,” and “looming pieces of furniture.”

Pilcher has succeeded in creating a sense of place for you—you’re discovering this room alongside Virginia.

Here’s another example, this one from Kim Edwards’ The Memory Keeper’s Daughter: 

“They were on the east side of Pittsburg, in an old factory building that had been converted into a progressive preschool. Light fell through the long windows and splashed in motes and patterns onto the plank floor; it caught the auburn highlights in Phoebe’s thin braids as she stood before a big wooden bin, scooping lentils, letting them cascade into jars.”

Edwards created a vivid picture: tall old factory-style windows (which I envision need a good cleaning), sunbeams shining on dust motes, the wooden floor, and auburn braids. And you probably heard those lentils spilling into glass jars, didn’t you?

What about the settings, the places in your memoir? 

Scrutinize your rough draft, asking yourself, “How can I enhance a sense of place—a setting within a room or home or office in my memoir?”

Ask yourself how the above examples generate ideas you might use in your memoir.

Look through good literature on your bookshelves or the library’s shelves and study how other writers create a sense of place for their stories.

All of these steps can make you a better storyteller. So, make revisions in your memoir using sensory details (sight, sound, smell, touch, taste) to make your places tangible for your readers. Your goal is to help them experience what you experienced.

If readers enter the places in your memoir, they can:

• feel a connection with you and your experience,
• feel grounded in your story,
• discover the mood, atmosphere, and emotions of the event in that place,
• and, in the end, take away from your memoir important lessons and inspiration for their own lives.

Tuesday Tidbit: Do you want to become a better storyteller?

If you want to grow in storytelling skills, start with dear William Zinsser's advice: 

Come back Thursday when we'll take an in-depth look at a memoir's setting, its sense of place.

There you have it, your Tuesday Tidbit.

Tuesday Tidbit: Are the words in your memoir just ... b-o-r-i-n-g?

Priscilla Long, author of the delightful The Writer’s Portable Mentor, writes of those who approach “language passively … using only words that come to mind, or words he grew up with, or words she stumbles upon while reading The New York Times… He strives for expression with rather general, conventional diction [word choice] that has little to offer in the way of echo, color, or texture.”

On the other hand, “... writers of deep and beautiful works spend real time gathering words…. They savor not only the meanings, but also the musicality of words. They are hunting neither big words nor pompous words nor Latinate words but mainly words they like…. They are not trying to be fancy or decorative.”

At Gather “crackly” words for your memoir, you’ll discover tips on using words to delight your readers, words that keep them involved in your story, words that make your places, characters, and experiences come to life.

And you’ll have loads of fun gathering and using just the right words!

 There you have it, your Tuesday Tidbit.

“What have you got to lose, except all that your family could gain?”

Have you ever asked yourself who will be poorer for not knowing your stories?

Your stories are important. They can offer wisdom and hope and character and faith to your readers—stuff they need to know!

Today Cavin Harper challenges us to take our roles seriously and be intentional about writing our stories for the benefit of our kids, grandkids, and great-grands. He asks us, “Have you written it down?”

Have You Written It Down? 

by Cavin Harper, 

Founder and President of Christian Grandparenting Network

Let this be written for a future generation, 

that a people not yet created may praise the Lord.  

Psalm 102:18

Why am I who I am today? What forces have shaped my life and the way I see the world?

These questions are not only important to me, but to those who follow me. My stories are my family’s stories, but, even more than that, they are part of God’s story and the legacy that will be left for future generations. Our stories tell those who come after something about why they are the way they are and reveal the tapestry of God’s sovereign hand woven in our stories. So, why do we not take storytelling more seriously?

Who am I?

Obviously, as a Christian—a follower of Christ—the Gospel has profoundly shaped who I am and how I view the world. Still, things like why I love cornbread and beans smothered in ketchup, for example, can be explained only by my story as a member of the Harper family. The stories each of us have experienced from birth shape us and form the bigger story that comprises the legacy we leave to the generations that follow … if they know the stories.

The Psalmist has made it very clear that we are to tell the stories of God’s praiseworthiness and faithfulness, His power and the wonders He has done (Psalm 78:4). But it is our personal stories that bring context to God’s bigger story as it is played out through our family tree. And part of telling those stories involves writing them down.

Our Stories are Treasures

The importance of writing our stories to preserve our legacy is the subject of Lana Rockwell’s book, Passing On a Written Legacy. Lana believes the stories of our lives written for others to read help our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren gain some valuable perspective about who we are as members of our family. They also help us tell the story of God’s faithfulness and ongoing work in our lives, both the good times and the bad. In her opinion, these stories are “treasures from God, a special gift from God for another generation.”

So, what keeps us from writing these stories down? Lana believes there are any number of reasons, all the result of misinformation or faulty thinking. We don’t think we can write well enough, or we don’t think we can remember anything worth telling. First of all, we’re not writing to get on the New York Best Seller list. Just start writing something and see what happens. Stop making excuses. This is about telling what you know so another generation may benefit from it.

Secondly, ask yourself who loses if you don’t tell your stories. How many of you feel you lost something important because your grandparents or parents never preserved some of their stories that tell who they were and maybe something about ourselves? Don’t make the same mistake for the generations following you.

Thirdly, order a copy of Lana’s book, Passing On a Written Legacy, and make the decision to give it a try. And in case you’re not sure if it would be worth your while, listen to my podcast with Lana on Family Impact. I think she may convince you to take the plunge. What have you got to lose, except all that your family could gain?

Thanks, Cavin, for sharing your post with us. I haven’t bought Lana’s book yet, but plan to do so soon. It looks like a valuable resource for all the memoirists here at SM 101.

Originally published as Have You Written It Down? Reprinted here by permission.

Tuesday Tidbit: Will your readers get bored?

Let’s be realistic. We can’t force people to read our memoirs.

Our lives have many distractions. Perhaps the worst nowadays is the cell phone. Just think: The memoirs you and I write compete with cell phones. That’s daunting. And our books compete with Netflix and the most popular TV shows and sports events. The list goes on and on.

Your memoir must be more intriguing than—or at least as intriguing as—those and other pastimes and distractions. People will invest in only what promises to be worth their time and effort.

Click on Will your memoir be intriguing enough? and follow links that will help you spiff up the emotional depth in your memoir and add details, including sufficient sensory details.

Like dear Cecil Murphey says, “We have to persuade people to read us and assure them that the time they spend with us will be rewarding.”

There you have it, your Tuesday Tidbit.

Tell Me What He Did: A Memoir

My heart broke over the message Heather Marsten sent telling about enduring years of sexual assault and abuse. “Every morning without fail, after one of my father’s visits, my mom would say, ‘I heard him in your room last night. Tell me what he did.’ She wrote down the details, filling two notebooks….”

The title of Heather’s memoir, Tell Me What He Did, refers to two aspects of her abuse—that question her mother asked, and what He—God—did to rescue Heather from her abusive home.

Her healing was a long, meandering process. It included therapy, paganism, New Age practices, witchcraft, voodoo, Macumba, tarot and, she says, “ultimately real healing through Jesus.” Heather now says, “It was only when I discovered God that I was able to put the pieces of my life back together and walk forward in a joyous life.”

“Writing this book has been an adventure,” she says, “because God has been showing me where He was in the midst of all the chaos of my life. Some of the ways surprised me.” 

For example, Heather now sees that God was in the nots—those bad things that could have happened but did not. She says, “I did not get pregnant by my father, did not go insane, and did not get a communicable disease. At the time I saw God as a do-nothing, but in reality, He had put a hedge of protection around me.”

She sent us the following excerpt, giving a glimpse into her mother’s backstory. Heather was in third or fourth grade in this scene.

     Clotheslines crisscross our backyard. Mommy stretches and rubs her back. “Damn hot. Sheets should dry in no time. I’d sell my soul for an automatic washer and dryer.” 

      I hand Mommy a clothespin. “I like our wringer washer. We make a great team. You send the clothes through the wringer. I catch ’em.” 

      “Bet ya Hazel has one. Bastard takes better care of her than he does us.” 

      Shut up about Hazel. 

      After the sheets dry we make my bed. I point to a photograph hanging on my wall—a short-haired Indian princess wearing a fancy dress and a sparkly headband with a feather. “Who’s that?” 

      “Me in my favorite dress. Don’t I look good? Let’s get a drink to cool off. I’ll tell ya about it.” 

      I sip cherry Kool-Aid at the kitchen table. “Why does the dress have those hangy things?” 

      “Fringe. That fringe moved like wild when I danced. Maggie, a hoity-toity maid who worked down the block from me, wanted that dress too. I bought it. You shoulda seen her face when I wore it on my day off.” Mommy smiles and sips her orange juice. “Had this picture taken right after I got my Flapper haircut. Was all the rage. My parents said I was trashy to have my hair so short.” 

      “Flapper?” 

      “We called ourselves Flappers in the twenties. I was so good at dancing the Charleston. Here, let me show you.” She puts her cigarette in the ashtray and stands. She wiggles her hips as she walks forward and backwards, puts her hands on her knees and quickly moves her hands back and forth across her knees while her knees move in and out. “My fringe flied.” 

      “I saw someone dance like that in a movie.” 

      She sits. “Saved five months for that dress. Back in those days you only earned a few bucks a week. That’s the first new dress I ever had.” 

      “Your parents didn’t buy you new clothes?” 

      “There was twelve of us. Daddy was a coal miner. We were dirt poor. We used to run and meet him after the whistle blew. He saved crusts of bread from his sandwiches to give us kids as a treat. Couldn’t afford new clothes. All my dresses were passed down from my three older sisters.” 

      “Didn’t the kids in your class make fun of you?” 

      “No, we were all poor. ’Sides, I only went to school ’til eighth grade. My baby sister, Anna, was the only one to get new clothes and graduate high school.” 

      “You didn’t go to twelfth?” 

      “Nope. My parents needed money so they farmed me out as live-in housekeeper to a rich family in Chicago. Most of my money went home. With the little I could keep, I bought the dress.” 

      “That’s not fair.” 

      “Anna got everything. I got shit.” She sighs and sips her orange juice. “Still, I had fun. On my day off, my friend Betty and I went dancing. Those were some good times. Go play.” 

      I can’t imagine Mommy dancing and having fun. She never smiles.

Wow!

After you catch your breath, notice Heather’s writing—how she develops her mother’s personality and her own, sets the tone, includes details, writes tight (avoids wordiness), and creates curiosity for readers. Especially note how Heather writes dialogue. We don’t find even one “she said,” yet we all understand who is speaking. That’s impressive! Good job, Heather!

She is writing her memoir to encourage those who have endured abuse. In fact, even before publication, her story has brought help to others. God has lovely and powerful ways—even miraculous ways—of using our stories. I know He will continue to use Heather’s memoir to bring His healing to countless others.

Heather is a happily married mother with three young adult children. She and her husband are proud to witness their kids grow into compassionate, loving people venturing into the world.

A scene from her memoir-in-progress, Tell Me What He Did, appeared in Heavenly Company: Entertaining Angels Unaware, an anthology compiled by Cecil Murphey and Twila Belk.