Post #5 – Women’s Memoirs, Potpourri – Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnett
Not all stories are created equal. Some memoir vignettes we write evoke pleasant memories. It is tempting to tell these stories as if we are still experiencing them. Other vignettes evoke quite the opposite memories. When we tell these contrasting stories, we want to “keep our distance.” When we consider the Tao of memoir writing, we say:
Too close or too far away, we cannot see clearly.
There is a best distance for recalling each event of our lives.
Some stories may be pure delight; they invite us to recount them from an intimate distance. Yet if we stand too close, we may miss their meaning.
Other stories may be too painful to tell without distance, without a narrator’s voice that lets us step outside the situation. Yet if we are too far away, we may lose sight of the emotional and factual truths.
Writing Tip: We write memoirs for many reasons. But a common outcome across all the reasons for starting is a better understanding of ourselves at the ending. Writing a memoir provides clarity on what has been and usually helps us to look forward with insights about the kind of life we want to live.
Try this: Take a newspaper or magazine article. Hold it up so that it almost touches your eye. What do you see? Take that same newspaper or magazine article and put it on the other side of the room. Now walk back to where you usually sit. What do you see?
If you do this little exercise, you’ll understand what we mean in this fifth consideration of the Tao of memoir writing. Too close or too far away, we cannot see clearly. When the newspaper or magazine article was next to your eye, you couldn’t make out a single word, possibly not even a single letter. The parallel in memoir writing is the story, chapter, or vignette when you include many details but forget to say why it mattered.
When the newspaper or magazine article was across the room, you couldn’t read words although you could tell something was written on the paper. In memoir writing, this is the equivalent of crafting a vignette in such a remote way that the reader wonders why you bothered to include it. Again, to “see clearly” our lives, we need to write at the mid-range, neither too close nor too far away.
This is not to say we write about all events in the same way or from the same distance. Be prepared to move in as close as you are comfortable. But before you conclude your story, move back. Put the story in context. Consider its impact on your life.
Write a paragraph about an event or person in your life. The first time, lavish details on this vignette. Get as close to it as you can. The second time, write with coldness and detachment. Reflect on how you feel after each effort. Write a second paragraph for each version. In the second paragraph take the story and put it in context, personal, cultural, or historical. Give the vignette perspective, personal perspective. How did you feel? How did it change you?
As you write your memoir consider the implication for you and your reader of writing at various distances from the story.
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