Denis Ledoux's Blog, page 58
June 8, 2017
Two Tips For Conveying Theme Effectively
Underlying all of your stories is its theme. The theme is really a message, the global way in which you understand your story—either in its entirety or in its parts.
The theme conveys the essence of the you (or the them) that you want the reader, and history, to know and understand. The theme provides spirit to your piece, the breath of life that individualizes your life story.
1) The theme is dependent on your insights. Insights are glimpses of understanding. (“...
June 6, 2017
Not Telling the Truth or Being Insincere Can Stop Your Writing
Many writers suffer from writer’s block, yet few understand its possible causes. Memoir writing certainly has its difficulties which can cause writer’s block. There are a number of reasons that contribute to difficulty in writing. I don’t want to use the term writer’s block because it has been made to answer to too many problems.
1. Dealing with uncomfortable materialIn memoir writing, sometimes work stoppage can be the result...
June 1, 2017
Hot Flash: Family Photo Album
As I was cleaning out my parent’s house I made all kinds of discoveries. Like most kids (I’m referring to myself here) I never once thought of my parents as people. They were Mom and Dad. What they did before me really never entered my mind. Their life consisted of station wagons, split two-level houses in subdivisions named Spanish Trace, North Village, or Highmill Estates. They were first of all parents, then perhaps golfers or members of the country club, or the ad men on Madison Ave.
Th...
May 30, 2017
Don’t Talk Your Stories Away
When a writer talks too much and too revealingly about a work-in-progress—especially at the early stage before the writing has taken shape—the energy to get the story written is often scattered. Sometimes what passes for a writer’s block is only a failure to relate to your stories in a way that’s conducive to getting them written. This may seem like a writer’s block but it’s not. It’s really poor writing discipline!
People have an urge to make their stories publ...
May 25, 2017
Keep the “Me” in your Memoir
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on Bookbaby Blog and is used with the permission of the author.
Keep the “Me” in your MEmoir Without the “me” in your memoir – the fragile and imperfect person who lived the events in your story – you leave out the human element your readers long to connect with.You’ve retired. Now, at last, you have the time to work on that book you’ve been wanting to write all your life. Your friends and family are always telling you to write a book: y...
May 23, 2017
4 More Steps to Reaching a Larger Book Audience for Your Memoir
It is possible to reach a larger book audience than family and friends with your memoir. Here are four suggestions to enable your story to appeal to a larger public.
1) Write a story that is truly well-written and whose reading—the prose itself—will bring joy to your reader.To do this, you will need to make effective use of a number of fiction writing techniques including images, metaphors, similes, suspense, foreshadowing, dialog, etc. You...
May 20, 2017
Coping With Chemo—Again
Martha Blowen, my partner in life and in work, died on August 18, 2008, from metastasized breast cancer. The following is from collated excerpts of journals we both kept at the time. (Before she passed away, she gave me permission to share her entries.)
The memoir is called My Eye Fell Into the Soup, after a dream in which one of her eyes fell into a cauldron. She later interpreted this to mean she was not paying attention to her health. (This is written about elsewhere.) As with most peo...
May 16, 2017
Where Do You Start Your Memoir?
It’s a quandary: where do you start writing your memoir? Many people may say: from the beginning. So? Does that mean you start from the first thing you can remember in the sequence of the story? I suppose you could do that, but, I don’t think that is the best place to start your memoir. So where is the best place to start your memoir?
1. The answer is actually quite simple: Start your memoir anywhere in the story.That’s right. Let your instinct prompt you...
May 13, 2017
Will We Find Cancer There, Too?
DL: Martha Blowen, my partner in life and in work, died on August 18, 2008, from metastasized breast cancer. The following is from collated excerpts of journals we both kept at the time. (Before she passed away, she gave me permission to share her entries.)
The memoir is called My Eye Fell Into the Soup, after a dream in which one of her eyes fell into a cauldron. She later interpreted this to mean she was not paying attention to her health. [This is written about elsewhere.] As with mo...
Will we find cancer there, too?
DL: Martha Blowen, my partner in life and in work, died on August 18, 2008, from metastasized breast cancer. The following is from collated excerpts of journals we both kept at the time. (Before she passed away, she gave me permission to share her entries.)
The memoir is called My Eye Fell Into the Soup, after a dream in which one of her eyes fell into a cauldron. She later interpreted this to mean she was not paying attention to her health. [This is written about elsewhere.] As with mo...
