- Joined
- Jan 19, 2014
- Messages
- 27
- Reaction score
- 1
Hello friends,
There are many wonderful ways to write a memoir, and I am aware of important elements such as: main theme, narrative arc, character arc, plot, scene etc.
I will be happy and thankful for your thoughts about the following approach.
Please be gentle, as I really ask for the sake of positive and insightful discussion-
Let's assume that I have no idea, initially, for the memoir's theme/story.
So, I collect many stories, snippets and vignettes, using prompts of many kinds.
Now, I begin with a random story/snippet/vignette, then, continue to another random story, while linking them in a reasonable and justified way, like- "that's reminds me when a similar incident..."
All is written in a conversational manner, like a friend who just arrived, and began describing a stream of consciousness monologue/conversation.
Obviously, such approach may lead to a chaotic plot, even mixing different themes, and sometimes even mentioning unrelated, irrelevant stories, yet, there is a chain of stories where one leads to the other, just as someone may talk in a casual conversation.
The results is a string of the stories, snippets and vignettes, each linked to the next "reasonably"
Of course, in the editing stage, I may move and replace stories, but for the sake of the conversation only-
Does such a string of stories, linked to each other reasonably, may be a useable approach to writing a memoir?
Of course, that for publishing goals, there should be some kind of a brief description of the entire story, that will allow a more "sellable" pitch, yet, what interests me is the approach itself, and your thoughts and experience concerning it-
Are you familiar with such memoirs, that contain random stories, each story is linked to the next, with a "justified" link between them?
Do you think that this method makes a good narrative, nevertheless a specific theme is not provided/used?
And as I always like to ask in my posts, because learning the theory also fascinates me-
Are you familiar with any instructional writing guides that mention that approach.
Any other thoughts are thankfully welcome.
Thanks
There are many wonderful ways to write a memoir, and I am aware of important elements such as: main theme, narrative arc, character arc, plot, scene etc.
I will be happy and thankful for your thoughts about the following approach.
Please be gentle, as I really ask for the sake of positive and insightful discussion-
Let's assume that I have no idea, initially, for the memoir's theme/story.
So, I collect many stories, snippets and vignettes, using prompts of many kinds.
Now, I begin with a random story/snippet/vignette, then, continue to another random story, while linking them in a reasonable and justified way, like- "that's reminds me when a similar incident..."
All is written in a conversational manner, like a friend who just arrived, and began describing a stream of consciousness monologue/conversation.
Obviously, such approach may lead to a chaotic plot, even mixing different themes, and sometimes even mentioning unrelated, irrelevant stories, yet, there is a chain of stories where one leads to the other, just as someone may talk in a casual conversation.
The results is a string of the stories, snippets and vignettes, each linked to the next "reasonably"
Of course, in the editing stage, I may move and replace stories, but for the sake of the conversation only-
Does such a string of stories, linked to each other reasonably, may be a useable approach to writing a memoir?
Of course, that for publishing goals, there should be some kind of a brief description of the entire story, that will allow a more "sellable" pitch, yet, what interests me is the approach itself, and your thoughts and experience concerning it-
Are you familiar with such memoirs, that contain random stories, each story is linked to the next, with a "justified" link between them?
Do you think that this method makes a good narrative, nevertheless a specific theme is not provided/used?
And as I always like to ask in my posts, because learning the theory also fascinates me-
Are you familiar with any instructional writing guides that mention that approach.
Any other thoughts are thankfully welcome.
Thanks
Last edited: