Memoir-writers would appear to have it easy. After all, whom do they know best, in theory, but themselves? The key to this question is \u201cin theory.\u201d Hollywood and sports stars can sail by with superficial \u201cand then this bad thing happened, but I learned a lot\u201d memoirs, because they are, well, stars, and in some misguided sense, we already feel we know them. The rest of us have to dig way deeper.<\/p>\n
Aspiring memoirists may be encouraged to expose their most \u201cgut-wrenching secrets\u201d right up front. Chapter one. Even page one. But parading a set of difficult experiences\u2014drug addiction, infidelity, abuse\u2014across the literary stage like cardboard scenery is not sufficient. We\u2019ve all read that. Seen the movie. More than once. The writer\u2019s unique persona and individual reaction to these stock situations are what makes a new version of this play worth mounting. It may take a few\u2014even quite a few\u2014pages to create the character for whom these traumatic experiences have meaning. Writers who merely put their emotional debris on display treat readers like voyeurs. Less experienced writers, encouraged to reveal their darkest moments, may not have the self-understanding that is as much a part of the story as the drug-addled sex in the seedy hotel room.<\/p>\n
Author and writing teacher Susan Shapiro in her recent essay, \u201cMake Me Worry You\u2019re Not O.K.,\u201d supports the idea of immediately sharing emotional traumas, of hooking readers early in order to make readers care. Another memoir teacher and literary agent\u2014Brooke Warner\u2014responded to Shapiro with her own essay, \u201cMemoir Is Not the Trauma Olympics.\u201d Warner counters that \u201creal misery memoir works when you drip in the painful stuff little by little.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following these two essays, journalism teacher Katie Roiphe wrote \u201cThis Is How Your Write a Memoir\u201d for Slate. Her common-sense advice ends with the observation that \u201cexpressing yourself is not enough.\u201d Just because an event is true, doesn\u2019t mean it can be written about without the care and attention to salient detail of any other literary endeavor. In other words, it\u2019s hard work after all.<\/p>\n
In their words: <\/b>The recent essays by Susan Shapiro<\/a>, Brooke Warner<\/a>, and\u00a0Katie Roiphe<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Memoir-writers would appear to have it easy. After all, whom do they know best, in theory, but themselves? The key to this question is \u201cin theory.\u201d Hollywood and sports stars can sail by with superficial \u201cand then this bad thing … Continue reading