Self Editing Your Memoir Class 1: What's Your Story?
- 2. “You need to consider your storytelling, and the audience you one day hope to attract, and how your life and personality and voice come across to them. For the first time, you are inviting strangers into your life story, and you need to make that mental adjustment when you’re writing memoir.” Mary Karr, The Art of Memoir
- 3. January: What's your story? Stepping back and charting the premise and reader-friendly hook of your memoir February: Who are these people? Evaluating how friends, family, and foes are treated both fairly and realistically March: Who's telling your story? Analyzing your narrative voice and perspective as a storyteller April: What structure holds this together? Looking at how individual scenes work together to keep the reader turning pages May: Does it flow? Practicing line editing to affect pacing, atmosphere, and tone June: Are there distractions? Copy editing for readability and accuracy
- 5. Tell us a little about what you’re writing, and what drew you here. Where are you in the writing process? Do you have a specific question or concern you’re hoping this class will address? What is a memoir you’ve read recently that spoke to you?
- 8. The Premise: What is the active question/plot that drives the story? The Promise: What will the reader gain in their own life from your experience?
- 9. On a ten-day visit to San Miguel de Allende, Judith Gille falls in love…with a hot pink house on a rundown alleyway. Without consulting her husband or knowing how she’s going to pay for it, she makes the owners a full price offer. Despite a bumpy start in a new culture, Judith and her husband eventually befriend their neighbors on Callejon de Chepitos and form a close bond with the Cordova clan. As their affection for the lively Mexican family grows, so do the complications of their cross- cultural relationship. When the oldest daughter seeks to cross the border illegally, the lives of the two families become inextricably entwined. The View from Casa Chepitos puts a human face on the immigration controversy and paints an intimate portrait of Mexican life today. But the story also explores the deeper issues women of all ages face: affirming their self worth and purpose, building enduring relationships, and discovering where it is they truly belong.
- 10. Cynt Marshall grew up in a northern California housing project with a violent father who once broke her nose, but also with a strong, devoted mother who kept her family fed and focused, reminding them, “It’s not where you live, but how you live.” Heeding her mother’s advice, Marshall excelled first at school and then in her professional life, overcoming overt and subtle racism to become, at forty, one of the first Black woman officers at AT&T, while also navigating both grief and joy as she started a family of her own. All that life experience prepared Marshall for the day when, at fifty-one, she was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer, just one lymph node from stage 4. Overnight, her life changed, but her commitment to serve others did not. You’ve Been Chosen offers what Marshall calls “the good, the great, the bad, and the ugly parts” of her journey through both cancer and everything that led up to it. Along the way, she tackles the tough questions we all face: What will I do with what I have been given? How will I respond to challenges with both grace and grit? Where will this new path take me if I keep moving? And how can I offer something good back to the world as a result?
- 12. A plot begins with a protagonist (or protagonists) in a state of stability, but something happens quickly – in modern writing usually within the first 5-10 pages – to change their state of physical or emotional instability, or both. The protaginist may choose the change, or a change is thrust upon them. The protagonist actively seeks a resolution to that instability, physically or emotionally. They move forward toward what they want but are thwarted along the way, facing setbacks and challenges as the stakes escalate, until at the end there is a moment of crisis/decision, and a resolution is achieved, leaving the character changed in some way.
- 14. What sets this particular story into motion? What upends the status quo and creates an instability in the author’s world? How does the instability of this event affect the author/protagonist? What's at stake for them? How does the instability (the crisis, the question, etc.) progress over the course of the book, steadily changing and keeping the reader engaged? Are there identifiable key turning points that create change? Does the reader feel like they're moving toward something? Does the instability resolve at the end?
- 16. Memoirs transform ordinary circumstances into beautiful scenes that teach a deeper truth.
- 18. On a ten-day visit to San Miguel de Allende, Judith Gille falls in love…with a hot pink house on a rundown alleyway. Without consulting her husband or knowing how she’s going to pay for it, she makes the owners a full price offer. Despite a bumpy start in a new culture, Judith and her husband eventually befriend their neighbors on Callejon de Chepitos and form a close bond with the Cordova clan. As their affection for the lively Mexican family grows, so do the complications of their cross- cultural relationship. When the oldest daughter seeks to cross the border illegally, the lives of the two families become inextricably entwined. The View from Casa Chepitos puts a human face on the immigration controversy and paints an intimate portrait of Mexican life today. But the story also explores the deeper issues women of all ages face: affirming their self worth and purpose, building enduring relationships, and discovering where it is they truly belong.
- 19. Cynt Marshall grew up in a northern California housing project with a violent father who once broke her nose, but also with a strong, devoted mother who kept her family fed and focused, reminding them, “It’s not where you live, but how you live.” Heeding her mother’s advice, Marshall excelled first at school and then in her professional life, overcoming overt and subtle racism to become, at forty, one of the first Black woman officers at AT&T, while also navigating both grief and joy as she started a family of her own. All that life experience prepared Marshall for the day when, at fifty-one, she was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer, just one lymph node from stage 4. Overnight, her life changed, but her commitment to serve others did not. You’ve Been Chosen offers what Marshall calls “the good, the great, the bad, and the ugly parts” of her journey through both cancer and everything that led up to it. Along the way, she tackles the tough questions we all face: What will I do with what I have been given? How will I respond to challenges with both grace and grit? Where will this new path take me if I keep moving? And how can I offer something good back to the world as a result?
- 20. 1. If I can’t summarize the premise and promise.
- 21. 2. We don’t get to the event that breaks the author away from normal soon enough. 3. There aren’t identifiable moments of change, or turning points, along the way. 4. The instability is never resolved.
- 22. Does the writer have enough distance from this story to tell it?
- 23. Childhood/Coming of age Medical Travel Food Professional Spiritual Humor Graphic Linked essays Hybrid
- 24. 1. Read your complete memoir draft as if it was a finished book.
- 25. Read it on an ebook app (Kindle, Google Play, Nook, etc.) OR Print the manuscript and put it in a binder ◦ Change the font ◦ Shrink space between lines ◦ Change margins
- 26. Read where you typically read for pleasure Block 1-2 hours of uninterrupted time
- 27. 1. What stands out to you about the overall Work in Progress?
- 28. 2. What is the premise of this work? ◦ What sets the story into motion? ◦ How does the instability/question/situation affect the protagonist/author? ◦ How does the instability/question/situation progress and change over the course of the book? ◦ Does the instability introduced at the beginning resolve somehow at the end?
- 29. 3. What is the premise of this work? ◦ What are the relatable themes, or life-changing questions, that will draw a reader to pick up this book? ◦ What is different about the approach or subject matter of this book from others like it?
- 30. 4. Write the Hook of your memoir in 1-2 paragraphs (no more than 200 words).
- 31. Next Class: February 10, 2024 9:00am – 12:00pm bethjusino@gmail.com