Memoir

This week we are writing fiction, but I thought some of you may start off by trying your hand at Memoir writing. What’s the difference? Well, Memoir writing is based on true stories of your life. Some people automatically think of this as Autobiography. Autobiography and Memoir writing are too genres that are not fiction, they are nonfiction. Autobiography is telling the story of your whole life. Memoir writing is focusing the story on a particular time in your life, a moment, or a series of moments you link together. In Memoir writing you can take liberty to exaggerate or stretch the truth. In Autobiography you stick more to a time line and focus on the details. Starting to write Memoir is fun because you can decide how much of the truth you want to tell and start with the stories you think are good from your own life– or stories from your family that always get attention. These are the stories you already have details for, so you can make the work come alive. When you write these stories you can choose to tell them from the I, but the I may be another family members perspective. You can just pretend you are them. Or you can tell it from your own perspective. That would be a first person narrative. You may want to tell it like a third person looking in that has no relationship to the people involved. This is Third person narration. You can even tell it as a child who was told the story but wasn’t there. This is limited third person narration. If you want, you can try to tell the whole story in 2nd person. This is telling the story in complete dialogue. This is very hard to do.
Take a look at some of these YouTube Videos to get you started with Memoir writing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLHkuSpJxPs
This first one introduces the ideas of Memoir writing, even insinuating that you do not have to use grammar in Memoir or Fiction. But the truth is that while you can write in dialect or mixed languages in Memoir and Fiction, you have to use phoenix to write in languages that do not have a written representation. You still use grammar around that construction. When you use dialogue, treat every work inside the quotes as if it were a sentence, even when it is not. For example:
“Yeah, ya right. Doncha think we should stop?”
So grammar tells the reader how to read the words you are writing and has to be placed strategically, using what you do know about grammar from studying it thus far.

Read the example of First Person memoir writing by Jeannette Walls. How does she show you her story in a way that explores class, race and gender without telling you what to think?
Think of ways to show your story in the next assignment. Let’s look at Point of View before you do that.
First Person is the way one describes the narration of the story. Writers often come up with a storytelling voice that compliments the writing they are working on. This may or may not be their own voice.
First Person narration is interesting because it uses the “I” to frame the story. For example,
The world was hinging on disaster, but I was not bothered by any of it. Instead, I put my boots on and felt my pocket to make sure I had my key.
While this is a made up storyline, the use of the word “I” makes it a first person narration. You can play with this idea using your own voice as the narration as you practice memoir writing. These are some different versions of the “I” narration you may wan to try:
-The “I” voice of you at age 4, 11, 13, 17— you get the point!
– The “I” who has heard the story second hand and retells it.
-The “I” that is not really you. Pretend you are your mother, father, best friend. Tell the story trying to embody who they are. I don’t normally encourage others to tell someone else’s story, but for this once, while you are sorting out the lines of your own voice, it may be worth trying.

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