Life Writing
Some preliminary questions and things to think about:
What is the difference between an autobiography and a memoir?
This is the first question I'm usually asked in a Memoir workshop. The simple answer is that an autobiography covers one's whole life (possibly in separate volumes) while a memoir is based on part of, or a particular episode in, one's life.
Looking after yourself:
It is worth noting that when you are using autobiographical material in your writing that you are likely to revive unpleasant or uncomfortable memories with their associated feelings. This can be cathartic, but it can also be distressing, so you need to be prepared for this and ensure you have appropriate support - a friend or therapist you can talk to about it.
This is the first question I'm usually asked in a Memoir workshop. The simple answer is that an autobiography covers one's whole life (possibly in separate volumes) while a memoir is based on part of, or a particular episode in, one's life.
Looking after yourself:
It is worth noting that when you are using autobiographical material in your writing that you are likely to revive unpleasant or uncomfortable memories with their associated feelings. This can be cathartic, but it can also be distressing, so you need to be prepared for this and ensure you have appropriate support - a friend or therapist you can talk to about it.
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Different stages of writing:
In writing fiction you usually have enough emotional distance from your material to allow you to regard it simply as a "story" or a series of events that you can manipulate for the best effect. With autobiographical writing, you are dealing with real life, which has no obvious dramatic shape. The first draft is often an exploration and discovery of your life's themes and what is meaningful to you. It is therefore often more effective at this stage to simply allow yourself to pour out the story, allowing your feelings full reign. Then you can reread it in a more detached frame of mind and think about what you wish or do not wish to reveal, what legal implications there might be, and how you can use fictional techniques to bring your experiences to life for your reader. |
There is more about creating empathy in the reader later in this handout, but I want to move on now to some of the technical choices you will have to make when you begin your second draft. I have also included the titles of some autobiographies or memoirs that successfully use the techniques mentioned. But have a look at my other handouts about fictional techniques because many of the points there are also applicable to life writing.
Techniques to consider:
POINT OF VIEW:
First person is usual (though not compulsory) for autobiographical writing.
TENSE: Present or past?
Present tense is more immediate. It keeps the story in the “now” so feels more dramatic, but it is also more demanding to read and can be limiting for the writer. It tends to demand shorter sentences and simpler, more direct language, which can limit the depth both of style and the writer’s ability to reflect on what happened in the past. It can be done but it is more of a technical challenge. (For a successful example see Emma Smith’s “The Great Western Beach” which is written mainly in present tense.)
Past tense is a more flexible medium. It allows for reflection and retrospection so the writer can comment on past events they are describing with the benefit of hindsight. (Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”)
Past and Present: it is possible to use both, saving present tense for dramatised incidents without comment, and then switching to past tense to return to a more adult, retrospective voice. (Arthur Miller’s “Timebends”)
VOICE:
Child voice: Child voice is useful to bring alive a child’s experience and especially to convey a child’s freshness of vision or lack of understanding. But usually the writer will, while trying to stay in the child’s perspective, use language that is more advanced in age, as a whole memoir in a child’s vocabulary would make very tedious reading. In “The Great Western Beach” Emma Smith describes Lucy’s disappearance in language way above a toddler’s level of vocabulary, while preserving a sense of the child’s lack of understanding and emotional desolation.
Adult voice: This is a retrospective view, looking back over the incidents being described with the ability to reflect, comment on and analyse what happened in the past. In “The Childhood of the Magician” from his "Autobiographical Writings" Hermann Hesse identifies his life’s theme or meaning while describing his early childhood, but this is clearly with the benefit of hindsight.
As with past and present tense, it is also possible to combine these two, by moving between a child’s and adult’s perspectives. In “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” Maya Angelou writes most of each chapter from a child’s perspective using past tense, which allows a smooth move to an adult perspective towards the end of each chapter to underline the significance of what she has described in the larger context of growing up as a black girl in the Southern States of America.
WHERE TO START:
There are many ways of starting a memoir.
Dramatised scene: This will pull the reader straight into the action if the event is dramatic but it must also be meaningful. In order to work, the scene needs to introduce the theme or territory of the memoir, as Angelou does with her opening scene, which also introduces us to her world (place) the social background (segregation and prejudice) and the character (her thoughts and feelings).
Setting: This introduces the reader to the world in which the story will take place as Dirk Bogarde does in ‘The Great Meadow”, introducing the reader to the idyllic Sussex countryside that he grew up in. Or you can start with where you were born, or the first place you can remember, as Emma Smith does.
Character: You can start with a character, if the character is an important part of your story, as Arthur Miller does in "Timebends", using his successive views of his mother starting at her ankles and working upwards as he grows taller, or as Blake Morrison does in “And when Did You Last See Your Father”, by giving us a dramatised incident showing his father’s impatience and arrogance. See Characterisation for more on this.
Theme: You can start by giving the reader an overview of the story you are going to tell – why it is important and what its themes are, as Hermann Hesse does in "Childhood of the Magiacian".
TIMELINE:
Chronological: Starts at the beginning and runs straight through to the end. Tis is the simplest method but not necessarily the most effective.
Total flashback: A memoir that starts with a dramatic scene, part way through or near the end of the story, and then goes back to the beginning to tell the reader how it all started. This is known as a "hook" in fiction, and Maya Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" draws us in by starting with an incident where she has to recite a poem in church and feels so humiliated that she pees herself with fright.
Episodic: Written in episodes without a linking narrative, so the reader has to piece together the story like a jigsaw puzzle. Jean Rhys’ autobiography “Smile Please” is an example as is Binjamin Wilkomirski's controversial and harrowing but brilliant "Fragments".
See Narrative Time for more on this.
STRUCTURE:
Autobiographies or memoirs are usually a balance of summary (background information) and dramatised scenes.
For understandable reasons, many novice memoir writers tend to write everything in summary, giving their perspective on what happened, telling rather than showing, and giving the reader no opportunity to judge the situation for themselves. There are two main reasons for this.
The first is that in order to write a dramatised scene the writer needs to recreate or invent what actually happened, with actions, dialogue and thoughts and feelings. Apart from being potentially upsetting, it is also impossible to be objectively truthful. Even if one had perfect recall, others at the scene would have different memories and certainly different interpretations of what happened. All one can hope for therefore is to capture an emotional truth, and only one’s own emotional truth. All autobiography is fiction.
Second, we all wish people to see things our way, to agree with our interpretation of what happened, to sympathise with our feelings. But extending sympathy is a tiring business and most readers will be unwilling to do it for a whole book. What you need to engage is the reader’s empathy, not their sympathy, and the way to engage empathy is to put the reader in your place. The way to do this is not by telling them how you saw things and what you felt but by bringing the scene vividly to life and allowing the reader to imagine what you felt, to put themselves in your place. Of course there is no guarantee that the reader will agree with you, but this is a risk every writer has to take. Readers want to be free to judge for themselves, not to be told what to think.
Think of a memoir as a film, with settings and actors and dialogue. Writing a memoir in which you tell the reader everything and show nothing would be like telling a friend everything that happened in a film instead of allowing them to see it for themselves. For life writing, as with fiction, showing, not telling, works best.
See the Scene and Summary page for more on this.
First person is usual (though not compulsory) for autobiographical writing.
TENSE: Present or past?
Present tense is more immediate. It keeps the story in the “now” so feels more dramatic, but it is also more demanding to read and can be limiting for the writer. It tends to demand shorter sentences and simpler, more direct language, which can limit the depth both of style and the writer’s ability to reflect on what happened in the past. It can be done but it is more of a technical challenge. (For a successful example see Emma Smith’s “The Great Western Beach” which is written mainly in present tense.)
Past tense is a more flexible medium. It allows for reflection and retrospection so the writer can comment on past events they are describing with the benefit of hindsight. (Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”)
Past and Present: it is possible to use both, saving present tense for dramatised incidents without comment, and then switching to past tense to return to a more adult, retrospective voice. (Arthur Miller’s “Timebends”)
VOICE:
Child voice: Child voice is useful to bring alive a child’s experience and especially to convey a child’s freshness of vision or lack of understanding. But usually the writer will, while trying to stay in the child’s perspective, use language that is more advanced in age, as a whole memoir in a child’s vocabulary would make very tedious reading. In “The Great Western Beach” Emma Smith describes Lucy’s disappearance in language way above a toddler’s level of vocabulary, while preserving a sense of the child’s lack of understanding and emotional desolation.
Adult voice: This is a retrospective view, looking back over the incidents being described with the ability to reflect, comment on and analyse what happened in the past. In “The Childhood of the Magician” from his "Autobiographical Writings" Hermann Hesse identifies his life’s theme or meaning while describing his early childhood, but this is clearly with the benefit of hindsight.
As with past and present tense, it is also possible to combine these two, by moving between a child’s and adult’s perspectives. In “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” Maya Angelou writes most of each chapter from a child’s perspective using past tense, which allows a smooth move to an adult perspective towards the end of each chapter to underline the significance of what she has described in the larger context of growing up as a black girl in the Southern States of America.
WHERE TO START:
There are many ways of starting a memoir.
Dramatised scene: This will pull the reader straight into the action if the event is dramatic but it must also be meaningful. In order to work, the scene needs to introduce the theme or territory of the memoir, as Angelou does with her opening scene, which also introduces us to her world (place) the social background (segregation and prejudice) and the character (her thoughts and feelings).
Setting: This introduces the reader to the world in which the story will take place as Dirk Bogarde does in ‘The Great Meadow”, introducing the reader to the idyllic Sussex countryside that he grew up in. Or you can start with where you were born, or the first place you can remember, as Emma Smith does.
Character: You can start with a character, if the character is an important part of your story, as Arthur Miller does in "Timebends", using his successive views of his mother starting at her ankles and working upwards as he grows taller, or as Blake Morrison does in “And when Did You Last See Your Father”, by giving us a dramatised incident showing his father’s impatience and arrogance. See Characterisation for more on this.
Theme: You can start by giving the reader an overview of the story you are going to tell – why it is important and what its themes are, as Hermann Hesse does in "Childhood of the Magiacian".
TIMELINE:
Chronological: Starts at the beginning and runs straight through to the end. Tis is the simplest method but not necessarily the most effective.
Total flashback: A memoir that starts with a dramatic scene, part way through or near the end of the story, and then goes back to the beginning to tell the reader how it all started. This is known as a "hook" in fiction, and Maya Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" draws us in by starting with an incident where she has to recite a poem in church and feels so humiliated that she pees herself with fright.
Episodic: Written in episodes without a linking narrative, so the reader has to piece together the story like a jigsaw puzzle. Jean Rhys’ autobiography “Smile Please” is an example as is Binjamin Wilkomirski's controversial and harrowing but brilliant "Fragments".
See Narrative Time for more on this.
STRUCTURE:
Autobiographies or memoirs are usually a balance of summary (background information) and dramatised scenes.
For understandable reasons, many novice memoir writers tend to write everything in summary, giving their perspective on what happened, telling rather than showing, and giving the reader no opportunity to judge the situation for themselves. There are two main reasons for this.
The first is that in order to write a dramatised scene the writer needs to recreate or invent what actually happened, with actions, dialogue and thoughts and feelings. Apart from being potentially upsetting, it is also impossible to be objectively truthful. Even if one had perfect recall, others at the scene would have different memories and certainly different interpretations of what happened. All one can hope for therefore is to capture an emotional truth, and only one’s own emotional truth. All autobiography is fiction.
Second, we all wish people to see things our way, to agree with our interpretation of what happened, to sympathise with our feelings. But extending sympathy is a tiring business and most readers will be unwilling to do it for a whole book. What you need to engage is the reader’s empathy, not their sympathy, and the way to engage empathy is to put the reader in your place. The way to do this is not by telling them how you saw things and what you felt but by bringing the scene vividly to life and allowing the reader to imagine what you felt, to put themselves in your place. Of course there is no guarantee that the reader will agree with you, but this is a risk every writer has to take. Readers want to be free to judge for themselves, not to be told what to think.
Think of a memoir as a film, with settings and actors and dialogue. Writing a memoir in which you tell the reader everything and show nothing would be like telling a friend everything that happened in a film instead of allowing them to see it for themselves. For life writing, as with fiction, showing, not telling, works best.
See the Scene and Summary page for more on this.