Available on Iplayer until this Thursday... Open Book
Read the review
Tuesday, 30 March 2010
Monday, 29 March 2010
Biography: from Hermione Lee's 'Body Parts'
"Biography is the process of making up, or making over."
"...the source material has to be tidied up, little bits of it lopped off here and there, in order to give the life-story a clear narrative shape." (Pepys)
"Is there any such thing as a fact?"
"Biography can be seen as a form of betrayal.'
On the film, 'The Hours' (about Virginia Woolf's life and suicide): "It sets up a life-story which is moving inexorably towards that death... this film will inform the perceptions of Virginia Woolf of a generation of cinema goers... (and yet) there is no owning her, or the facts of her life. The Nose is her latest and most popular incarnation, but she won't stay fixed under it forever."
"A biography is considered complete if it merely accounts for 6 or 7 selves, whereas a person may well have as many thousand." (Woolf).
Triggers for memory
Words: Trawl old videos (including on mobile phone), answerphone messages, notes scrawled on bus tickets etc, shopping lists, old birthday cards, train tickets, stubs from events, receipts and, of course, letters (love, anger, splitting up, betrayal, apology, reconciliation...). Diaries. Journals. Childhood storybooks. Calendars. Wedding/funeral programmes. Words, messages and poems written on serviettes. Emails, Facebook messages.
Music: Pick out and listen to those songs that define a person, place or a significant moment in time in your memoir (eg Shalamar's 'Night To Remember' was playing on the car stereo as B drove me from Chester train station to Wrexham Maelor hospital to see my dying mother). Make a cd of the favourite tunes of people featured in your memoir. Dig out old vinyl. Trawl YouTube for pop videos, TOTP performances. Old videos or cassettes from childhood, teens, twenties.
Newspapers/magazines: Clippings, features, headlines, pictures... making a montage can be useful.
Scent: Perfume bottles, clothes with personal scent still present, soap, shampoo, aftershave.
Make-up: Lipstick (what shade did they wear/its name/brand?), eyeshadow, eyeliner, blusher/rouge, mascara, foundation, nail varnish (what shade... name/brand?), powder puffs, hair gel, hair clips and bands.
Ordinary objects: Trinkets, clothing, matchboxes, jewelery, pens, medical aids (and clothing), underwear, toys, gloves, gardening tools, crockery... basically anything that reminds you most strongly of that person or scenario.
Books and films: What books, plays or poetry moved/changed you as a child/teenager? Was there anything you read or watched at a particularly signficant moment that has stayed with you... a fragment of poetry, a line from a play? Find and re-watch those films you loved as a child or that feel significant to you or to the other characters in your memoir.
Boxes...
Memories box: collect memories in a box with a set of index cards - every time you have a memory, write it down and put it in the box, in the right year. Alternatively, collect memories by theme.
Fear box: whatever scares or blocks you right now in your writing process - write it down and throw inside.
Secrets box: collect what is not said, written about, acknowledged, announced - stories, feelings, themes, people, events, situations, relationships, betrayals, shame. What is the secret underneath your story/piece/book?
Map: everyone needs a map for where they're going in their book/piece, even if it's a messy one!
Compass: necessary for re-orientating the work at times.
Graham Greene
'... I was completely blocked and didn't know how to continue the book. It was like coming to a river bank and finding no bridge. I knew what would happen on the other side of the bridge but I couldn't get there. I then had a dream which seemed to me to belong entirely to the character in the book rather than to myself and I was able to insert it in the novel and bridge the river.'
"Our beginnings never know our endings"
If you can get 4od, this is worth watching...
Harold Pinter Nobel Prize Speech 2005 - Art, Truth and Politics
Saturday, 27 March 2010
Dave Eggers on memoir (from 'A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius')
'Acknowledgements
Further, the author, and those behind the making of this book, wish to acknowledge that yes, there are perhaps too many memoir-sorts of books, about real things and real people, as opposed to kind-of made up things and people, are inherently vile and corrupt and wrong and evil and bad, but would like to remind everyone that we could all do worse, as readers and as writers. ANECDOTE: midway through the wrting of this... this... memoir, an acquaintance of the author's accosted him at a Western-themed restaurant/bar, while the author was eating a hearty plate of ribs and potatoes served fried in the French style. The accoster sat down opposite, asking what was new, what was up, what was he working on, etc. The author said Oh, well, that he was kind of working on a book, kind of mumble mumble. Oh great, said the acquaintance, who was wearing a sport coat made from what seemed to be (but it might have been the light) purple velour. What kind of book? asked the aquaintance. (Let's call him, oh, "Oswald.") What's it about? asked Oswald. Well, uh, said the author, again with the silver tongue, it's kind of hard to explain, I guess it's kind of a memoir-y kind of thing---oh no! said Oswald, interrupting him, loudly. (Oswald's hair, you might want to know was feathered.) Don't tell me you've fallen into that trap! (It tumbled down his shoulders, Dungeons and Dragons style.) Memoir! C'mon, don't pull that old trick, man! He went on like this for a while, using the colloquial language of the day, until, well, the author felt sort of bad. After all, maybe Oswald, with the purple velour and the brown corduroys, was right---maybe memoirs were Bad. Maybe writing about actual events, in the first person, if not from Ireland and before you turned seventy, was Bad. He had a point! Hoping to change the subject, the author asked Oswald, who shares a surname with the man who killed a president, what it was that he was working on. (Oswald was some sort of professional writer.) The author, of course, was both expecting and dreading that Oswald's project would be of grave importance and grand scope---a renunciation of Keynesian economics, a reworking of Grendel (this time from the point of view of nearby conifers), whatever. But do you know what he said, he of the feathered hair and purple velour? What he said was: a screenplay. He didn't italicise it then but we will here: a screenplay. What sort of screenplay? the author asked, having no overarching problem with screenplays, liking movies enormously and all, how they held a mirror to our violent society and all, but suddenly feeling slightly better all the same. The answer: A screenplay "about William S Burroughs, and the drug culture." Well, suddenly the clouds broke, the sun shone, and once again, the author knew this: that even if the idea of relating a true story is a bad idea, and even if the idea of writing about deaths in the family and delusions as a result is unappealing to everyone but the author's high schoool classmates and a few creative writing students in New Mexico, there are still ideas that are much, much worse. Besides, if you are bothered by the idea of this being real, you are invited to do what the author should have done, and what authors and readers have been doing since the beginning of time: PRETEND IT'S FICTION.'
Ten(tative) Commandments of Life-Writing
'1) Grab the reader's attention from the off. You can't hit us with everything at once. You don't even need to start with a major episode from the central narrative. But you have to draw us in - and hint at what lies ahead.
2) Put us there. Make us see hear, smell, taste and touch. In general use dialogue rather than reported speech. Whatever the episode, it's vivid to you (or you wouldn't have chosen to write about it), so make it vivid to us.
3) Dramatise yourself as the narrator. This is your story (or a story to do with your family, or a story about someone you think important), and as our guide you can neither be a blank sheet or too prim or perfect (if you are we'll hate you for it). Don't go missing at intense emotional moments of the narrative. It's not compulsory to be confessional (some of us are shy) but you should let us get to know you a little. You're a character too.
4) Be strict about point of view. If you're writing from the vantage point of a child, create a voice that sounds like a child (at least partly). When dealing with moments of pain, panic or crisis, use an idiom that conveys that. You can't afford to be too calm, impersonal or retrospectively all-knowing or we won't be engaged or convinced.
5) Choose your tense and stick with it. The use of the present tense will create immediacy - but can also inhibit measured reflection. The past tense is the more obvious choice for memoirs - but can seem too sedate and tidy. There may be a case for using both in the course of a book, but through any single episode or sequence you should be consistent.
6) Remember God is in the detail. For your story to speak to others, it has to be specific. The details that mark an episode as unique (and which you may fear are too personal and idiosyncratic) will be the ones that make it universal. The stronger our impression of something happening to a particular person at a particular time in a particular place, the greater our sense of recognition.
7) Use the same storytelling devices that novelists use - not least in terms of plot, character, voice, motif and structure. You're telling a story with a beginning. middle and end (though not necessarily in that order). Just because it's non-fiction doesn't mean you can't be 'literary'.
8) Give signposts. Find ways to help the reader along, especially if you have complex plot and/or large cast list. You're writing non-fiction so it's important that we believe you - and trust in your literary skills. If you don't feel like a reliable narrator, because you're recalling events of decades ago or incidents you weren't present at, you can always signal that to the reader - to do so will make you seem doubly reliable.
9) Be surprising. Work against the material. The reader will bring his or her own experience to it, so you should allow for that and avoid the expected response - to find humour round a death-bed, say, or tenderness amid misery and abuse. Vary the tone. Avoid cosiness and hagiography when describing happier times or loved relations. And if you're dealing with traumatic material, be careful to stop it from becoming relentlessly grim.
10) Pace the story. It can't be all showing and no telling. You may need to spend 30 pages on the events of an hour - then speed through 25 years in two pages. Be clear and bold with chronology. We're in your hands.'
2) Put us there. Make us see hear, smell, taste and touch. In general use dialogue rather than reported speech. Whatever the episode, it's vivid to you (or you wouldn't have chosen to write about it), so make it vivid to us.
3) Dramatise yourself as the narrator. This is your story (or a story to do with your family, or a story about someone you think important), and as our guide you can neither be a blank sheet or too prim or perfect (if you are we'll hate you for it). Don't go missing at intense emotional moments of the narrative. It's not compulsory to be confessional (some of us are shy) but you should let us get to know you a little. You're a character too.
4) Be strict about point of view. If you're writing from the vantage point of a child, create a voice that sounds like a child (at least partly). When dealing with moments of pain, panic or crisis, use an idiom that conveys that. You can't afford to be too calm, impersonal or retrospectively all-knowing or we won't be engaged or convinced.
5) Choose your tense and stick with it. The use of the present tense will create immediacy - but can also inhibit measured reflection. The past tense is the more obvious choice for memoirs - but can seem too sedate and tidy. There may be a case for using both in the course of a book, but through any single episode or sequence you should be consistent.
6) Remember God is in the detail. For your story to speak to others, it has to be specific. The details that mark an episode as unique (and which you may fear are too personal and idiosyncratic) will be the ones that make it universal. The stronger our impression of something happening to a particular person at a particular time in a particular place, the greater our sense of recognition.
7) Use the same storytelling devices that novelists use - not least in terms of plot, character, voice, motif and structure. You're telling a story with a beginning. middle and end (though not necessarily in that order). Just because it's non-fiction doesn't mean you can't be 'literary'.
8) Give signposts. Find ways to help the reader along, especially if you have complex plot and/or large cast list. You're writing non-fiction so it's important that we believe you - and trust in your literary skills. If you don't feel like a reliable narrator, because you're recalling events of decades ago or incidents you weren't present at, you can always signal that to the reader - to do so will make you seem doubly reliable.
9) Be surprising. Work against the material. The reader will bring his or her own experience to it, so you should allow for that and avoid the expected response - to find humour round a death-bed, say, or tenderness amid misery and abuse. Vary the tone. Avoid cosiness and hagiography when describing happier times or loved relations. And if you're dealing with traumatic material, be careful to stop it from becoming relentlessly grim.
10) Pace the story. It can't be all showing and no telling. You may need to spend 30 pages on the events of an hour - then speed through 25 years in two pages. Be clear and bold with chronology. We're in your hands.'
'Are you serious about this? Then get an accountant.'
These tips from established authors are for writing fiction, but much of it can be applied to any kind of writing, including life writing. There are some good 'uns in there!
The Guardian 10 Fiction Writing Tips
The Guardian 10 Fiction Writing Tips 2
The Guardian 10 Fiction Writing Tips
The Guardian 10 Fiction Writing Tips 2
Write a Manifesto!
If you need something to keep you going when you're writing, to remind you of what you're trying to do and why, what inspires you and drives you, write it down and have it somewhere accessible when you're having a stuck day.
Memoir writing can be emotionally demanding - delving into the past and unearthing histories... writing about secrets, difficult relationships, conflicts, betrayals, loves and losses can be draining or taxing as well as nourishing and catalysing. A manifesto is one of the many ways of reminding you when you need to stop and do something else to take your mind off it, whether crying at a re-run of Eastenders or counting your cutlery.
This is mine, but it could say anything, really...
Memoir writing can be emotionally demanding - delving into the past and unearthing histories... writing about secrets, difficult relationships, conflicts, betrayals, loves and losses can be draining or taxing as well as nourishing and catalysing. A manifesto is one of the many ways of reminding you when you need to stop and do something else to take your mind off it, whether crying at a re-run of Eastenders or counting your cutlery.
This is mine, but it could say anything, really...
Manifesto
Keep on going through self-doubt, criticism, a sore back, rejection, ridicule and terror.
Honour that tiny light that sparks sometimes when I touch keyboard or grip a pen.
Let go of pride, decency, even ambition.
Make that stab in the dark.
Dwell in uncertainty and make friends with insecurity. Be hungry.
Leap for that goal. Turn into a rainbow shoal of fish as I do it. Or a dead man in a stinking overcoat.
Kiss the scabs on my fingers.
Wander down some cold back alley in an unknown country, at three in the morning without my cardigan, wearing heels.
Stare without blinking.
Love loneliness, or at least offer it a whisky when it comes knocking on my door in the rain.
Stay with struggle.
Have the grace to fall.
Have bruised knees and no one to phone at two in the morning.
Watch. Listen.
Stop loving the sound of my own voice.
Let go of being clever, or the desire to be clever, or to be seen as clever.
Sever myself from ideas of success.
Feed beauty. Track wonder. Breath out fire. Dream.
Die not with a thorny blue rose in my palm but with a ridiculous happy look on my face and odd socks.
Love.
Take delight.
Run rings around inadequacy. Remember the blood in my veins even when waking up with a terrible hangover.
Embrace boredom.
Run out of teabags three lines before the end of the paragraph and still laugh whilst cursing.
Free fall.
Chill the fuck out
(it will never be what I want it to be.)
Accept/ever accept.
It is solace, so give solace.
It is generous - so give the shirt off my back.
Take those risks, the ones which matter.
Eschew judgment, especially my own viperous tongue.
Kiss fear on the mouth or at least one cheek.
Never give up.
Carry on swimming out until the yellow buoy is under my hand.
Honour that tiny light that sparks sometimes when I touch keyboard or grip a pen.
Let go of pride, decency, even ambition.
Make that stab in the dark.
Dwell in uncertainty and make friends with insecurity. Be hungry.
Leap for that goal. Turn into a rainbow shoal of fish as I do it. Or a dead man in a stinking overcoat.
Kiss the scabs on my fingers.
Wander down some cold back alley in an unknown country, at three in the morning without my cardigan, wearing heels.
Stare without blinking.
Love loneliness, or at least offer it a whisky when it comes knocking on my door in the rain.
Stay with struggle.
Have the grace to fall.
Have bruised knees and no one to phone at two in the morning.
Watch. Listen.
Stop loving the sound of my own voice.
Let go of being clever, or the desire to be clever, or to be seen as clever.
Sever myself from ideas of success.
Feed beauty. Track wonder. Breath out fire. Dream.
Die not with a thorny blue rose in my palm but with a ridiculous happy look on my face and odd socks.
Love.
Take delight.
Run rings around inadequacy. Remember the blood in my veins even when waking up with a terrible hangover.
Embrace boredom.
Run out of teabags three lines before the end of the paragraph and still laugh whilst cursing.
Free fall.
Chill the fuck out
(it will never be what I want it to be.)
Accept/ever accept.
It is solace, so give solace.
It is generous - so give the shirt off my back.
Take those risks, the ones which matter.
Eschew judgment, especially my own viperous tongue.
Kiss fear on the mouth or at least one cheek.
Never give up.
Carry on swimming out until the yellow buoy is under my hand.
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