Find your story, write your memoir / Lynn C. Miller and Lisa Lenard-Cook.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Miller, Lynn, 1951-

Contributor:

Lenard-Cook, Lisa.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Autobiography--Authorship.

Autobiography.

uthorship--Study and teaching.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (147 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Madison : University of Wisconsin Press, c2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Every person has a story to tell, but few beginners know how to uncover their story's narrative potential. And despite a growing interest among students and creative writers, few guides to the genre of memoirs and creative nonfiction highlight compelling storytelling strategies. Addressing this gap, authors Lynn C. Miller and Lisa Lenard-Cook provide a compact, accessible guide to memoir writing that shows how an aspiring memoir writer can use storytelling tools and tactics borrowed from fiction to weave personal experiences into the shape of a story. Find Your Story, Write Your Memoir offers an overview of the building blocks of memoir writing. Individual chapters focus on key issues and challenges, such as the balance between the remembering narrator and the experiencing narrator, the capacity to honor the subjective voice, the occasion of telling (why does this narrator tell this story now ?), creating an organically functional structure for a particular story, and taking the next steps with a written memoir. Drawing on their combined years of experience teaching memoir writing, authoring works of fiction and nonfiction, and working in autobiographical performance, Miller and Lenard-Cook provide a practical guide whose core philosophy is motivated by a key word: story . Bronze winner, Foreword Book of the Year, Writing Guides

Contents:

Intro

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

1. The Occasion of the Telling: "It Begins Here because It's about This"

A Place to Stand

Is It an Autobiography, or Is It a Memoir?

It's about the Storyteller

Reliability and the Narrator

Telling the Truth in Memoir

The Occasion of the Telling and Organizing the Memoir

She Died, so I Remember

And Then, in an Instant, Everything Changed

Now and Then, Then and Now

Consequence and the Occasion of the Telling

2. The Two Yous: Finding a Place to Stand

The Remembering Self

The Experiencing Self

The Dance of the Two Yous

The Power of Testifying

Taking Yourself by the Hand

Negotiating Duality

Sensory Cues as Keys to Memory

Using Language and Imagery to Move between the Two Yous

The Nature of Memory

3. Building a Narrative: Laying Down the Bones

Beginning Your Story

Catalysts and Conflicts

Mapping the Tension

Examples of Structures

Chronological Structure

Circular Structure

Associative Structure

Collage Structure

Parallel Structure

Locational Structure

Choosing a Structure

You and Your Audience

Creating the World of Your Story

4. Arranging the Scenes: Giving Them Muscle

Dramatic Structure

Ordering the Scene

Catalyst

Conflict

Rising Action

Reversals

Climax

Denouement

Particularizing the Moment

Internal Action

External Action

The Emblematic Scene

Putting It All Together

5. Painting the Picture: Language and Setting

The Magic of Imagery

Using Figurative Language

Language and Sense of Place

Setting as Metaphor

Place as Time Period

Language as Action

Controlling Time

Dialogue

Silence

The Secrets of Subtext

6. Your Story, Your Voice: Make It Your Own

The First-Person Voice

Between Experience and Remembering.

Beyond First Person

Your Two Voices

You, the Narrator

You, the Character

Voices of the Masters

"She Opened Herself Up a Worm Farm"

"The Fortuneteller Was Not Guilty"

"Reveal[ing] Those Demons That Obsess Him"

The Shadowy Personage Who Commits the Actual Writing

"The Capsules of Safety, and Freedom"

Claiming Your Voice

You Are the Camera

Using What You Don't Know

7. Honoring the Memoir Process: Taking the Next Steps

Re-visioning Your Manuscript

Read It Aloud

Put It Away

Take It Out

An Editorial Checklist

The Occasion of the Telling

The Two Yous

Building a Narrative

Arranging the Scenes

Painting the Picture

Your Story, Your Voice

Honoring the Memoir Process

Other People, Other Rooms

Claiming Responsibility for Your Story

The Ethics of Guilt

What's Next?

Bringing Your Story into Public Space

Your Story, Your Book

Spotlight Exercises by Chapter

Glossary

Bibliography

Other Suggested Memoirs.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

9781299311770

1299311776

9780299293130

0299293130

OCLC:

842854878