Denis Ledoux's Blog, page 69
November 19, 2015
November 19: Memoir Writers Need to be Memoir Readers
Every writer should be a reader. I find it astounding to learn that someone who is writing a book is comfortable saying s/he is not a reader. In the same way that, if you wanted to play a sport or an instrument, you would want to observe how master practitioners of a sport or of a musical instrument do so. In the same way, I find it unacceptable that someone who is writing a memoir would not want to be reading a memoir as s/he w...
November 18, 2015
November 18 Activity: Time to Include Feelings in Your Memoir
In the last exercises, I have asked you to explore the sense details of your life. This is not to slight feelings that have characterized various periods of your life. My own writing is full of feeling and feelings.
Feelings are often expressed through sense details. Today you will include feelings in your memoir, feelings of a particular time in your life via sense details.
More of this November is Memoir Writing Month is availa...
November 18 – Time to Include Feelings in Your Memoir
In the last exercises, I have asked you to explore the sense details of your life. This is not to slight feelings that have characterized various periods of your life. My own writing is full of feeling and feelings.
Feelings are often expressed through sense details. Today you will include feelings in your memoir, feelings of a particular time in your life via sense details.
More of this November is Memoir Writing Month is availa...
November 17, 2015
November 17 Activity: Gather Details For a Memoir
While most of us have many vivid memories of other times in our lives, it remains true that we have forgotten many sense details of our experience. These sensedetails are often elements that will draw the reader into the story. It is important to gather details for a memoir.
A sense detail enables the reader to enter into the story in a visceral way. The reader can “see” the story unfold and “hear” the characters speak, “smell” the locale, “touch” t...
November 17: Gather Details For a Memoir
While most of us have many vivid memories of other times in our lives, it remains true that we have forgotten many sense details of our experience. These sensedetails are often elements that will draw the reader into the story. It is important to gather details for a memoir.
A sense detail enables the reader to enter into the story in a visceral way. The reader can “see” the story unfold and “hear” the characters speak, “smell” the locale, “touch” t...
November 16, 2015
November 16 Activity: 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 life is lived within some context that is much larger than the individual and the family unit. We all live within some historical context.
Today you will look at the bigger picture that ought to be included in your memoir.
Read a history—whether a book or an article in a magazine or on...
November 15, 2015
November 15 Activity: Setting as A Character in Your Memoir
The setting 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.
Today you will work at creating feeling in your description of your setting.
More of this November is Memoir Writing Month post is available with the free My Memoir Education member...
November 14, 2015
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.
If you can travel to the placeSpend time there lingering with your memories.
R...November 13, 2015
November 13 Activity: Writing A Memoir Is Like Making A Movie
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 frown.
...November 12, 2015
November 12 Activity: Use Sense Details in Your Memoir
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 our sympathy and our feelings while a personal essay addresses our minds. In view of this, the memoir does well to bring us into the scene of the story and make us feel we are there.
More of November is Memoir Writing Month...
