Reflection on Writing Memoir

    I think that some of the biggest obstacles authors face while writing a memoir is finding a way to keep the reader interested while telling their story. I often find that if I am not interested in the topic of the book it is hard to follow. One way I found that Jeannette Walls the author of The Glass Castle kept the reader engrossed was by using many details to tell her story, which never made the book feel boring. For example on page 21 where she talks about how her mother "loved the dry, crackling heat, the way the sky at sunset looked like a sheet of fire, and the overwhelming emptiness and severity of all that open land had once been a huge ocean." All the details she used to describe her love for the desert made me feel as if I were there experiencing it with her. One thing I cannot help but to wonder is if she did exaggerate somethings in this book to keep the reader interested. There are many parts of this book where she went in depth into conversations of her past as if they were just yesterday when in fact they were many years ago. It is hard to recall that much detail in your mind from when you where a young child because as you grow older it slowly starts to fade away. I wonder if she asked members of her family about parts of her life that she could not remember so she would be able to go more in depth in her memoir.

    As I begin to write my own memoir I am worried that I will not be able to keep the reader engaged or it may be boring. One thing that I see in The Glass Castle that I feel could help in my writing is, not telling every single second of my life but instead going through and stopping at the important points that made a large difference in my life or that were particularly interesting.