SURPRISES IN MEMOIR WRITING

As I've commented in past posts about teaching memoir writing, it is one of the best jobs I ever had.  Everyone has a story and they are in class for a purpose...usually to learn how to record these stories in a way to entice someone to read them.  Along with this creative way to write their stories, they want to know how to preserve them for future generations. My objective, as a teacher, is to steer them in the right direction by using some tried and true techniques....road signs, if you will. The majority want to take a truckload along to mold into their memoir. I encourage them to dump a great deal of the truck's load....lighten up and make their job easier. After a few exercises of reduce, reduce and reduce, the writer becomes aware of how few facts it takes to be molded into a riveting story with reader appeal.

There are often surprises in memoir writing...some come to the student writing from the deepest recesses of the brain...others to the teacher as she listens to these memories too long forgotten.There is one lesson we do on "Speaking the Truth."  In it we look at different authors and how they handled family stories of pain and negative feelings. We read excepts from Angela's Ashes, by Frank McCourt, his memoir about growing up in Limerick. He tells his story with such feeling the reader is drawn in to the extent that she feels the pangs of hunger, breathes in the putrid smells of poverty, cries in sorrow for the living and the dead, and waited for McCourt's condemnation of his parents. It doesn't come.  He tells the truth, as harsh as that might be, but he is never cruel. It would have been easy for him to slip into that blame game, but he did not.  He could have asked his mother why she needed to spend money for cigarettes when weak tea often served as a meal. He could have lost respect for his father when a week's wages were spent on alcohol. He was critical but not cruel.

Several of my students have been surprised at the memories of family slights and hurts brought to the surface by listening to other students read their assignments.  They have brought these stories into the bright light of day, written them on paper and read them to the class. We listened intently, fighting back the tears, in some cases. A change had taken place.  The writer was different.  Possibly, a great burden was lifted, a sense of forgiveness filled the void. We didn't ask but we knew, the writer was different.

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