Denis Ledoux's Blog, page 41

November 16 Activity: The Bigger Picture in A Memoir

The bigger picture in a memoir is essential for your reader (and you!) to better understand the period of your life you are writing about. A memoir that is set in the historical context of your time, even with just a few references to events, broadens your personal story into a larger story for your readers.

Writing in the bigger picture in a memoir

Many writers write their memoirs as if all there is in life is their own experience and perhaps the experience of immediate family. But, every...

November 15 Activity: Setting as A Character in Your Memoir

Writing the setting as a character of your memoir will tell us a lot about you and the people who were in your life. Many fiction writers give setting the prime role of character in their novels. As a memoir writer, you can also think of setting as a character in your memoir.

Setting is a character

Today you will work at creating feeling in your description of your setting.  I mean for you to use details that conjure feelings for the reader. Use details in the setting that will make readers...

November 14 Activity: Travel to the Setting of Your Memoir

What you will do today is travel to the place that figures in your story. This is the setting of your memoir. If you can do so physically, that is great.

If however, you need to travel to the setting of your memoir in your mind – because it is too far away or because somehow it no longer exists, you can always get there in your imagination.

Go where the action was

What you will do today is travel to the place that figures in your story. This is the setting of your memoir. If you can do so p...

November 13 Activity: Writing A Memoir Is Like Making A Movie

Writing a memoir is like making a movie, and in many ways, a good memoir writer treats the story the way a filmmaker treats a movie. Too often, as we write memoir, we tell the reader what is happening in the story rather than show it. Fortunately, a  filmmaker does not have this luxury—or is it curse?—of telling. The only way the filmmaker can let us know what is happening is to show something on the screen—whether that is a setting, an action or a feature of characterization such as a frow...

November 12 Activity: Use Sense Details in Your Memoir

Use sense details in your stories to engage and hook your readers.  A successful memoir needs sensory details to bring your story to life and make the reader feel as if it is unfolding in front of him.

November 12 Activity: Use Sense Details—They Bring Us Into the Story

The difference between a memoir and a personal essay has largely to do with how each affects us differently. A memoir is one heart speaking to another while a personal essay is one mind speaking to another.

A memoir engages...

November 11 Activity: How to Write About a Conflict in Your Memoir

Write about a conflict in your memoir to engage your reader. There needs to be action in your story. There needs to be something happening. One way to explore plot that is to explore action.

When you use action in writing your story, it is called plot. Something must happen in your story to retain the interest of your reader.

November 11 Activity: How to write about a conflict in your life; it belongs in your memoir.

Listen to how a child tells a story. It is all action. Nuances of characte...

November 10 Activity: Writing Plot Into a Memoir

Writing plot into a memoir is something people are sometimes surprised to learn that a memoir needs. For some writers, this technique of writing plot into a memoir screams of twisting the memoir into a fiction piece. But, all of us need to be kept reading by some mechanism. This mechanism is often called plot. A plot is an action. Plot is the something that happens in a memoir. Today, we explore how to create a plot that is true to the memoir.

November 10 Activity: Writing Plot into a Memoi...

November 9 Activity: How to Use Journals—Real or Imagined—in Memoir Writing

When you learn to use journals in memoir writing, you will produce more accurate and detailed stories. Your journal is a kind of writing laboratory, where you can experiment with techniques to record your feelings and perceptions. It’s also a great tool to get around writer’s block!

If you are fortunate enough to have recorded your life in a journal, you can use your entries to refresh your memory and get access to salient facts or verify what you remember.

November 9 Activity: Use Journals...

November 8 Activity: The Backstory of Your Memoir

What is the backstory of your memoir? Have you told too much? How much backstory should be included in your memoir? 

November 8: What is the Backstory of your Memoir?

Each of our memoirs is likely to have stories full of details. We spend much time elaborating the story as we remember it—and this is usually good, but we often slip into telling too much backstory.

When I work with coaching clients, I might ask them to tell the story of their relationship breakup, for instance, without going...

November 7 Activity: Speed Up Your Writing

One way to speed up your writing is to record your vignettes, scenes and other snippets of your memoir and then replaying them to hear how you tell the story.

People often complain that they do not have the time to write. Often this is justly so as writing does take up a good amount of time. No way around it! Today you will explore a way of writing faster—better will come later. In this post, learn to speed up your writing.

November 7 Activity: Speed Up Your Writing

Today’s exercise to spee...