The Art of Memoir

In my last post, I told you writing is a job. I haven’t posted in ten months, but I have been writing. I wrote a short story that was accepted for publication in an online magazine. I wrote another short story that was accepted for an anthology being published this fall. I also completed a Masters Degree in Creative and Critical Writing, and more recently applied to a Ph.D. program for Literary and Critical Studies. The topic of my thesis centered on writing memoir and different methods that can be used to flesh out a story based on your memories. The following excerpts are from my thesis.

Writing memoir is a way for us to explore parts of our history with a related theme, leading us on the road to self-revelation, with the understanding that the memoirist and the protagonist are two distinct people taking part in creating the story being told, in different capacities. Memoirists sacrifice themselves to the story they are compelled to tell. They surrender and give up their privacy by allowing the reader to probe and share in their account of events. It is usually only a small piece of themselves that is explored and revealed and not their whole life so that there is a theme that connects all the events they have decided to include. Unlike fiction, a memoirist is tasked with recording the events of similar themes which they intend to analyze, initially not concerned with plot, offering readers a perspective of their reality, from which plot emerges. The memoirist possesses all the material required to weave a tale that readers will find engaging. The trick is to extrapolate the information archived in the writer’s mind.

Being the subject of your story requires you take a step away from your character. The person you are now is not the person that experienced the event or events you are writing about. “You are writing your remembered self, which is different from who you are now. You have to step into the skin of the person you were then and see through her eyes.”[1] – Mary Karr.

Several tools in the writer’s arsenal can be employed to assist the memoirist in retrieving the data from the perspective of ‘your remembered self.’[1] One of the most useful exercises is to interview yourself. Create a list of questions to ask about each event you wish to explore. For the first draft, the questions can be as simple as what happened? When and where did the event take place? Who was present at the event?

Interviews with close family and friends can provide a wealth of forgotten memories. Hearing how interviewees perceived you than can help recapture details, and the self that you were drawing to the minds surface the raw emotion experienced during the events you want to explore in your writing. Note how interviewees considered you’d changed and remember those changes as you jump back into who you were, shedding who you are now to write the most accurate story.

For my story, I’ve kept a file for every interview I conducted, organized by event, to help delve into the experience I wanted to explore from my past. Using audio or video devices to record the interviews has made it easier and more efficient to periodically play them back. Listening to the details of the conversations helped me to focus on the point I wanted to make before I started a writing session. I found this technique useful for walking my mind back to the event, hearing details, and then writing what came to mind first. Your first draft is the place to get it all out, regardless of whether you think you will use it later. Let your thoughts and words tumble onto the page as they hop into your consciousness.

[1] Ibid.

[1] Meyers, Linda Joy. Five Tips From Mary Karr and Me About Writing Memoir (Article retrieved from www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-joy-meyers-ph-d/five-tips-from-mary-karr, 2015).