September 07, 2006
Memoir vs. Fiction
Memoir vs. Fiction?
Writing a memoir is no easy task. Some might think of it as just a recollection of short stories over the course of your life, or an edited version of your childhood diary or young adult journal. In some way, these things might help recall the memories of your life, but I’ve found it no easy task to take the events of a life and place them down onto paper.
It’s not that the writing process is difficult. Training, formed skill, and ear for dialogue; these things can all be improved upon over time. Some of it’s natural. But a good part of the process is mechanical. Every person has stories from his or her life. And these stories are often universal enough that others could surely relate to them. The difficult part, then, comes not so much in the technique, but with the emotional ties to the literature.
Fiction can hold a great deal of the writer’s personal life amongst the pages between the jackets. But even behind the book jacket—the cover that is expected to do just that, to cover—there is a great feeling of standing naked before a large audience. To some—maybe those who write more sensational tell all stories—there is an exhibitionist component to writing. But artists are seldom extraverts. And for those striving to become true craftsmen or women, there are fewer exhibitions and more humility.
The memoir I’ve been working on tells more of the life of my father than of myself. He would have been fifty-nine today, and in thirteen years I will have lived the span of his own life. The title I’ve given the memoir thus far is Love is Blind. It deals also with my going totally blind between the ages of 15 and 23 years. Though much of my description surrounding my blindness is more of a metaphor for blindness toward love. It mirrors, in a lot of ways, my own father’s search for love.
I share this because many have asked me just what it is that I write. I write, for the most part, a wide variety of things, this memoir just happening to be the one major work I’m working on at this time. There are many short fiction stories, a play, another non-fiction manuscript, and a novel that are all on the sculpting table. And I’m carving them out of my memory one word at a time.
The memoir has already been written, and I’m currently fine tuning it, thanks much to the help of the couple of you who have been my proof readers (you know who you are and I’m greatly indebted to you). I guess that is why I’m now able to see just how daunting of a task it is to complete such a work. Again, the writing part was the easiest. What has been hardest is the humbling feeling you get when the SASE returns in the mail, and you open it up like a Wonka bar, curious of what lies inside.
My second rejection letter came today. It goes down much smoother than the first. Though you have to keep telling yourself that it’s not the character that has been rejected. With fiction, this isn’t too difficult because of the distance between author and character (although sometimes no distance really exists). The lack of distance is much clearer when writing a memoir, if any distance exists at all.
Seven years of journalism school tells me that the story between the pages is good, is solid, and has a direction that keeps me hopeful. I’m not hoping for great financial reward, as much as the hope that someone will be taken away from their own troubles and toils. And for a couple of hundred pages, they might enter into a place where their mind can grow and see the world differently, as I did when I was blind for so many years. Meanwhile, what I think I need to do is learn how to write better query letters, so that someone will actually see the manuscript.
For now, I just offer up my memoir as a tribute to my father who died twelve years ago this past march. For half a year now, I’ve buried myself in the memories we shared together throughout my childhood. The memories make me miss him more now than I think I have missed him during the decade following his death. But when I read through the pages of the book, I feel as though he’s still here. Maybe that’s why this memoir is so much harder than other writings. I can hear his laugh with each stamp I put on the envelopes.
Anyways, happy birthday Sir. You’re missed, and loved, and fondly remembered during these long nights when I go back through the manuscript and the query letter, trying to think about what adverb I might be able to change, in hopes that it will hook the big catch of the next day. I hope the fishing is good where you are.
Love,
Your Son
Writing a memoir is no easy task. Some might think of it as just a recollection of short stories over the course of your life, or an edited version of your childhood diary or young adult journal. In some way, these things might help recall the memories of your life, but I’ve found it no easy task to take the events of a life and place them down onto paper.
It’s not that the writing process is difficult. Training, formed skill, and ear for dialogue; these things can all be improved upon over time. Some of it’s natural. But a good part of the process is mechanical. Every person has stories from his or her life. And these stories are often universal enough that others could surely relate to them. The difficult part, then, comes not so much in the technique, but with the emotional ties to the literature.
Fiction can hold a great deal of the writer’s personal life amongst the pages between the jackets. But even behind the book jacket—the cover that is expected to do just that, to cover—there is a great feeling of standing naked before a large audience. To some—maybe those who write more sensational tell all stories—there is an exhibitionist component to writing. But artists are seldom extraverts. And for those striving to become true craftsmen or women, there are fewer exhibitions and more humility.
The memoir I’ve been working on tells more of the life of my father than of myself. He would have been fifty-nine today, and in thirteen years I will have lived the span of his own life. The title I’ve given the memoir thus far is Love is Blind. It deals also with my going totally blind between the ages of 15 and 23 years. Though much of my description surrounding my blindness is more of a metaphor for blindness toward love. It mirrors, in a lot of ways, my own father’s search for love.
I share this because many have asked me just what it is that I write. I write, for the most part, a wide variety of things, this memoir just happening to be the one major work I’m working on at this time. There are many short fiction stories, a play, another non-fiction manuscript, and a novel that are all on the sculpting table. And I’m carving them out of my memory one word at a time.
The memoir has already been written, and I’m currently fine tuning it, thanks much to the help of the couple of you who have been my proof readers (you know who you are and I’m greatly indebted to you). I guess that is why I’m now able to see just how daunting of a task it is to complete such a work. Again, the writing part was the easiest. What has been hardest is the humbling feeling you get when the SASE returns in the mail, and you open it up like a Wonka bar, curious of what lies inside.
My second rejection letter came today. It goes down much smoother than the first. Though you have to keep telling yourself that it’s not the character that has been rejected. With fiction, this isn’t too difficult because of the distance between author and character (although sometimes no distance really exists). The lack of distance is much clearer when writing a memoir, if any distance exists at all.
Seven years of journalism school tells me that the story between the pages is good, is solid, and has a direction that keeps me hopeful. I’m not hoping for great financial reward, as much as the hope that someone will be taken away from their own troubles and toils. And for a couple of hundred pages, they might enter into a place where their mind can grow and see the world differently, as I did when I was blind for so many years. Meanwhile, what I think I need to do is learn how to write better query letters, so that someone will actually see the manuscript.
For now, I just offer up my memoir as a tribute to my father who died twelve years ago this past march. For half a year now, I’ve buried myself in the memories we shared together throughout my childhood. The memories make me miss him more now than I think I have missed him during the decade following his death. But when I read through the pages of the book, I feel as though he’s still here. Maybe that’s why this memoir is so much harder than other writings. I can hear his laugh with each stamp I put on the envelopes.
Anyways, happy birthday Sir. You’re missed, and loved, and fondly remembered during these long nights when I go back through the manuscript and the query letter, trying to think about what adverb I might be able to change, in hopes that it will hook the big catch of the next day. I hope the fishing is good where you are.
Love,
Your Son
# posted by Tony : 9:11 PM
