Post #63 – Memoir and Fiction, Writing Alchemy – Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler
Memoir Writing and Details
This late October morning, as I looked out the kitchen window, I saw steam rising from the nearby towering oak tree and water crystals growing larger on leaf tips before weight forced them into free fall to the rain soaked ground. I stood to watch the swirling steam, trying to determine if the sun was releasing water from the trunk, the moss, the leaves or all of these. I wondered if anyone else saw how the valued treasure of morning sun had worked its magic today.
The paragraph above comes from this morning’s experience. It contains tiny, non-consequential details. But the details are unique to me. Perhaps no one else at that moment was watching a similar sight. Details such as these tell the reader something about time and place, but more importantly, they reveal a little piece of me, my thoughts, my interests.
That’s what the readers of your memoir want. They want more than the facts, more than the actions or events. They want to know how you saw and understood “what happened” and ultimately want to know how that affected you.
How do you get deep into your story? How do you find the details and get into the emotions?
Kendra and I have developed a system that is designed to help you dig into your story and in the process understand it better. We call our system Writing Alchemy. If you are interested, click here for more details.
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