One of my students was complaining the other day about plotting, creating structure, outlining, and all that left brain stuff. “I miss my freewriting!” she said.
We love the feeling when we are in flow. It’s like a drug, and it’s also the feeling of being exactly in the center of our creative energy, which is one reason we love to write. But if we only freewrite, we end up with bunches of pages that have nowhere to live. We get lost in the middle of our story and don’t know how to get out. It’s important to balance the freewriting with the effort to find structure for our story if we want to have our book done within the next decade.
Because a memoir is a full-length work, it takes a long time to write, and it’s a challenge to keep track of all that goes on in this longer form. We have to think and plan out how best to write the story that wants to come out, while keeping our passionate connection to the story at the same time. It’s important to keep your themes in mind, and the messages you want your reader to get from the whole book, and from each chapter.
Chapters are composed of scenes linked by reflection and the narrator’s guiding voice. The reason we write a memoir is because we have learned something through living the story we want to tell, and because of that, it can be hard to find objectivity in the writing. Our memories float around in our heads like a dream. When we write, we capture a thread of the dream but again, how do we make sense of these threads? How do they weave together to create a cohesive story?
Clearly, memoirists need to be able to switch hats and have both the skill to structure and the permission to let go and write. You need to give yourself permission to freewrite, muse, sketch your memories, and take notes. Your writing journal is the perfect place for that. Everything you write doesn’t need to be for your book. You have to unhook from “production” enough to get refreshed, revitalized, and inspired to keep going through your freewrites.
Theme, Message, and Scenes
The smallest structural element in writing your book is a scene, and the largest is your themes as shown across the arc of your narrative through the whole book. Knowing your themes and the messages you want your reader to glean from your chapters helps you locate the scenes that will illustrate these points. Woven throughout is the narrator’s reflection as you translate your inner world for the reader.
The purpose of your scenes is to bring the reader into your world—to feel it, walk in it, hear, feel, smell, and taste that world. The reader experiences your world through scene. Each scene will have a purpose and a message for being in the book—and it will be true. However, the scenes will be there not just because “it happened,” but because it furthers the purpose of the theme. It’s important to understand that though a scene occurs in a specific place and time, not all scenes have dialogue or contain more than one person. You can write a lovely scene using prose only, and sometimes that is the best way, rather than using dialogue that forces an explanation or exposition.
The theme may be stated in the subtitle of your book: Cheryl Strayed’s book, Wild, has a descriptive subtitle: “From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail.”
When we open the book, we expect to read a story about feeling lost, being found, we expect an inner journey, we imagine that we will be with a woman on a trail and join her on her hike. The book’s themes showcase the ways she was lost: her mother’s death, the break-up with her husband, the loss of self through drugs, the grieving process for her mother, husband, and childhood, no relationship with her father, and being literally lost on the trail.
She gradually found herself, and there are scenes where she finds her way, learns how to solve problems on the trail, meets people who help her. The act of choosing to be brave, to face herself, and silence, and possible danger are the through thread of the book. The structure of the book includes scenes in the present, flashbacks, memories, dreams, and reflection, and everything supports the themes of being lost and found.
Cheryl wrote her book based on journals she kept at the time, but she also had to do some skillful weaving of writing skills and techniques. Writing your memoir will mean that you will draw from fragments of memories, and you may need to do research so you can include accurate details. It’s also important to pay attention to the emotional arc of writing your story—keeping your spirits up.
You can combine the joy of writing with learning your structural techniques by selecting a scene and freewriting it, getting it out of you and onto the page. You don’t have to write your scenes in a particular order, but as you assemble your vignettes, you will see your story starting to come together. The more you write, the more you will get your reward!
And read, read, read memoirs to learn how other writers solve these problems.
The National Association of Memoir Writers is co-sponsoring a workshop with Cheryl Strayed June 1, 2013 in Petaluma, CA. Click the link to sign up for the great opportunity to work with Cheryl.
Learn from the New York Times bestseller about how to write a successful memoir!
Workshop Schedule (subject to change):
8:30 Continental Breakfast
9:15 Welcome and opening remarks.
9:45 Introduction
10:00 Talk & First Writing Session
11:00 Sharing Q&A
12:30 Lunch
2:00 Craft Talk & Second Writing Session
3:30 Sharing and discussion
4:00 Reading 4:30 Q&A
5:00 Book Signing & Close
Very helpful points. I am worried I don’t exactly know why I am writing my memoir. I started out writing about my developing passion for nature and the important consequences that had for property my husband and I owned in central Virginia. But when I was diagnosed with late stage ovarian cancer, my own battle for survival got woven in. Then, one week before my last chexemotherapy, my husband became ill, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died six months later. Now I am writing alot about him, our marriage, his care of me, his illness and death, the searing experience of widowhood and, amazingly, a new loving relationship late in life.
So.. .what is the narrative arc? What is this about? I try to weave nature in and out.. it has been a solace, but can never begin to replace a person’s daily loving presence. Most of the time I think it is just wanting people to know how wonderful Tim was, what it was like to lose him, the struggle to survive emotionally through double cancer, loss, and the emoional complexity of mourning and loving someone new at the same time. But none of this strikes me as having meaning and structure.. it’s just what happened!
Hi Marica, It sounds like you have quite a story to me–a journey type story about the traveling through your illness and your husband’s, reflecting on your marriage and the meaning of it, what it’s like to lose someone, and then finding a new person in your life. The meaning of it is what you make of it–but the reader would indeed want to know how you made it day to day, what sustained you, and how you are now. Story structure is a whole subject of its own, one which I’ll be discussing on the free calls this spring with my colleague Brooke Warner, and in our short workshop classes. The url to find out more about them is http://www.writeyourmemoirinsixmonths.com.
Write your story scene by scene, thinking of the scenes like beads on the necklace of your longer story arc–arc means how the story proceeds from beginning all the way to the end.
Keep the faith. People want to know how to life, how to manage loss and death, and how to find happiness after all that! Best of luck!
Great post, Linda Joy, and I agree with all that you’ve written here. I LOVE Cheryl Strayed’s book and reading it was an enormous help to me in finally finding a way of weaving my stories together in my own memoir. Sure wish I could be out there for her workshop. Hope she comes East sometime soon!
Hi Joan–Yes, I just had to read it again, thinking I would outline its structure and read it more objectively this time, but I was sobbing, again, later in the book as the full impact of her mother’s death hit me, as it hit her through the layers of her journey and her book. I think she’s teaching all over the place. You can find out where on her website. Brooke Warner and I are going to offer a course in structure based on her book this spring! Good luck with your structuring!
Marcia – what a survivor you are! I’m just astounded at the few paragraphs you posted. Though definitely no expert on memoirs, I would suggest making two books out this. Your survival, both emotionally, and physically could be such an inspiration to cancer victims.
Interesting how this topic came up today as this is a big question that’s cropped up for me. I had too many themes in a first draft of several chapters. Now, back to square one, here’s what I’m doing – I’ve categorized the chapters into 12 parts. First I free write under categories that start with physical descriptions. These are loosely formed and even kind of yucky when I go back to edit. It’s why I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to do it this way.
one – physical and outward descriptions
two – was I born into wealth, poverty, or middle class?
three – the relationship with self and friends
four – home and family relationships
five – creative endeavors
six – work and career
seven – love relationships
eight – legacies
nine- spiritual life
ten – material things and vocation
eleven – wishes and hopes
twelve – end of life considerations and overview
My question is whether this sounds like a good way to organize memoirs, or does beginning with free form sound like the hard way to go? Anyone have any feedback?
While it’s good to keep track of the layers of theme and topics, the real question is how is the story going? Does your text read like a story? What are the situations, incidents, and transformational moments of your memoir. Is there a plot, and do you as the narrator undergo change? As you think of your list, also ask these questions of your story. Good luck!
Many thanks, Linda Joy. Your comment is quite helpful to me. I will keep going. I think as I write I will try to visualize a person who is fearful of, or actually facing, some of the trials I went through. I think that will force more analysis of what kept me going, how I made it through, rather than simply– this is what happened.