The Art of Memoir
July 9, 2013
Elements of Memoir
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Mood
Mystery/Delayed Revelation
Personal Voice
Vivid Language
Dialogue
Characterization
Setting
Hook
Elements of Memoir
• Mystery: “a stranger
called to give me the
news.”
• Mood: “uninviting block,
treeless and barren, lined
with soot colored walk-ups
that cast heavy shadows for
most of the day.”
Who wrote this memoir
introduction?
Elements of Memoir
• Mystery: “a stranger
called to give me the
news.”
• Mood: “uninviting block,
treeless and barren, lined
with soot colored walk-ups
that cast heavy shadows for
most of the day.”
Who wrote this memoir
introduction?
Barack Obama
Elements of Memoir
• Mystery: “don’t know
where I am or who I am.”
• Mood: “with a cough, a
groan, I roll onto my side,
then curl into the fetal
position . . . ”
Who wrote this memoir
introduction?
Elements of Memoir
• Mystery: “don’t know
where I am or who I am.”
• Mood: “with a cough, a
groan, I roll onto my side,
then curl into the fetal
position . . . ”
Who wrote this memoir
introduction?
Andre Agassi
Sensory Detail
(Show, Don’t Tell)
The next night, still hungover, I sullenly drag into the therapy group for people
trying to quit. Maybe they know ways to cut back that won’t make me too itchy. It’s
a Cambridge church basement—a musty yellow room whose ancient carpet smells of
wet gym socks. Hung from the walls are giant posters like you’d expect at a high
school pep rally, splattered with cornball slogans.
~~Mary Karr from Lit
Direct:
Indirect:
Author states a fact in description: "It was cold.”
Author states a fact through action, thought, or dialogue . The
reader has to infer through clues: "I jumped up and down to
keep warm."
Mary Karr could have said, “It was an old and outdated gym.” Instead, she lets the
reader infer, through clues, that sense.
Characterization
I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your
life. It's awful. If I'm on my way to the store to
buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me
where I'm going, I'm liable to say I'm going to
the opera. It's terrible.
~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye,
Characterization
She was a subscriber to all the "Health" periodicals and phrenological
frauds; and the solemn ignorance they were inflated with was breath to her
nostrils. All the rot they contained about ventilation, and how to go to bed,
and how to get up, and what to eat, and what to drink, and how much
exercise to take, and what frame of mind to keep oneself in, and what sort of
clothing to wear, was all gospel to her, and she never observed that health
journals of the current month customarily upset everything they had
recommended the month before. She was as simple-hearted and honest as
the day was long, and so she was an easy victim. She gathered together her
quack periodicals and her quack medicines, and, thus armed with death,
went about on her pale horse, metaphorically speaking, with "hell following
after."
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Describing Aunt Polly, Chapter 12.
Setting
Harper Lee describes the setting
with these words:
tired, old, red slop streets, grass
on the sidewalks, sagging
courthouse, wilted collars,
ladies like soft teacakes. . .
The town itself becomes a
character.
How to Hook Readers
• Don’t spend pages setting the stage for
what’s about to happen, or filling the reader
in on things that we will need to know later on
in order for the story to make sense.
• Plunge the reader into something that’s
already happening
• Think of your story as a single problem that
gets more complicated as the story progresses
How to Hook Readers
• Leave some mystery for the reader
• If there is nothing for readers to anticipate,
then there is nothing for readers to read
forward to find out
• No curiosity = no reader
• Stories are about our expectations not being
met
How to Hook Readers
• Whose story is it?
• What is happening?
• What’s at stake?
The day dawned clear and bright, the sun was shining
and the sky was a vivid blue. Tommy awoke and lay still
for a moment. Morning was his favorite time of day,
and he liked to savor it. At last, he got up and went to
the window and pulled the shade. He saw kids walking
to school with their big sneakers and their heavy
backpacks. He saw a few energized souls riding their
bikes to work, their messenger bags slung across their
backs.
Remembering the presentation he was scheduled to
give at the morning meeting, he yawned, turned from
the window, and started dressing for work.
How to Hook Readers
• Whose story is it?
• What is happening?
• What’s at stake?
On Tuesday, Tommy woke up knowing that by noon, his fate
would be decided. He was either going to convince Anne that he
was worth hiring as a junior graphic designer or he was going to
have to move back to his parents’ house in Bethesda and
become just another graduate who couldn’t get a job. He was
sure the presentation he’d prepared was slick; he’d shot a video,
designed an animated logo, recorded music.
But as he put on his best suit and tie-okay, it was his only suit and
tie-the image of his childhood bedroom crept into his mind. His
baseball card collection in dusty shoeboxes under his bed, the
poster of Radiohead on the wall, the old electric guitar still in its
stand, and his little sister standing in the doorway telling him he
was a loser.
That bedroom was a graveyard of dead dreams. If he had to go
back now, how would he ever get out?
How to Hook Readers
• Whose story is it?
• What is happening?
• What’s at stake?
How to Hook Readers
Joel Campbell, age eleven at the time, began his
descent toward murder with a bus ride.
-What Came Before He Shot Her
By Elizabeth George