Post #54 – Women’s Memoirs, Author Conversations – Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler
Memoir Writing Tips: Writing about the People in Your Memoir
Most memoir writers have a difficult time with character development primarily because we don’t think of ourselves and others in our life stories as characters. These are real people and therefore we imagine we don’t have to fully develop them.
That’s a mistake. A big mistake. If you want to engage your readers in your memoir, whether family members or the general public, you need to help them care about your characters.
For advice on the development of characters, we invited our colleague Martha Engber to share her insights into this topic — the basis of her book, Growing Great Characters From the Ground Up: A Thorough Primer for Writers of Fiction and Nonfiction
Earlier today, we posted Martha’s introduction to character development and memoir writers on Story Circle Network’s Telling HerStories. We invite you to go there to read about Martha’s perspective on the importance of character to finding and developing your plot. Below, Martha continues by discussing two problems she sees with character development in memoir as well as her solutions.
Be sure to check back tomorrow, when we post two more problems Martha poses as well as her solutions and concluding remarks.
Why Memoirists Need to Fully Employ Character Development, Part 2
By Martha Engber
By taking the time to develop your characters, and in turn, the plot, you’ll turn your story from a list of events into an enthralling mystery about what rocked your world.
Now that I’ve hopefully convinced you about why it’s important to develop the characters in your story, let’s take a look at the character development problems memoirists often face, along with possible solutions.
Memoir Problem #1: “I didn’t realize…”
Memoirists often don’t realize their most important job is to develop every character in the story. Without explaining who people are and what’s most important to them, it’s tough for readers to interpret the significance of events.
Solution:
You’re in the midst of a solution right now. By reading articles like this, along with books like Women Writing on Family: Tips on Writing, Teaching and Publishing
To aid this growing awareness, consider deconstructing your favorite memoir, by which I mean carefully studying how the author develops his/her characters, especially through the inclusion of carefully-selected details that help you feel for and understand those people.
Memoir Problem #2: “But there are so many people in my story…”
A story populated by too many people is always a problem, simply because it’s hard to keep track of a lot of characters.
Solution:
Once you decide what the story is about — what you, as the protagonist, must do over the course of the story — you can then determine who played a significant role in your journey.
List in hand, it’s time to figure out what type of character each person is. An antagonist? A support character? A catalyst? When you understand the person’s type, you’ll understand the character’s role. If the character is interesting, but doesn’t move you along on your journey, that’s a person who should probably be left out of the story.
Please join me tomorrow back here on Women’s Memoirs where I discuss two problems (and their solutions) to character development for memoir writers. In addition, I’ll share my Character Bill of Rights with you.
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Martha Engber is the author of the literary novel, THE WIND THIEF (a book club pick) and GROWING GREAT CHARACTERS FROM THE GROUND UP: A THOROUGH PRIMER FOR WRITERS OF FICTION AND NONFICTION. A journalist by profession, she’s interviewed former First Lady of the Philippines Imelda Marcos, Apollo 13 astronaut James Lovell, actress Marlo Thomas and other celebrities. A workshop facilitator, lecturer and book editor, she’s had a full-length play produced in Hollywood. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in Watchword, Iconoclast, Bookpress, the Berkeley Fiction Review and other literary journals. She maintains Growing Great Writers From the Ground Up, a site for writers. Martha lives with her family in Northern California.
If you’d like to know more about Martha:
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