Comments on: To improve your memoir, break down the code http://memorywritersnetwork.com/blog/to-improve-your-memoir-break-down-the-code/ Hundreds of Essays and Interviews to Help You Read and Write Memoirs Wed, 16 May 2012 03:25:45 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: Sarah Moffett http://memorywritersnetwork.com/blog/to-improve-your-memoir-break-down-the-code/comment-page-1/#comment-337 Sarah Moffett Wed, 22 Aug 2007 14:00:57 +0000 http://memorywritersnetwork.com/blog/to-improve-your-memoir-break-down-the-code/#comment-337 As Nathaniel Hawthorne said, "easy reading is damn hard writing." It seems so much of the writing process is stripping it of its "codes" and the internal dialogue held inbetween the lines. Particularly when those stories revolve around personal events. As Ms. Lippincott so wisely noted above, authors tend to forget that readers can only see the small vision through the pinhole we provide them, not the entire panorama. Perhaps this is why writing memoirs is such an excellent way to flesh out our own personal panorama, and by seeing the entire mountain range, we can provide our readers at least one good snapshot of the mountain. Or maybe I just need more caffeination before writing… As Nathaniel Hawthorne said, “easy reading is damn hard writing.” It seems so much of the writing process is stripping it of its “codes” and the internal dialogue held inbetween the lines. Particularly when those stories revolve around personal events. As Ms. Lippincott so wisely noted above, authors tend to forget that readers can only see the small vision through the pinhole we provide them, not the entire panorama. Perhaps this is why writing memoirs is such an excellent way to flesh out our own personal panorama, and by seeing the entire mountain range, we can provide our readers at least one good snapshot of the mountain. Or maybe I just need more caffeination before writing…

]]> By: Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal http://memorywritersnetwork.com/blog/to-improve-your-memoir-break-down-the-code/comment-page-1/#comment-134 Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal Fri, 29 Jun 2007 16:25:27 +0000 http://memorywritersnetwork.com/blog/to-improve-your-memoir-break-down-the-code/#comment-134 Great post. This principle applies to writing stories as well as telling them. A couple of days ago at a writing group I attend, one of the members read a story that included a one-sentence reference that read something like, "by happy coincidence a salesman offered us a great deal on a new car, and we drove it to (the next stop on an extended vacaton)." The obvious response was, "What's the story there? Tell us more!" It took ten minutes of animated story-telling to fill in that blank. The original story was pretty dry bones. The inset fleshed out those bones and really juiced them up. "Next time be sure you include the juice," someone advised him. In either case, we as authors of the tale forget that we need to fill in the details for our listeners or readers, who are not looking at the panorama we see in our minds. Great post. This principle applies to writing stories as well as telling them. A couple of days ago at a writing group I attend, one of the members read a story that included a one-sentence reference that read something like, “by happy coincidence a salesman offered us a great deal on a new car, and we drove it to (the next stop on an extended vacaton).” The obvious response was, “What’s the story there? Tell us more!” It took ten minutes of animated story-telling to fill in that blank. The original story was pretty dry bones. The inset fleshed out those bones and really juiced them up. “Next time be sure you include the juice,” someone advised him.

In either case, we as authors of the tale forget that we need to fill in the details for our listeners or readers, who are not looking at the panorama we see in our minds.

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