Finding the Story Only I Can Tell: Themes and Threads

“Although nobody’s life makes any sense, if you’re going to make a book out of it you might as well make it into a story.” Columnist Russell Baker on why a memoir needs to tell a story from Your Life as Story by Tristine Rainer (p.39) How many times have you thought: My life is a novel or there is a book inside me? The truth is, if we have lived,we all have stories to tell and we all have our own meanings attached to these stories.Not everyone feels driven to write a book about their life but for those of us who do feel that passion, we have to learn to structure our life events into a story with a beginning,middle and end, a plot, conflict, climax and transformation. As author Tristine Rainer says in her amazing book Your Life as...

Posted by on Sep 13, 2011 in elements of story, identifying themes, Lifewriting Craft, memoir-writing, Storytelling | 15 comments

Unearthing Themes

“ EVERY ONE OF US HAS IN HIM A CONTINENT OF UNDISCOVERED CHARACTER. BLESSED IS HE WHO ACTS THE COLUMBUS TO HIS OWN SOUL.” Quoted in Words of Life edited by Charles Wallis Currently ,I am participating with an incredible group of women from all over the country in a summer memoir-writing workshop with Linda Joy Myers. I am amazed  at the depth and richness of the connections we are making through our stories. We review and probe into the stories,asking questions Tell me more about what your character looks like, her hair color, what does she hear,feel, smell, what were her gestures, what were the surroundings? All of these questions are meant to prompt each of us to dig deeper. We are fleshing out the details as we discover our “narrative...

Posted by on Jul 2, 2010 in character development, character POV, identifying themes, memoir-writing | 6 comments