 For Authors: February 20, 2008 Issue [#2232] |
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This week: Edited by: Vivian  
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I've read quite a bit about memoirs lately. Apparently many people want to write their memoirs, but what is a memoir? I dug in my notes and lesson plans from the past and read writing magazines to find information about this popular genre.
Viv
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What is a memoir?
A memoir is a sketch of emotional milestones, the exploring of range of emotions which helps authors to recall those emotions. The thought which needs to stay in the front of a writer's mind is "What did you feel; how did you feel?"
A memoir, according to definition, is a narrative composed from personal experience, an autobiography. The author gives the reader an account of not only what happened and when factual account (although, a memoir is non-fiction, factual), but the feelings, the emotional effects of that slice of life. An account of travels or chronological details doesn't make a memoir by themselves, but the emotions felt at the time does.
According to Christina Baldwin, when we write a memoir, "We live life twice: once in the experience and again in recording and reflecting upon our experience." Reliving the emotions is part of the reflecting the experience.
Fictional memoirs is an oxymoron. Ricky Moody states, "A memoir is primarily a re-collective work of literature, and it should be as faithful to memory as is possible." Faithful to memory, not creation of imagination.
Memoirs examine real-life: events, experiences, perceptions, relationships, emotions. They are grounded in exact detail; recalling sounds, sights, smells, tastes, touching. Writers should delve into sensory images - not name emotions but feel them and allow the reader to feel them, too.
Try writing a memoir of your own. Choose a scene, an event in your life, and bring it to life so that others can see and feel what you lived.
An example of a memoir I wrote from an experience many years ago is "Crazy-Woman Dance" .
Resources:
1. Vivian Zabel, notes and lesson plans
2. Carter Jefferson, "What's Not a Memoir," WRITER'S Journal March/April 2008
3. Sarah Anne Johnson, "What's a memoir writer to do?" The Writer, November 2006
4. Barbara Krasner, "Sketch your way to CHARACTER EMOTION," The Writer March 2008
5. Ricky Moody, quoted in "What's a memoir writer to do?"
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who can then reveal nuances or layers as each character 'shows' up in the story. 
Another keeper issue. Thank you. Kate