Sunday, September 25, 2016
Reflections on Writing Memoirs
I believe that one of the problems memoir writers face is not being able to remember the details of their lives. A memoir is your life story which means you need to be able to write all the small details but in reality everyone only remembers five to ten major memories. This becomes a problem because to draw readers in you must have small details. In the memoir I am reading my author, Jeannette Walls, states that she remembers exactly what her father smelled like, sounded like, and looked like when she was four years old. Those are all amazing details to add to a memoir to draw the reader in and make them imagine all the noises, scents and sights so they can put themselves in the writer's shoes. It is a fabulous writing technique but the most my writer remembered was probably a blurry shape along with a few words. She then used these words to elaborate and make her story seem glamorous and interesting to the reader so they will stay interested in the story. Something I wonder about the process Jeannette Walls took in writing The Glass Castle is did she talk to parents, friends, family, etc to find details that she couldn’t remember at all. Most people have a selective memory whether they like it or not so I wonder if Walls consulted her mother, siblings and friends in order to find out chunks of her life that she could not remember because they did not affect her enough to be remembered. I also wonder how long it took her to track down all the people she had ever lived with or been friends with because she moved so much. In her memoir Walls states that by the time she was 10 her family had moved more times then she could remember. I worry about all this when I am writing my memoir.
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Your reflective post raises the central questions about the genre of memoir (and the larger genre of creative nonfiction). There was a controversy many years ago about an Oprah Book Club book (a memoir by James Frey) because it was discovered that many of the details were actually made up. The author defended himself, saying that the facts are not what ultimately matter in a memoir - that the truth is deeper than facts.
ReplyDeleteI loved what you said and like Ms. Braker said it does raise questions about memoirs for me. This is a very powerful post. The inferences are totally on track with your point of view that you showed in your writing. I look forward for your next blog post.
ReplyDeleteI too agree that writing memoirs is a "fabulous" writing technique that many people aren't able to do, especially remembering all those memories and tracking down all those people from your distant past who might not even remember you.
ReplyDeleteI think what you said about selective memory is true. There are so many parts of our lives that may have seemed important at the time, but if they didn't make a strong enough impression on us, then we probably forgot all about them. I also worry about remembering all of the small details about certain events. I think that you should just have fun and make some stuff up that makes your memoir more interesting.
ReplyDeleteI don't know for a fact if Jeanette Walls went searching for lost details but in my memoir, the author tells how he went back to the town where his mother grew up to find out more about her past by asking old friends and neighbors, so I'm willing to bet that Jeanette also did something along those lines. There is no doubt though that she made up details to save time and make the story a little more immersive.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your concern about correctly recalling information for your memoir. Just in the little piece I wrote for 'your words become mine' I was struggling to remember everything. I do think that hyperbole and things like that when you may not remember the memory as clearly as you would like are great alternatives and it also helps make everything a little more interesting as well.
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