Who, What, Where, and the When of Chronology

Who, what, where and when is necessary to a good story, says Journalism 101. It can be incorporated into the story so it isn't apparent it is there. For example:

Mom and Dad were living in the second story rooms in her parent's home. There were two bedrooms with no plumbing or running water. Dad was working days as a carpenter apprentice and going to school at nights. He was hoping I would be born on a weekend. Money was tight, as tight as his daily schedule. Missing school would be difficult. Missing income would be monumental. Seems, I knew nothing of their plans. I did not wait for an invitation to enter the world on a Tuesday........

Sometimes Do What's Not Recommended

How often have you heard,"Don't write chronologically?" While that is mostly true, writing chronologically does have its place. Sometimes writing a chronological list helps spark ideas. With those ideas, a story can be developed. When I hear certain years mentioned, memories instantly begin. Most of us remember the year of a birth or death of someone dear to us or some other important event. With the mention or remembrance of that year, recessed stories emerge.

The significance of a date can bring back the story of an event, but if you don’t remember what was happening in the world at the time, look it up. That too, might spark ideas an provide needed details that will bring your story to a time and place that seems real to the reader.

Munching Memoirs

Today, I spent some time organizing recipes. I found one written in my late husband's handwriting. It was his mother's recipe for a New Year's Day pita that is traditionally made every year. Another recipe was written in faded handwriting that I assume was my great grandmother's recipe. It was filled with things rarely used today such as lard, and fillled with instructions such as "sift flour." Of course, there were recipes of mine that I wrote before the days of computer access and then there were some that were printed from the Internet. There were some recipes that instructed, "melt in the microwave." Notable in reviewing my recipes, was how they took less time to make than former generations.

Reviewing the recipes made me aware of not only the technology that has entered our lives in a few generations, but how our diets have changed as well as the amount of time that we spend preparing our diets. These recipes are a mini memoir. They produce a visual of the kitchens and people who enjoyed their favorite meals.

It is easy to ignore daily routines such as cooking, when writing a memoir. However, it is the attention to those details of daily life that a memoir can be written with feeling as well as accuracy.

Memoirs have Commonality

I find that Bible Verse, Romans 14:7, "None of us liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself," is helpful to keep in mind when writing a memoir. We all have an impact on each others' lives and we aren't always aware of the ways we have positively impacted someone. It is the same with our life stories. Famous or not, we all have the same basic life needs. When we share our joys and frustrations, our hopes and our failures, and our history in writings, others we don't know benefit from that commonality and knowledge

Write

Don't wait for the perfect words. Just put words down on paper or computer. Later, go back to what you wrote and look at the verbs, adverbs, and adjectives to see if there is repetition. Are they the best ones to describe what is happening? Perhaps, you didn't use any adverbs or adjectives, but just wrote down the bare essentials. Then, it is an opportunity to question what more is needed to make you or others feel the memory.

Don't wait for the opportunity to sit down and write perfectly. Just get the memory written and later work at perfecting what you have to say and save. If it never gets down, perfect or imperfect, it will never be a memoir. Too simple? It's true. We often spend too much time waiting for perfection and memoirs are lost.

Visualize With Strong Words and Emotions

The last post dealt with smelling; today’s with visualizing.
Make the Impossible Possible, by Bill Strickland, is a memoir of an inner city boy who succeeds when art gives him insights and experiences that eventually lead him out of his inner city environment. He returns to his hometown and former neighborhood and brings his talent and drive to encourage others. He develops an art studio which eventually turns into much more than that for his community and communities across the nation. He tells of the police in his neighborhood being suspicious of a group of guys who were Black Panthers and were hanging around his art studio. Bill invited one of the guys onto his porch to throw a pot on the pottery wheel.
He writes, “ The cop with the shotgun nodded and looked me over. I felt the Panthers watching, too, and the street toughs, and I felt all the weight of all the tension that filled Manchester in those days pressing down hard on me. But then I looked down at the kid sitting at the potter’s wheel. He was smiling, laughing, thinking about nothing but the clay. In that moment, none of the bad stuff could touch him; he was not afraid anymore, he want’s angry or confused, he was just a kid being happy.”
This is a good example of being able to visualize a scene. Can’t you just see the tension Bill describes? There is a cop with a shotgun and “street toughs,” both eyeing each other. One can see and feel the tension surrounding the kid sitting at the pottery wheel and at the same time feel the peace that puts him so far away from that tension. One can feel his contentment and see his joyful face. I am almost able to feel the clay. I certainly can visualize it, as it is what is keeping trouble away.
Write your scenes so that you can both feel and visualize what is happening.
Contrast the above with, “One day I was sitting on the porch when members of the Black Panthers started hanging around. Of course, police were suspicious and keeping an eye on them. I had invited one of them to try their hand at pottery and he enjoyed it, but there was still tension surrounding the scene.”
Help the reader visualize, by using strong visual words that paint a scene as well as by using emotions that contribute to the visualization.

Hugs of Peppermint

I recently watched a part of the old movie Parent Trap. The movie is about two sisters who didn't know each other or the divorced parent that they did not live with until meeting at camp. They decide to switch places to experience the parent they don't know. When they arrive home from camp, the one sister meets a Grandpa she doesn't know. She hugs him and doesn't move away after the hug. Instead, she smells his jacket and snuggles his coat. He wonders why she is hanging on so long and she tells him that she wants to save a memory; a memory of the way her Grandpa smells. He quips that it is peppermint and tobacco; peppermint for digestion and tobacco to aggravate Grandma.

This is a good example of showing, not telling. In writing this story, it would be less effective to say, "I remember my Grandpa always smelled of peppermint and tobacco." To show how it was experienced in a daily-way is more effective. The reader or viewer feels the emotional connection between the two. Grandpa's statement continues the story of why he smells of peppermint and tobacco. A hug experienced between two, turns into its own miniature story.