Post #65 – Women’s Memoirs, Writing Prompt – Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler
Consider Point of View When Writing Memoir
Sunday, my husband and I boarded United Flight #36 departing San Francisco for Boston at 6 AM. The preceding seven days, each lasting 28 hours, rushed by in a frenzy of signing acceptances and amendments for the sale of our home of the past 13 years, getting bids and negotiating with movers, giving away at least 1500 books, and releasing our memories into the hands of a team of packers.
This was a crazy time to get on a plane as we have to be out of the house in a week and there is still much to be done. But months ago, we decided to make a quick trip to Boston to help my sister-in-law celebrate her 80th birthday. At some moment of utter optimism, we thought, “Why cancel? We can get it all done.”
Getting professional work done? Writing blogs? Impossible. I prefaced my ever-briefer phone calls to Kendra with, “Hi. This is your part-time business partner.” Kendra has taken over most of the day-to-day responsibilities. So boarding the plane represented a sweet set of thoughts. I realized I could get some work done while we were gone. After all, there were no file drawers filled with papers to sort in the seat next to me. No treasures to pack and share with children. No final walks on the land we have come to love. Instead, there was the luxury of time.
I anticipated pulling my computer out and getting right to work. Instead, I was tempted by the movie. It looked like light, distracting fare that might be a good way to introduce this scheduled break in the flow of actions that were taking us from California to Oregon. The movie, Flipped, written and directed by Rob Reiner, is the story of second-grader Juli and across-the-street classmate Bryce and their evolving relationship over six years. The time sequence and point of view caused me to reflect again on the difference between what’s possible with memoir versus fiction. Most scenes were played twice, once from Juli’s point of view and then again from Bryce’s point of view. This meant that the story would advance and then rewind for a second take on it.
In memoir, there is only one point of view. Yours. You can speculate that the teacher didn’t like you, but you can’t say that the teacher hated you because you don’t know what was in her head. You can show the reader the actions of the teacher and let her draw her own conclusion, but you can never know what the feelings or motivations are of another person in your story.
However, in a writing prompt, you can explore point of view in order to get a better feel for it.
Memoir Writing Prompt and Point of View:
1. Think of a turning point in your life that involved you and another person. Choose one that is charged with emotion.
2. Play the scene through in your head as if you were watching a movie. Pretend you are playing yourself. That won’t be hard to do. Then play the movie as if you had been cast in the role of the other person. This will be harder, especially if there is conflict or if the scene is emotionally charged.
3. Write the scene twice. First, craft the scene knowing your thoughts and feelings. Then back up and write the scene a second time from the perspective of the other person.
4. In memoir, we can only write what we know and a exercise like this gives you an opportunity to see that sometimes you may write as if you know what the other person is thinking. In memoir, you can write what the other person did or said, but you can’t attribute motivations or assumptions.
I looked for a Flipped trailer hoping it would show you how point of view was used. Unfortunately, the trailer even confuses the actual timeline used in the film. However, since I’ve mentioned the movie I’m including the trailer.
