Dan Curtis ~ Professional Personal Historian

This past week my colleagues in the Association of Personal Historians have been having an interesting conversation. It’s  about making your writing more engaging by showing your readers not telling them. To explain, here’s an example taken from my own life:

Telling: ” In September 1966 I left for a two year assignment as a volunteer in Ghana.”

Showing: “I still remember that ‘muggy’ September night at Mirabelle airport in Montreal. It was 1966 and I was hours away from leaving Canada for the first time in my life. I couldn’t sit still. As I paced about the departure lounge, I felt a mixture of excitement and  apprehension. For the next two years I would be a volunteer teacher in an isolated rural secondary school in Ghana, West Africa. My youthful bravado said I could handle it. My more rational mind questioned my confidence.”

The telling example is a simple statement of fact. It lacks any emotional content. It’s flat and not engaging. By contrast, the showing example is rich with detail. We know it was humid and hot in Montreal. And we know something of what I was feeling and what was on my mind. By showing readers what was happening rather than telling them, we draw them into the story.

If you’re interviewing someone for their life story, the same rules apply. Bring out the emotion, flavor and detail of their story. If someone says, “I was married in 1939″ enrich this statement by using some  follow-up questions like these: What second thoughts did you have about your marriage? Describe the preparations that went into your wedding. What emotions were running through you on your wedding day? What stands out for you? Describe for me the place where you were married. What kind of weather did you have? What  funny incident  happened on your wedding day? Describe for me your wedding celebration. How did local or world events play into your wedding plans?

Here are some additional resources to help you with your memoir writing:

• Writing the Memoir by Judith Barrington. The Library Journal says,  “Her practical guide leads both experienced and novice writers through the writing process from idea to publication, addressing such technical problems as theme selection, voice, tone, form, plot, scene, and character development, as well as how to stimulate creative thinking and build necessary discipline.”

• The Situation and the Story: The Art of Personal Narrative by Vivian Gornick. Publishers Weekly says, “Gornick’s book discusses ways of making nonfiction writing highly personal without being pathetically self-absorbed. In admirably plain and direct style, she discusses writers as diverse as Oscar Wilde, Joan Didion and a man she calls the “Jewish Joan Didion,” Seymour Krim…All the texts do nevertheless support her statement that essays can “be read the way poems and novels are read, inside the same kind of context, the one that enlarges the relationship between life and literature.”

• Memoir Mentor is a terrific website for aspiring memoir writers. Dawn Thurston offers  generous tips on improving your writing. She has also written a book with Morris Thurston entitled, Breath Life Into Your Life Story, which you can order here.  “Written for both novices and experienced writers, this book presents techniques used by novelists to immerse readers into their fictional world—techniques like “showing” rather than just “telling”; creating interesting, believable characters and settings; writing at the gut level; alternating scene and narrative; beginning with a bang; generating tension, and more.”

Photo by Daniel Horacio Agostini

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