Structure and Plotting
Structure is the underlying foundation of a story that makes your reader want to keep reading. It's as important in memoirs as it is in fiction.
-
Think Big, But Write Small
There’s an overall shape to a book-length story that we’ve come to expect — certain elements fall into certain places at certain times during the course of the story, and we’ve learned, even if subconsciously, to anticipate this underlying structure. Everything in a story is connected. Think of your book as a fractal. This may help you stay on track with the multitude of ideas and abstract concepts that go into a book that’s as introspective as a memoir. Six Elements 1. Story — A memoir is a story built around one main idea, theme or point. 2. Chapters — Within a story, there may be…
-
Fish-heads and Hooks
What’s a fish-head and what does it have to do with writing? I heard this term from an author friend who heard it from her first writing teacher, forty years ago. This teacher used the metaphor of a fish-head to warn her students about a common situation that happens when a writer’s in the earliest stages of creating a story. She said writers often begin writing a scene, thinking it’s the start, but it’s not in fact, the true beginning of the story. Instead, the fish-head is the scene or scenes that the writer needs to write first, to begin bringing the story into focus. You have to…
-
Autobiography vs. Memoir
What’s the Difference? Autobiography? Biography? Memoir? Story? Creative Non-Fiction? Personal Essay? All too often, when a writer decides to “write their memoirs”, they are thinking about an autobiography — the story of their entire lifetime. Calling it a memoir is a misnomer. Autobiographies and Memoirs are not the same. So, what is the difference? Autobiography “Auto”, from the Latin, means “self”. “Bio” means “life”. So an autobiography is your own life story written by yourself. A Biography, on the other hand, is a life story written by someone else, like a ghostwriter. “Bi” meaning two or dual. An Autobiography is an author’s complete life story,…
-
Writers! Stay On Topic!
How often have you started off writing a memoir, an article, a blog post, chapter or scene and found yourself wandering off-topic, down a fascinating rabbit hole, or chasing squirrels? Your story gets off-track and lost in a muddle of ideas. You end up frustrated and discouraged because the piece is nowhere near as dynamic and insightful as it appeared when the ideas first occurred to you. It’s easy to do when you’re in Flow, the ideas spilling out faster than you can keep up with them and you feel like a conduit for an unending outpouring of inspiration. You don’t want to leave out even one of these…
-
The Joy of Structure
When we first begin writing our memoirs, more often than not, it’s dull. Boring. A recitation of the facts of our life. Devoid of emotion. A bland telling of the stuff that happened without any of the emotional involvement that makes a story great. Meh! And that’s totally okay. First drafts are supposed to be a dull recitation of plot, without all the bells and whistles that make a story come alive for the reader. First drafts are meant to get the ideas out of your head and down on paper or screen so you can do something with them. It’s only as we revise and revise and revise…
-
Riding the Razor’s Edge
Recently a writer asked me this question: “How can I turn my ideas into fiction? My short stories tend to be small slice-of-life sorts of things.” This is something that I often run into in workshops and classes. People tell me they only write about true events. They don’t know how to stretch their imaginations to turn facts into stories. They’ve never learned the infinite possibilities behind that magical phrase, “What if?” To turn ideas into fiction, take your true-to-life story elements and take them as far into what-if as possible. The key to making a true story fictional is exaggeration. Make the events bigger than…
-
“High Concept” Stories
While researching the week’s topic for my seniors’ group, (“A Clever Idea”) I tripped over a phrase that is much revered in Hollywood — “High Concept”. Definition of “High Concept”High Concept is defined by Merriam-Webster as: having or exploiting elements (such as fast action, glamour, or suspense) that appeal to a wide audience. In essence, High Concept is: Premise-driven Suited for a wide audience Unique Immediately intriguing Premise: A High Concept story must have an intriguing protagonist with a challenging goal that is highly significant to him/her, and the outcome must have tremendous consequences for the protagonist and the world he/she lives in. Audience: High Concept stories must…
-
One Artist’s Journey
I like to call myself a recovering artist. I like this description because it has a certain curiosity-piquing je ne sais quoi and it references my lifelong addiction to art and creativity. It also raises the question of why anyone would voluntarily quit the enchanting life of an artist. Spoiler alert — doing shows all the time becomes increasingly physically demanding for an ageing painter. All those classy exhibitions certainly look glamorous on the outside, but behind the scenes, there’s a whole lot of grunt-work, and I was fed up with grunting. There’s a classic artist’s joke — Q. What’s the difference between an artist and a puppy? …
-
Creative Writing, Productivity, Structure and Plotting, Theme, Purpose and Outcome, Training, Lessons
How to Focus your Blog Post
Start with the End in Mind Recently, a reader asked me, “How do you write a story with the end in mind? How do you know what the end is before it’s written?” He was responding to a blog post in which I wrote about using constraints to spark creativity. One of the points I made was: “Writing with the end in mind applies especially to writing memoirs. When you first apply a life lesson, a theme, a psychological or theoretical point to the memoir as its raison d’être, you don’t need to think about everything that doesn’t fit the point. “But if you don’t…
-
Creative Writing, Organization and Research, Productivity, Prompts, Structure and Plotting, Theme, Purpose and Outcome
Less Is More
This morning, I went into my writing group completely unprepared to write. I had to show up at 11:00 a.m. and I’d been doing something else when the timer startled me with its petulant beeping, reminding me to get online immediately, if not sooner! Now, most times, when I go into the group, I know what I’m going to write — at least I have some idea or framework for the words I’ll be putting down — but for some reason, this morning I had completely forgotten that I had to write this blog post, so when one of my writer friends asked me what I’d be working…