Moments in Time: A Memoir

Events that qualify as moments can also be key realizations and decisions that define you.

Whether you are a novice to writing or a seasoned author, it can help tremendously to start with a charged scene. The art of telling a good story is deciding exactly what to share and what to leave out. Which do you chose, and why? Might you actually need a composite fight, in which the details are drawn from truth, but the actual fight is fictional? Learning to pull out iconic moment is key to the art of memoir writing, just as it is for fiction.

Either a moment will pop into your head as the obvious place to start, or you may need to make a list and think about them for a while. Either way, you are doing the work of writing your memoir. You are sifting through and prioritizing your memories.

Moments In Our Lives: How to Write a Memoir

Once you pick a perfect moment to work with, find its essence and start to write. It can be short. Use the space and time you need to get it down. Do the hairs stand up on your neck when you write? Are you feeling pain, happiness, or anger? Is it transporting you back to the moment?

One-Moment Memoirs

Is the process leading you to remember other things you might have repressed or simply forgotten? You are learning what writing your memoir might feel like. How quickly do you finish writing the moment? Does it take hours, days, weeks? Or are you done in minutes and ready to write up the next moment? Is your head exploding with material or calm as a still lake?

When you are ready, give it to someone to read. Are you getting your message across? Do they feel the message of the moment like you do? Do one, and then another.

Moments In Our Lives: How to Write a Memoir - The Write Practice

Find the connective tissue between them as a next step. Dawn Field is a book lover interested in what makes great writing. After a 20 year career as a research scientist, her first book, Biocode , was published by Oxford University Press. Now a columnist of The Double Helix , Dr. Field is exploring new writing venues and writing a second book.

• Critics' Lists: Summer 2013.
• Moments Of Truth: 6 Memoirs Written With Heart : NPR?
• Ich wollte frei sein: Die Mauer, die Stasi, die Revolution (German Edition);
• - One-Moment Memoirs!
• Judo Verbal (French Edition).
• On the Origin of World Oil and Other Fossil Fuels;
• .

Based in Virginia, Dr. Field is looking to collaborate with a range of fiction writers as a writing coach, editor, and consultant on the publishing process: You give great advice. My primary interest was serving organizations that had been under-represented. But if a cause caught my attention that was noteworthy, whether or not it had celebrity philanthropists, I covered it just the same.

My second month on the job, I met actor Robert Stack, famous for his television role in the Untouchables. It was Fat Tuesday.

Here are seven tips for writing a memoir:

He asked me if I knew the series that was on the air when I was a toddler. I told a half-white lie, I said I did.

• ;
• Paperboy IV?
• War and Peace in Modern India.

Truth is I vaguely remembered his voice, not the series. During the reception, they were serving apple martinis on trays, no doubt for their green color. When they held one up to me, in a gracious attempt I accepted. But I have a hard time not making a face when I drink alcohol.

Moments Of Truth: 6 Memoirs Written With Heart

He laughed at my facial contortion. Needless to say I quickly got rid of it. In my creative writing class when students are required to write a short-story, they often write about themselves. Ask yourself—what is this about? Your prose must read more like fiction recollections versus non-fiction dates and facts for the reader to care. Have the character change—the experience may prove therapeutic for the writer but the reader has to witness an evolution.