Category: Storytelling
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Memoir Writing Prompt – Your Rocky Story
by Jerry Waxler After hearing journalist Michael Vitez speak at the Philadelphia Writer’s Conference, I’m reading his book Rocky Stories: Tales of Love, Hope, And Happiness at America’s Most Famous Steps by Michael Vitez, Sylvester Stallone, and Tom Gralish. Vitez and his Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Tom Gralish parked themselves at the stairs of the…
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Your story works like your skin
by Jerry Waxler When you cut your skin, you bleed, and if you don’t clean it, infection sets in. Human beings also have another type of skin, made not of flesh but of stories. This skin provides a sense of purpose, of safety, of place in the world. When it’s healthy it is resilient enough…
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To improve your memoir, break down the code
by Jerry Waxler My dad owned a neighborhood drugstore in north Philadelphia, and on the nights he was able to make it home for dinner, most of the conversation centered around him telling us about the menagerie of characters who streamed through the store and gave him endless raw material. We sat and dutifully listened,…
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Storytelling lessons for memoir writers
by Jerry Waxler The tiny town of Bethlehem in Southeastern Pennsylvania has a lot going on. It was the birthplace of Bethlehem Steel, it sports an 81 foot high Christmas star, hosts the annual regional music bash called Musikfest, is home of Lehigh University and Moravian College, and has its own public radio station, WDIY…
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Life and Death in Memoir
I have enjoyed thousands of stories that involve brutal murder and outright assassination. Why am I so attracted to mayhem, when most of the time my thoughts are no more edgy than wondering what’s for dinner, or what I am going to do tomorrow? It turns out death is closer to everyday life than you…
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Memoir writing is a tool for introspection
So instead of leaving that pile just sit there and bother me in its messiness, it’s more fun to search through the piles, and turn them into something beautiful and sensible. This exercise of finding the stories in life might seem daunting at first “so many memories, so little structure.” But like cleaning up any…
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Myths and Memoirs – am I a victim?
Many people who have been elevated throughout history from victim to hero were used in this symbolic way to represent their group. The murderers hated the group and used the victim as a symbol, and the admirers showed love for this victim, and rallied around in order to strengthen their identity and defy the murderers.
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Lie, exaggerate, or tell stories in your memoir
Truth is one of the ethical rules of society. If we all lied, we’d be on shaky ground. Truth stabilizes things and lets us share our world. And so, of course parents try to instill in their children a respect for truth. And in the process, they try their best to weed out fantasy, exaggeration,…
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Memoir structure and pacing: Multiple plots?
The process of writing a life story really boils down to a translation from one language to another – from the language of thought and memory which leaps, swirls, and hides, into the language of story, which can be followed sensibly by a reader. They are very different languages. And if you are looking for…
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