Again, I connect you to my post on my Only Child Writes blog. This time it is using another fiction writing technique for memoir – setting. Blog post is here.
And next week we’ll get back to strictly fiction.
Cheers.
Sharon A. Crawford
Author of the Beyond mystery series.
Writing fiction and writing memoirs have a few things in common. Both have characters; a POV, setting, narrative and dialogue. But there is something very different about them, that you need to remember. In fiction, you make up your plot and characters. In memoir you are telling your truth, your life (or parts of it as you remember). And the people in a memoir are real people from your past and/or present – even if you change the name to protect the guilty. However, in both fiction and memoir, emotions and feelings are very important.
As mentioned in last week’s post, I am teaching a memoir writing course at the Toronto Reference Library. And again like last week I put a snippet of what we cover this week on my other blog Only Child Writes. Like last week I’ll refer to it and this time will include the link here.
In this post I excerpt a small part of a chapter from my memoir. The excerpt is shortened even more. And yes, I change the people’s names. But the excerpt shows how you can write memoir, fiction style. The main character here is of course, me (or in your memoir, you).
Cheers.
Sharon A. Crawford
Author of the Beyond mystery series. More info about Beyond Blood here.
I like to say I write “M and M.” And I don’t mean the candy – although I am a chocoholic. What I write is mystery and memoir. And because I’m one day late with this week’s posting (too many deadlines, don’t ask), I want to take a look at the second M – memoir writing. Or in my case this month teaching memoir writing – four weekly sessions at the Toronto Reference Library.
Before I go off on a memoir tangent, I want to mention that many authors, besides me, who started out writing and in some cases, publishing memoir books, also turned to fiction. For example, Catherine Gildner of the Too Close to the Falls memoir “series” – three books so far, also wrote the mystery Seduction. Ross Pennie,whose first published book was a memoir of his time as a young doctor in now writes the Dr. Zol Szabo medical mystery series. If you go to to the Crime Writers of Canada website and check the members biographies, you might find a few more who write M and M. And their quarterly e-publication Cool Canadian Crime (it’s free and available to all, not just CWC members) keeps mystery readers (and writers) up to date on members new books.
So back to that Memoir Writing Course and the connection here I am going to make. I also write another weekly blog on Tuesdays – which focuses on growing up an only child and the consequences over the years since. That gives me leeway for many topics, including writing memoir and teaching memoir. On this other blog, called Only Child Writes (what else would I call it?) for the Tuesdays this month I have been posting a snippet post and a link to it to read the rest. It is all writing and some of it can apply to fiction writing as memoir, although the truth according to the author, is written in fiction style.
“Have you found Grandpa’s farm?” my cousin Leona asked me when I called her just after arriving in Walkerton, Ontario.”
This is all part of my research for my family history on my mother’s side.
Read on. Can you see possibilities in what happened for some short fiction?
Cheers.
Sharon A. Crawford
Author of the Beyond mystery series. More info about Beyond Blood here.
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I hate heavy rain, especially large amounts, especially mixed with strong winds. Which we are getting today in Toronto,Canada. So, what am I doing about it? Besides staying in and checking the basement for any water getting in?
I put the rain in my third Beyond mystery book. Not the rain coming down right now. In one scene I have my main character, PI Dana Bowman, walking through a rain – heavy with blowing winds. Unlike me, Dana drives, but she has been somewhere near home so left the car in the driveway before the rain started. Now she is walking home, but the rain and what it brings – including the kickstart to the novel’s story- begin happening as she struggles through the rain.
In a nutshell, I took a re-occurring scenario in my life, a scenario I don’t like – and fictionalized it.
You can do that, too, but there are caveats.
And don’t forget to enjoy, to get lost in the creativity of the writing. It can help get your mind off current problems – even if they include heavy rain. Speaking of which, it is time to check the basement again. And oh yeah, it was also our garbage pickup day today, so while we had a lull in the rain earlier, but not the heavy wind, I was continually running outside to right bins – mine and a few friends across the street. And of course, today was the day the city decided our street should have the new supposedly racoon-proof green bins for wet waste delivered. They may be racoon proof, but not extreme-weather proof. The bins were flying all over the place and mine came minus the scoop and instructions. I did grab the instruction paper as the wind blew it down the street. A very wet sheet, now drying on a kitchen chair.
But that’s for another story, another day. Dana Bowman wasn’t dealing with garbage bins.
How do you work reality into your fiction?
And as usual, click on the Beyond book icon at the top to find out more about the first two Beyond books.
Cheers.
Sharon A.. Crawford
Dana Bowman, looking for her umbrella before braving the elements?
Sharon A. Crawford author 