The giveaway for a month of writing and editorial mentoring has gotten off to a good start, and I encourage all of you to enter. It’s an opportunity to win 1-on-1 coaching from me.  We’ll work together to design a step-by-step program for writing or finishing your book, article, memoir – whatever you want – with the goal of getting it written and finished. And you’ll have access to me via both email and phone.

Once you enter, you’ll get a special sharing link. Share it with others, and get more entries!

 

[giveaway id=2659]

 

In honor of the upcoming launch of my premium course, Wake Up Your Prose: Description Unpacked, I thought we’d go over some common mistakes we all make when trying to up our description game.

 

Description mistake #1

Too dramatic

Most of us have felt at one time or another that to describe means to be dramatic. Check this out:

She slithered into the room, gloriously shimmering from head to toe. Every man in the room cast his eyes on the dazzling figure she cut. As Percival sipped his cold martini, its tang burning the roof of his mouth, his sea-green eyes watched her closely. As Chloe strutted past him, the scent of her Chanel No. 5 wafted into his nostrils, awakening memories of their magical time together.

Okay, other than the fact that this is the worst piece of prose I’ve ever written in my life – but do you think I could get a job writing for Harlequin Romances? – I have to ask you something: are martinis tangy?

This overly dramatic paragraph is not only bad, it’s full of unnecessary adjectives and adverbs, no-no’s I’ve harped on in several posts. Moreover, do we really care that Percival’s mouth is burning? I know I don’t.  And I really don’t want to hear about his nostrils.

Yes, you need descriptive words to convey time, place, and mood, but if the description is not necessary to the plot or thesis, don’t go there.

Sometimes, less is more. Try using hard-working nouns and verbs to do the heavy lifting, so you won’t have to fall back on excessive verbiage.

Check your adjectives and adverbs (if you must use them) for accuracy. I personally wouldn’t want to see a woman slithering into a room; what is she, a snake? Put yourself in the mind of your reader. Your descriptive words are going to evoke feelings; which do you want your reader to experience?  Once you figure that out, find words that will do the job.

 

Description mistake #2

Too self-conscious

This is the type of writing sounds like the author is looking over their shoulder while writing. Often, one gets the feeling that they’re trying to imitate a famous author in the process. While I encourage you to read many and varied authors – and I even suggest you write out particularly excellent descriptions in longhand – when it’s time to do your own writing, you need to take lessons from the greats but employ your own, unique style.

Here’s a parody of Ernest Hemingway, who was famous for his bare minimum, Marlboro Man descriptions:

The mountain stood naked in the early-morning sun. Birds flew from their aeries in anticipation of a new day of scavenging. The man shrugged his backpack onto his shoulders, beginning the ascent. The smell of last night’s campfire emanated from his wrinkled, slept-in clothes. He walked on the path toward his destiny.

Very nice (not). It’s certainly better than the first example, but not by much. Nothing really happens. Again, where in this paragraph is the plot being moved forward?

What does a naked mountain look like? And what’s with this destiny thing? Is the author going to develop it; does he himself even know what that last sentence means? Remember: Never write a word whose meaning and implication you don’t absolutely know. Don’t sacrifice clarity and purpose on the altar of cheap Hemingway leftovers.

As a side issue, notice the rhythm of the sentences; they are almost all the same: subject-verb-prepositional phrase-comma-participle phrase. I am a fan of aural writing, meaning that the prose must sound right to my ear. Therefore, when I’m reading over what I wrote (BTW, I do read everything over three or four times, and I recommend this for everyone), I make sure to vary the rhythm of the sentences, their length, and their syntax.

 

Description mistake #3

Too many “to be” words

Many of us use a lot of “to be” words, which generally don’t contribute to original, thought-provoking prose.

While it’s fine to Tell sometimes, we should all be wary of too many “to be” words. Even when Telling, you can use other verbs. Check this out:

A book was on the floor, and Martine was picking it up when Jean Claude walked into the room. He was wearing brown corduroy trousers and a black shirt. The other books were on the shelves according to color. Jean Claude snorted when he saw them.

The problem with this paragraph is that it’s a parade of was, was, was, and were. let’s dress it up with a few descriptive verbs and judiciously placed adjectives and/or adverbs:

Jean Claude entered the room, wearing brown corduroy trousers and a black shirt that set off his emerald-green eyes. A book lay on the floor, and Martine bent to pick it up as she glanced at him. The rest of the books on the shelves were categorized according to color. Jean Claude stared at this bizarre arrangement, his eyes flickering with amusement and the dimple on his cheek deepening.

As I’ve said both here and here, Tell is usually cause and Show is generally effect. The first three sentences in this excerpt are more Telling, as they give us information without the emotional investment. The last sentence is Show, as the flicker of amusement and the deepening dimple

1. were caused by the wonky placement of the books on the shelves and
2. demonstrate how Jean Claude experienced the vision of the books.

 

Description mistake #4

Too superficial

Many times, descriptive writing will require you to get into the head of a character and find a way to convey what they’re feeling or experiencing. If you want to employ description, you won’t be able to get away with “She felt bad” or “She was freezing.” You also have to be careful about hackneyed phrases, which won’t do your subjects justice.

Compare this:

James drove the convertible like he was competing in the Indy 500. The wind was ice-cold and his tears froze on his cheeks. He drove relentlessly toward his father’s house, dreading the moment he had to break the terrible news. The wedding was off.

With this:

It was like being rejected from the high school basketball team all over again. How would he face his father as he turned the key in the lock? The wedding was off. James felt the old lump in his throat and his racing heart. And something new, too; his cheeks were wet.

In the second example, we learn how James is feeling from the comparison between his present rejection and his rejection from the basketball team. Who among us hasn’t experienced some sort of rejection in our lives? Who hasn’t felt a lump in their throat? Don’t we all remember an event where we dreaded facing our parents?

Moreover, the second excerpt draws us in to James’ world; we experience what he’s experiencing. With superficial description, that can’t happen. Feelings and emotions can be reported, but not experienced.

***

As you can see, there’s more to descriptive writing than just “describing something.” The warning signs I outlined above will help you ask yourself the right questions and present your prose clearly and interestingly.

For more on description, consider taking my course, Wake Up Your Prose: Description Unpacked. Click here to get on the waiting list! And stay tuned for more on descriptive writing in the next few weeks. And, as always,

Happy writing!

Deena

Deena Nataf

www.BulletproofWriting.com

Deena@BulletproofWriting.com

P.S. Here’s the link for the giveaway again.

 

 

I’ve been busy these past weeks recording my premium course, Wake Up Your Prose: Description Unpacked, which will launch this summer. I’ve had the slides done professionally, and my sound person is refining the audio as we speak. Here’s some preliminary information about the course.

Wake Up Your Prose: Description Unpacked, version 2, is based on the 2017 beta version of the course, which sold beyond my wildest expectations – surpassing the industry average for online course sales by 400 percent.

 

What’s inside the course

I’ve completely revamped and rewritten Wake Up Your Prose. I’ve also expanded it from 8 modules to 10 modules – plus a bonus module. The slides are beautiful, and the sound is great.

Each module has a downloadable Workbook. I’m redoing the ones from the beta course and writing new ones for Modules 9 and 10. The Workbooks contain a summary of the module, plus supplementary material, checklists, and links to relevant ebooks.

Each module, builds on what we’ve learned in previous modules. There’s an entertaining and challenging writing exercise at the end of each module, so you’ll be able to put your new knowledge into practice right away.

Here are the modules:

• Description Warm-Up
• Method Writing
• Description Basics
• The Art of Storytelling
• Show
• Tell
• Analogy, Metaphor, and Simile
• Putting It All Together: Description Review and Reinforcement
• Quick and Dirty Tips for Enhanced Description
• Grammar
• Special Bonus Module

 

Think you might be interested? Click here, and I’ll put you on the waiting list. If you’re on the list and decide to buy, you’ll get a special treat.

I’ll keep you updated as we get closer to the launch.

 

New book by an old author

I just finished Warlight, by Michael Ondaatje (of The English Patient fame), and it was extremely well written. He packs his novels with myriad observations, many musings, and a lot of information. Every word is precious and relevant to the novel, so you have to read very closely. At the same time, it’s a great read; just pay attention. Fascinating and worthwhile.

There is a lot of mystery in Warlight, some of which is never resolved. For example (spoiler alert!), we never find out what happened to the protagonist’s shadowy father after he disappears. I was bothered by this, and then I read an interview with Michael Ondaatje, which took place way before he wrote Warlight.

My loss was that I never spoke to [my father] as an adult….He is still one of those books we long to read whose pages remain uncut….He was a sad and mercurial figure. There was a lot I didn’t know about him, and that was recurring in my books: trying to find the central character. It became a habit. In all my books there are mysteries that are not fully told.

What Ondaatje says reflects a bit of Method Writing: He uses the mystery of his own father to include mysteries “not fully told” in his fiction. By the time he writes Warlight, one of the mysteries is in fact the central character’s father, whom he never gets to speak to “as an adult.”

 

Paying it forward

When I was just starting Bulletproof Writing, I received a lot of help from generous bloggers, who took the time to give me information and advice. I also read many and various blogs, where I learned the nuances of owning a website and writing interesting articles. In light of the help I received, I thought it would be appropriate to share the love, and mention some other, more recent internet businesses that have something worthwhile to say to readers of my blog.

 

1. Podcast

A few posts ago, I mentioned that I was reading an ebook called The Age of Illumination: Science, Technology, and Reason in the Middle Ages, by Scott Rank, who writes and presents a podcast called History Unplugged. If you’d like to listen, you can subscribe here.

 

2. Grammarly redux

Remember my review of Grammarly? Last week, I received an email from the man who runs a blog for designers called Daily Logo Challenge. They recently published a post comparing Grammarly’s free version to its premium version. If you’re thinking about purchasing Grammarly Premium, or if you’re interested in another side of the Grammarly debate, you can read the post here.

 

3. Cute infographic

One of my readers sent me an infographic on homophones (sort of like homonyms) from another website, which I thought was great. The graphics are really clever. You can see it here.

***

That’s it for now. Go ahead and start your summer reading soon, and let me know which books you’ve chosen. And of course,

 

Happy writing,

Deena

Deena Nataf

www.BulletproofWriting.com

Deena@BulletproofWriting.com

 

In the first part of my 2-part series on good and bad literary trash, we learned all about good and bad literary trash, especially what makes good trash good. In this post, we’re going to explore common mistakes bad-trash authors make, as well as go over a list of what to do if you want to land in the winner’s circle.

Let’s begin with 3 issues I see consistently in those semi-professionally written cozy mysteries and romance novels I’ve described as “bad trash.”

Grammar and idiom

Almost to a (wo)man, bad trash is loaded with grammar mistakes and poorly proofed copy. Issues such as misspelled words; using that instead of who when describing a human being; and misuse of words, idioms, and phrases are just a sampling of the mistakes I’ve encountered in the past month alone.

1. Who/whom

Although I personally deplore it, the use of who instead of whom is becoming de rigueur even in good trash. For example, it is now acceptable to say “The musician who I like.” On the other hand, no professional writer would ever countenance the following: “To who do I owe the pleasure?” The Grishams and Folletts of the writing world (and/or their editors) would never make this mistake.

If you want to use who occasionally instead of whom, pay attention to nuance and make your choice carefully.

For a more in-depth treatment of the who/whom issue, see the guest post I wrote here.

2. Bemused and nonplussed

With regard to misused words, almost all the authors of bad trash I’ve read use bemused and nonplussed incorrectly. Bemused means bewildered, confused, dazed, or lost in thought. It does not mean amused. However, thanks to the decline of English skills in the past generation or two, Merriam-Webster now allows it to be used with the meaning of “having or showing feelings of wry amusement especially from something that is surprising or perplexing.” That last part is Merriam-Webster’s nod to bemused‘s original and correct meaning.

Similarly, nonplussed means “unsure about what to say, think, or do; or perplexed.” Unlike its position on bemused, however, Merriam-Webster adds the following to its definition: “The use of nonplussed to mean “unimpressed” is an Americanism that has become increasingly common in recent decades and now appears frequently in published writing. It apparently arose from confusion over the meaning of nonplussed in ambiguous contexts, and it continues to be widely regarded as an error.”

I discuss other problems with idiom and word choice in this post and this post.

3. Parallel structure

Parallel structure remains a problem in bad trash. Here’s a real winner:

“It was the constant round of preparing lectures, assignments, and then grading those assignments that was the problem.”

Simply put, this is a lousy sentence. Parallelism is but one of its problems.

The parallel structure problem is that the word preparing goes on both lectures and the first occurrence of the word assignments, but not on the term those assignments toward the end of the sentence.

Here’s another problem: A sentence that begins and ends with “It was…that was” is awkward and clunky.

How about one of these instead:

• “The problem was the constant round of preparing lectures and assignments, and grading the assignments once they were turned in.”
• “The problem was the constant round of preparing lectures combined with creating and grading assignments.”
• “The problem was the constant round of preparing lectures, creating assignments, and grading the students’ school- and homework.”

For more on parallel structure, check out my posts here, here, and here.

 

What [not] to do

I’ve gathered a few suggestions from my vast experience with bad ebook trash. Following these guidelines will lift you up and out of the slush pile and into the category of a professional and published writer.

• Don’t give your characters names that start with the same letter. Surprisingly, this is very common in bad trash. I can’t tell you how confusing it is to get everyone straight when you have a Kitty, a Kathleen, a Blaine, and a Baily. (These four names are from the same awful book.) Finessing the details goes a long way to being seen as a real author.
• Keep track of who’s talking in lengthy dialogues. Recently, I came across a several-page conversation that switched characters in the middle. Don’t do this. When writing your first draft, put characters’ names in brackets before each line of dialogue, and delete them when you’re finished writing the conversation.
• Keep a “book bible.” If you’re writing fiction, list every character in the book: first name, last name, age, where they were born, hair color, basic personality traits, etc. Nonfiction writers: Get the spelling of names, cities, colleges etc. correct, and get your dates right. Write all of this information down. If you’re writing a biography, create a family tree for yourself. Inconsistency with regard to any fact marks you as an amateur.
• Stay professional. When creating an author’s bio, don’t add how many dogs or cats you have, and don’t tell us that you love to knit in your spare time. You’re allowed to have a spouse and kids, and you’re allowed to live somewhere, but that’s about it. Authors of good trash generally mention only that they’re the best-selling author of 105 books and live with their family in rural Mississippi. This isn’t an anti-animal or anti-crafts thing; it’s a being-taken-more-seriously thing.

***

Honestly, it really doesn’t take that much to hone your writing abilities. A few significant tweaks can do it. The above ideas will help you continue to grow.

Bottom line, you need

• a strong grasp of grammar, and
• the knowledge of what does and doesn’t sound good.

Fiction writers can add to this list realistically drawn characters and plots that make sense. Nonfiction writers need to remember that all literature – even a computer manual – tells a story.

Make it a priority to read good literature, whether modern novels, classics, or nonfiction. Stay away from old, hackneyed cliches, and keep asking yourself, “What am I trying to say?” You’ll be surprised how well-received your writing will become!

Happy writing!
Deena

Deena Nataf
www.BulletproofWriting.com
Deena@BulletproofWriting.com

 

In my next post, I’ll continue my series on good and bad literary trash, but I decided to interrupt it this week with some general writing tips, a roundup of what I’m currently reading, and comedy grammar.

Like me, I’m sure many of you are busy doing Spring cleaning, preparing for Passover or Easter, or counting the days until Spring Break. This period can be a real tinderbox of pressure and overwhelm, but it doesn’t have to be.

When preparing for a big task, I spend a few minutes breaking it up into parts, and then breaking up those parts into smaller, manageable, and quick jobs. I then make a timeline, working backwards from Ground Zero.

This year, I’m also trying to think lateral instead of linear. For example, I have always performed a one-day cooking marathon before Passover. It never occurred to me to take two days until a colleague of mine looked at me like I was insane, and said, “Why are you doing this to yourself?” So I readjusted my schedule and will now be able to cook for two days instead of one. Wow, what a concept.

 

Minimize writing overwhelm

For some of us, just the thought of sitting down to write engenders feelings of overwhelm every single day (you are writing every single day, aren’t you?). Consider applying my cooking and cleaning principles to your writing. Why not try the following:

• For a project, novel, article, etc., divide up the tasks into general categories such as research, outline, writing, editing, etc.
• Divide each of these large categories into several manageable, one-day tasks.
• Give yourself a due date and work backwards, assigning one task to each writing day or days.
• Decide the following the night before each writing session: when you are going to write, what you are going to write, and how long you are going to write – and stick to it.

Breaking tasks into small, mini jobs has also been helpful for preparing my revised, premium course, Wake Up Your Prose: Description Unpacked. I’m making slow but steady progress recording the script, and hope to launch sometime before the summer.

 

What I’m reading

I realized this morning that I’m reading, or have read recently, 6 books.

Nonfiction

First is an ebook called The Age of Illumination: Science, Technology, and Reason in the Middle Ages, by Scott Rank. It’s an interesting treatment of a 1,000-year period that has historically been labeled the Dark Ages. The author contends that there was a lot of progress and advanced thinking going on during these years, such as the invention of the clock and the writing of the Magna Carta.

Second on my bedside table is Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West. It unsentimentally gives an account of the flip side of Manifest Destiny, which for most Americans of a certain age was glorified in our 5th grade history lessons. The book is very sad and very hard to read, but fascinating and important. I highly recommend it, and it’s well written to boot.

Fiction

As far as fiction goes, I read Ann Tyler’s Back when We Were Grownups a week or two ago. It’s classic Ann Tyler, and I liked it. There are two Tyler novels that I did not like: The Amateur Marriage and Pulitzer-Prize-winning Breathing Lessons (sorry, Ann), and I was a bit embarrassed by Vinegar Girl (completely out of character for a Tyler book, but a cute read). Next on my Tyler agenda is A Patchwork Planet, which I picked up today.

I just finished the third book in a historical-fiction trilogy set in the post-Civil War Midwest. Immediately previous to that, I had read a series that takes place in post-Civil War San Francisco, so I’m enjoying the continuity of time periods.

I’ve begun reading Jamie Ford’s Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, also historical fiction. It takes place in 1942 Seattle, Washington, right after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, when anti-Japanese sentiment was at its peak. So far, so good. Very well written, and the historical time period is one I’ve always enjoyed learning about. Although I’m only on page 41, I can already recommend it. The writer is Asian, and it has that gentle, calm, and elegant feel that many of us associate with that region of the world.

Memoir

I’m in the middle of A Year in Provence, a memoir by Peter Mayle. Mayle and his wife moved from London to Provence, France, in the late 1980s, and this book chronicles their first year there. It’s absolutely laugh-out-loud hilarious. And boy, is he a good writer.

As I’ve emphasized in my memoir series, the memoir writer must choose his or her area of focus: a specific angle, a special format, an impactful time period, etc. Mayle chose a 12-chapter format (January–December) and focuses on the everyday happenings and adjustments to living on what is for all intents and purposes a new planet. He spends a lot of time talking about food and wine, which I found tiresome, but I’m enjoying the book immensely nevertheless. Fans of James Herriot’s All Things Bright and Beautiful series will enjoy this one.

 

Comedy grammar time

Here’s a grammar-nerd-friendly piece in The New Yorker called “Dropped Hyphens, Split Infinitives, and Other Thrilling Developments from the 2019 American Copy Editors Society Conference,” by the comma queen herself, Mary Norris. Many thanks to my dear subscriber, Yehoshua D., for the heads up. The article’s a hoot; here’s one long excerpt that I especially loved:

The conference offers dozens of sessions, on everything from gender consciousness to “Bad English.”… But the centerpiece of the weekend is the session at which the A.P. announces changes to its annual style guide. It was standing room only…. There were guidelines on race…and updates on recreational marijuana (pot or cannabis on second reference; employees at dispensaries are budtenders).

A cheer went up when [the A.P. representative] announced that “split forms” are acceptable—most copy editors have long since stopped worrying about the split infinitive, but now we are good “to boldly go” where the English language has been going for centuries….

You could feel the excitement in the room when a slide appeared with the heading “HYPHENS!” The A.P. is dropping the hyphen in such terms as “African American,” “Asian American,” and “Filipino American.” …

More hyphen news: in the interest of preventing clutter, the A.P. will drop the little bugger from such compounds as “third-grade teacher” and “chocolate-chip cookie.” The purpose of the hyphen is clarity: because there is no danger in mistaking which two words go together (it’s not “gradeteacher” or “chipcookie”), the extra mark is unnecessary….

One final item: the hyphen has been removed from double-“E” combinations, such as “preeclampsia,” “preelection,” “preeminent,” “preempt,” “reenter,” etc.

***

Pick up a good book, keep going with your writing, and I’ll see you next time with more examples of what makes good and bad literary trash. I’ve also got some great tips for making sure your own writing lands in the good, great, and magnificent piles. Until then,

Happy writing!
Deena

Deena Nataf
www.BulletproofWriting.com
Deena@BulletproofWriting.com

​

​​These past two weeks have been sad ones for me, as my mother died on January 22nd.

One of my cousins read from my mother’s memoirs at the funeral. My mother wrote them many years ago and gave them out to all family members. This 9-page document covers mostly her early years, up until she got married.

It is with my mother’s death in mind that I thought I’d present a 5th post on memoir-writing. If you haven’t yet read the first 4, you can get them here, here, here, and here.

 

Use literary devices for memoir-writing

Just as with “regular” nonfiction, and of course with fiction, you must make your memoir interesting. Use the same literary devices you’d normally use with your other writing.

Description

Always employ description when you are writing, whether in your memoir or another form of nonfiction, and of course in fiction. I’ll use unedited excerpts from my mother’s memoir to illustrate the following description tools.​

If you take my course, “Wake Up Your Prose: Description Unpacked,” you will enjoy 9 modules – plus a bonus module – which cover all these description tools and more.​ Watch for more information about the course in the weeks ahead, or sign up here to be the first to know about when it goes on sale.

Show and Tell.

When writing down a memory, describe scenes, scents, and sounds, tying them in with what you were feeling at the time. Certainly, you can Tell sometimes, and your insights about either a person or an event will be appreciated. Just give an example or two to go with your commentary. Here’s a poignant Tell memory from my mother’s memoir:

[During the Depression,] our parents were very involved politically and worked to help raise funds for charity…. They went out to meetings almost every evening and I remember feeling lonely at those times.

Analogy, metaphor, and simile.​

In a nutshell, these three description tools use something known to the reader in order to explain something unknown to him or her. The trio are a real powerhouse. ​

Avoid using cliche in analogy, metaphor, and simile (“He’s a big as a whale”; “We had a whale of a time”; “She’s the whale of the Fisch family”).

My mother made perfect use of analogy retelling the story of receiving a big, expensive radio at the height of the Depression:

​In the summer of 1935….​ a delivery man [brought in] a brand new stand up floor model Philco radio for us…. The only way I can describe the enormity of this in my nine year old mind is that it could be compared in current times to winning the lottery or getting a theater size TV screen installed in our home.

Backstory and foreshadowing.​

With a simple sentence or two, you can give a lot of information without crowding your memoir with unnecessary noise. Most people don’t want to read about your mother’s cousin’s great-grandmother and what she ate for breakfast – unless the focus of your memoir is the eating habits of your relatives and how those habits evolved over the years. By the way, this is a legitimate angle for a memoir.

It wasn’t my mother’s, however. She used the Depression as the background for her growing-up years. Afterwards, she describes different vignettes in light of this short backstory:

​The early 1930’s was a terrible time in this country, and in the world for that matter. The Depression affected almost everyone, and making a living was difficult if not impossible.

Toward the end of the memoir, my mother sets up her readers for hearing about the deaths of her parents and two of her siblings. I’d call this foreshadowing, as it is a statement rather than a memory:

​Life unfortunately also includes death, and that kind of loss we all bear differently.

Dialogue

You might think your memoir doesn’t lend itself to dialogue, but for argument’s sake allow me point out that you’d be surprised how many types of prose can be enhanced with dialogue. It’s not just for novels.

Dialogue makes a story come alive. It’s a wonderful device for biography, as it makes what could be dry facts more interesting. Although it’s almost impossible to reconstruct a conversation word for word, if you remember the gist, the tone, and the goal, you’ll be able to write a good facsimile.

One of the subscribers to this blog hired me to edit his autobiography, and his use of dialogue was outstanding. It enhanced what was already a fascinating book. I highly recommend employing dialogue in your memoir if at all possible.

My mother’s memoir has no dialogue, but she does mention a conversation between her and her brother when her sister was born. After he relayed the news from their father’s phone call that the baby was born, my mother wanted to know if it was a girl or a boy, and he answered, “I forgot to ask.”​

 

Respect your point of view

Remember that the angle and tone of a memoir, as well as the memories themselves and their interpretation, will be different for each writer, even when the same event is being described.

For example, my mother describes her first 7 years in Denver holding the “premium position” of youngest member of the family. Later, she reports that in Los Angeles​ during the Depression things were more complicated, with a baby sister to take care of and two working parents. She mentions a hands-on mother and Saturday outings when she lived in Denver, while she emphasizes hard work and an unselfish, special spirit permeating the house in Los Angeles.

On the other hand, my aunt (the baby sister) is an absolute font of memories about my grandmother’s sterling qualities and the wonderful things my grandmother did for her as she was growing up in Los Angeles.

Tell the truth

My late uncle once said that the family didn’t keep the Jewish dietary laws “because we couldn’t afford to,” while my mother used to say, “We always had enough food.” Her first cousin, however, once confided to me, “They were so poor during the Depression that they didn’t have enough to eat.” Personally, I don’t know who was right, and there might not be only one right answer. If my uncle and my mother’s cousin had written their own memoirs, they would have written about Depression-era Los Angeles as they experienced it. My 8-year-old mother might very well have ​had enough food, while perhaps her cousin thought that being served, say, one piece of chicken instead of two meant destitution.

The important thing for you as the memoir-writer is this: Tell the truth as you yourself experienced it.

***

I’d like to close with an excerpt from Anne Lamott’s outstanding book on writing,​ ​Bird by Bird:

​Life is like a recycling center, where all the concerns and dramas of humankind get recycled back and forth across the universe. But what you have to offer is your own sensibility…everything we need in order to tell our stories in a reasonable and exciting way already exists in each of us. Everything you need is in your head and memories.

Until next time,

Happy writing!

Deena

Deena Nataf

www.BulletproofWriting.com

Deena@BulletproofWriting.com