Post #73 – Memoir and Fiction, Writing Alchemy – Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler
Memoir Writing and Character Development
First, let me thank all of you who responded to our special offer last week–an offer that gave you all 21 video lessons of our [Essential] Women’s Memoir Writing Workshop for free when you purchased a copy of our award-winning book: Writing Alchemy: How to Write Fast and Deep.
The video lessons–almost 8 hours of instruction–are regularly $109. So those of you who took advantage of our offer that celebrated our new award (2013 Best Nonfiction Book, OWFI) got a real deal. Your books should have arrived by now–at least those going to US addresses–and we urge you to sign up for your charter membership in the Association for Writing Excellence. We will begin charging in the future, so sign up now. Membership is currently free with your purchase of Writing Alchemy and you’ll get instant access to all of our previous webinars as well as receiving invitations to our future webinars, audios, etc.
Second, I want to talk about character development, whether or not you have purchased your copy of our book. Character development is one of the chapters in Writing Alchemy. The book covers both a new process for writing as well as five essential elements for writing. The first of these, of course, is character. And whether you are writing memoir or fiction, the people in the story are critical. Readers want to get to know them. They want to love them or hate them. They can’t do either if the character is inconsistent, unmotivated, unbelievable. In the book, we give you a number of ways to dig deep into the people in your book using tools developed by social scientists.
Characters in ‘The Big Wedding.’
But I want to focus today on what happens when you don’t spend enough time developing the people in your book. I’ve traveled quite a bit in the past few months. That means I’ve read USA Today at hotel breakfast tables, on airplanes, and even on trains. When I am on the road, I handle more newspapers that I ever do at home. It’s a nice change.
From one day’s newspaper, I pulled a movie review (by Claudia Puig) of ‘The Big Wedding,” a movie loaded with big name stars–Robert De Niro, Diane Keaton, Robin Williams, Susan Sarandon, and others. I’ve enjoyed many movies with these actors so I was surprised to see the title of the review, which pretty much says it all: “Why don’t they forget ‘The Big Wedding’ and just elope? We wouldn’t have to see these bland characters.”
So what makes these fine actors bland? Here are two of the reviewer’s comments:
1. “Muffin (Christine Ebersole) and Barry (David Rasche) are social climbers who worry about having ‘beige’ children. These racists are referred to as good friends of the super-liberal Griffins, though it’s unlikely that could occur in the real world.”
Takeaway: Pay attention to motivations and relationships. You may think that because you are writing a real story, motivations don’t matter. But they do. You have to help readers see what has motivated behaviors by people in your story.
2. “…the ultra-religious Madonna doesn’t approve of divorce, so exes Don (Robert De Niro) and Ellie (Diane Keaton) agree to pretend they are still husband and wife. But Zackham (the director) doesn’t even bother to keep this mother’s ultra-conservative character consistent. One minute she sternly insists on traditional values, the next she’s all hot, bothered and envious at the sounds of noisy lovemaking.”
Takeaway: If you show that a character has strong values, then these either need to be consistent or a change needs to be explained. If you can’t explain the inconsistency, then you might conjecture. Let the reader know that this is your guess, but let it be well-founded so that the reader can understand your thinking.
Fully Develop the People in Your Memoir
Understand the people you write about. Use as many tools as you can so that you see them and can write knowledgeably about them. You don’t want to receive the same review that Claudia Puig wrote at the end of her article:
“‘The Big Wedding’ is a sloppy affair, with only partially formed characters and ridiculous scenarios that strain credulity and patience.”
