Denis Ledoux's Blog, page 40

Don’t De-value Your Characters by Using Cliches and Stereotypes

Cliches and Stereotypes

Don’t devalue your characters by using cliches and stereotypes. This will undermine the unique and personal feel of your memoir. Cliches and stereotypes place people in categories. As short-hand ways of writing and speaking, they reflect ready-made thoughts and adversely affect the ways we relate to our families and friends as unique individuals.

“She was a mother-hen; You know how mothers are!” “My father had a heart of gold.” “Those were beautiful days when we wer...

Guest Blogger: Looking At My Memoir with Fresh Eyes

My second draft is less daunting Let a first draft be a first draft.

At age 54, I wrote the first 56,500 words of the first draft of my Showbiz Survival Memoir.

It was cathartic getting the first draft up and out of me. Honestly, it was a bit grueling though, — emotionally and even physically — to relive some of the most painful times in my life.

Writing about my violent ex-husband triggered so much anxiety that I put it all aside for a while to let it ‘simmer’ on the back burner. Even thou...

Mine Your Family Stories

There is a rich lode of stories that you can tap into quickly both for their historical content and for what they tell you about how members of your family wanted their young to be. These are “family stories.”

Mine Your Family Stories for Insights to Your Relationships

Family stories come down to us in many forms. Sometimes they are full-blown stories with a beginning, a middle and an ending. They carry with them a clear sense of what they are about. That is, they have a moral which it is e...

Writing Memoir as Sacred Text

As an added bonus for November Is Lifewriting Month, we are pleased to be able to include a guest post by Nina Amir, “Write Your Memoir as Sacred Text During November”. Nina is a prolific writer whose site you will do well to visit. Be sure to purchase her How to Blog a Book . Enjoy her post and please leave your comments below.

Write Your Memoir as Sacred Text During November

November offers so many opportunities for writers to tell their stories. And we each have a story that will, indeed,...

November 30 Activity: Set a Timeline for Writing Your Memoir

The use of a timeline for writing your memoir will both speed up the writing process and assure that you complete your book. It is possible, of course, to choose to write a memoir so that it takes you forever to complete it. You can write when you feel like it for as long as you feel like it and get it done whenever you get it done. Too often, that’s never.

A timeline will help you finish your memoir

Your book is very likely to remain in a computer file unless you set a timeline for writing...

November 29: How to Write an Introduction for a Memoir

The introduction for a memoir can be pivotal to your book. Do not omit to write an Introduction to be placed before the first chapter of your book. The Introduction lets fly a hook to get the reader caught so s/he reads on. In a bookstore, the Introduction is often what the reader peruses. Online, the sample copy usually includes the Introduction.

The introduction for a memoir can be pivotal

When you write the Introduction for a memoir, be sure that the pages either pose a low-point (nadir)...

November 28 Activity: Create Suspense and Foreshadowing in a Memoir

Suspense and foreshadowing in a memoir are important fiction techniques that you can use to keep the reader reading.  In an earlier post, I had written about the importance of plot in your memoir.  Plot is what happens in a story. For many readers, it is what keeps them a reading.

Suspense and foreshadowing make writing more effective

Today’s post explores these techniques for using suspense and foreshadowing in a memoir.

Suspense is the technique of suggesting that something important may...

November 27 Activity: Add Direct Dialog in a Memoir

Adding direct dialog in a memoir or indirect dialog–what’s the difference? There are two ways characters can speak in a story. One way is called direct dialog. When you write she asked, “How are you doing today?” you are using direct dialogue.  Direct dialogue requires quotation marks. When you use direct dialogue in a memoir you are saying this is actually what the speaker said. This is different from indirect dialog.

Direct dialog in a memoir adds the sound of a character

Indirect dialogu...

November 26 Activity: Where Is the Hero’s Journey In Your Memoir?

Have you thought of yourself as being on the hero’s journey in your memoir? Perhaps you have never thought of yourself as a hero—but in fact, you are one. It is the energy of your hero’s journey that has impelled you to write a memoir. Every memoir tells the story of a hero’s journey. It is the story of how the main character (usually you) was beset by difficulties and has survived. In short, every memoir is necessarily a hero’s journey.

Depict the hero’s journey in your memoir

Look at it t...

November 25 Activity: Using Photos in Your Memoir

Are you using photos in your memoir as writing prompts? I have already written about how the memory is false, flattering, and faulty. I’ve also offered you one possibility for correcting this. That is the use of the memory list, the journal, and other artifacts.

Using photos in your memoir helps you remember details

Today, I would like to offer you another opportunity to assist those false, flattering, and faulty memories. That is using photos in your memoir.

This is not, of course, a new c...