How Much to Bring in the Present

[sam.b]

Hi again,

I am writing a travel memoir about a trip almost 25 years in the past. The theme is about how the trip changed me. Stop me if you've heard that one before. The other emerging theme is about travel philosophy more generally. My story is about a trip with no plans, a life on the fly kind of thing, and the benefits that can come from that. As I write, I keep getting drawn to just how much all of that has mostly changed, including but not limited to current social media travel influence.

I find that I'm continuously fighting the urge to use 'today' as a backdrop and contrast to how it 'was'.

My question is: what are your thoughts on including the current world when writing about something 25 years in the past? Should I just let all of that go unsaid and hopefully, understood in context?

Thanks

 

[Chris P]

I think you can leave a lot unsaid. There's nostalgia value in talking about how you printed out the turn-by-turn directions from MapQuest and popped into the local visitor center or rack at the hotel with pamphlets on local attractions ("Deepest caves in this part of the upper Great Lakes area this side of the border!"). Think of it this way, if you constantly reminded us that we didn't have GPS on our phones, TripAdvisor, Yelp reviews, etc. back then, those reminders are going to look awfully odd another 25 years from now when we have whatever it is we will have by then.

 

[sam.b]

I think you can leave a lot unsaid. There's nostalgia value in talking about how you printed out the turn-by-turn directions from MapQuest and popped into the local visitor center or rack at the hotel with pamphlets on local attractions ("Deepest caves in this part of the upper Great Lakes area this side of the border!"). Think of it this way, if you constantly reminded us that we didn't have GPS on our phones, TripAdvisor, Yelp reviews, etc. back then, those reminders are going to look awfully odd another 25 years from now when we have whatever it is we will have by then.

I think this is great advice. It's probably an example of me not trusting the reader enough.

 

[Woollybear]

Hi again,

I am writing a travel memoir about a trip almost 25 years in the past. The theme is about how the trip changed me. Stop me if you've heard that one before. The other emerging theme is about travel philosophy more generally. My story is about a trip with no plans, a life on the fly kind of thing, and the benefits that can come from that. As I write, I keep getting drawn to just how much all of that has mostly changed, including but not limited to current social media travel influence.

I find that I'm continuously fighting the urge to use 'today' as a backdrop and contrast to how it 'was'.

My question is: what are your thoughts on including the current world when writing about something 25 years in the past? Should I just let all of that go unsaid and hopefully, understood in context?

Thanks

Hard to say without seeing an example.

These agent panels that I watch (you may have seen mention of them as I keep bringing them up) wrestle with memoir. Evidently it's really, really hard to sell. Some agents say it must read like a novel. Others say we need to have a reason to read the thing. Like, opening with a travel agent and their brochures about the Solomon Islands is not the way to go. Opening with someone who is in a real pickle of a jam and travels as a result might be.

To your question, I'd advise to find a way to use humor to remind the reader. Like, you're in the past and the character needs to get in touch with their kid so they text them--no, wait, strike that, it's 1990, the only way to get through is a landline and since their kid is living a dorm all bets are off that that'll even work. A little humor can remind the reader in a way that they enjoy.

 

[gettingby]

Forget about what the world is like today and give into the world that is present in your memoir. You don't want to break out of that world. And you don't want anything to pull your readers out of that world.

I think travel memoirs are great. I'm sure you had some great adventures. Take the readers on your journey. Don't break the magic of your story's narrative. Fight the urge, but, also, I totally know what you mean when it comes to writing memoir.

 

[gettingby]

These agent panels that I watch (you may have seen mention of them as I keep bringing them up) wrestle with memoir. Evidently it's really, really hard to sell. Some agents say it must read like a novel. Others say we need to have a reason to read the thing. Like, opening with a travel agent and their brochures about the Solomon Islands is not the way to go. Opening with someone who is in a real pickle of a jam and travels as a result might be.

I've heard the opposite -- that a novel is harder to sell than a memoir. I do agree that memoirs are expected to pretty much read like a novel. I do really enjoy reading memoirs and I don't think they have to or often do involve crazy shit that happened. Of course, they might, but I think memoirs are pretty much judged the way novel are by agents and publishers where the writing matters just as much as the story. And I also agree with your example, but that just comes down to starting a story with story just like you would with fiction.

 

[sam.b]

Forget about what the world is like today and give into the world that is present in your memoir. You don't want to break out of that world. And you don't want anything to pull your readers out of that world.

I think travel memoirs are great. I'm sure you had some great adventures. Take the readers on your journey. Don't break the magic of your story's narrative. Fight the urge, but, also, I totally know what you mean when it comes to writing memoir.

Yeah, I think you're right. It would really pull the reader out. Especially since I was a very young man in the story. I don't need them picturing my middle age self at a writing table.

 

[Lakey]

Yeah, I think you're right. It would really pull the reader out. Especially since I was a very young man in the story. I don't need them picturing my middle age self at a writing table.

It's an interesting thing about memoir that the narrator and the protagonist are not the same person. Your middle-age self is telling a story about your younger self, and can be as present as you want them to be; it's a matter of narrative distance. If you want to insert editorial commentary on the choices your younger self made during the story, you can absolutely do that! If you don't want to create that narrative distance, keep your modern self quiet and tell the story in a closer POV, essentially.

One of my favorite memoirs that plays with this separation between autobiographic author and subject is Mary McCarthy's Memories of a Catholic Girlhood. The book is a collection of autobiographical pieces that McCarthy had written and published previously with commentary added to each of the previously-published pieces. So, the book encompasses the perspectives of three different Mary McCarthys--the young girl who is the main character of the narrative, the younger woman who wrote the original essays, and the relatively older woman who is now revisiting the essays.

Now, as noted above, repeated explicit contrast of the material experiences of your younger self with those that would be experienced by a hypothetical person today (e.g., how mobile phones or social media would have made the experience different) might not be all that interesting; making such contrasts might be, as you said, a matter of trusting your reader. But that doesn't mean your present self should not issue any commentary on the experiences or character arc of the younger self.

 

[sam.b]

It's an interesting thing about memoir that the narrator and the protagonist are not the same person. Your middle-age self is telling a story about your younger self, and can be as present as you want them to be; it's a matter of narrative distance. If you want to insert editorial commentary on the choices your younger self made during the story, you can absolutely do that! If you don't want to create that narrative distance, keep your modern self quiet and tell the story in a closer POV, essentially.

This is really interesting to think about. It's helpful to think of me as essentially two different people. It's kind of the point, I guess. The trip (in this case) changed me which should happen in a good story. That mechanism of narrative distance is valuable to keep in mind.