Memories into Memoirs

For one of my classes, we have been working on coming up with an event in our lives that we can turn into a memoir. Doing several brainstorming activities, I’m still not 100% sure what I want to write about. When I first began thinking about what to write about, I had a difficult time remembering special/important/eventful things that have happened to me. But once I began doing some thinking, I started coming up with quite a few stories that I could turn into a memoir. Some of them have a more emotional effect to them, and some of them are just more for laughs than anything else. Because I am not too comfortable with letting everyone peek into my life (especially if I don’t really know them well), I believe I am going to go with a story that will make my audience laugh.

To come up with the perfect story, I took a few steps which included:

1. Listing ideas that popped in my head within a five-minute period
– This helped me just gather a bunch of ideas that I could use, that way I did not get to a point later and have no ideas to go off of. Once I got a bunch of ideas written down, I could narrow them into categories of what emotion they would convey to the audience, and then go from there in choosing a story that I would feel comfortable telling to people and that I would be able to tell with enough detail so my audience would really understand what occurred.

2. Reading a few sample memoirs to get me thinking about events that were relevant to my life
– My professor had an example from a previous student that she had us read. Reading this along with a few others that I found helped me think about pin-pointing a specific event in my life. Instead of just thinking about a big event that happened (possibly over a few years), I started to think about just one time that something happened (in the matter of a few hours or a day). This way, it would be easier to create a story with more details pertaining to just one specific moment in my life. While also reading these, we had to “read like a writer”. In other words, we read the memoirs like we were a professional writer, looking at things like voice, fluency, ideas, etc. This helped me think about how I need to write my memoir so that it is not just any old story, but really an overall strong piece of writing. To have a strong piece of writing, writers needs to think about incorporating certain traits – and by making sure each of these traits are in the final piece of writing, one can be sure to have a really good final product.

3. Writing six-word memoirs and twenty-five word stories
– Six-word memoirs & twenty-five word stories can be powerful tools when trying to create a memoir. Just a few words can convey such a strong picture to an audience, and when written correctly, it makes the reader really want to know what story this person has to tell. They can be difficult when first trying to write, because you need to know how to condense your thoughts into just six or twenty-five words, but once you do it, you will want to continue doing it when you have to write other pieces for different assignments. It is really fun to try – so try it the next time you are writing something. Think about your overall story, and then try to write first just six words that would really get the reader interested in hearing your entire story. Then, try to write twenty-five words, to either tell the story in a nut-shell, or to just tell a few more interesting details that would pull the reader in and make them want to hear more. SMITH Magazine is the place to go to read many six-word memoirs. It is fun to read many of these, and it gives me inspiration to write more of my own about different aspects of my life.

4. Listing five important people in my life; Choosing one and writing five words or phrases related to that person; Choosing an event that is related to that person and writing five words about that event; And finally writing, or drafting, a story.
– This helped me in actually starting to draft a story. It got me thinking about just one person, and then specific details and events related to that person. Once I had just words and phrases jotted down, I was able to start drafting a story. It was not difficult to begin writing the story because I already many ideas down that I could incorporate into my writing as I went along.

These steps, along with talking to my mom, have helped me gather ideas and narrow down to just two that I need to choose from. Once I choose my final story, I will be creating a digital draft. To create this draft, I will be using VoiceThread, or a similar tool that can help me create a digital story. A digital story is exactly what it sounds like – a story told digitally (through a software that allows the user to create a movie or slideshow using images and narration). Here is an example of a digital fairy tale.

Once I figure out exactly which memoir I want to write, I will be creating my own digital draft with my own personal pictures, narration, music, etc. When I do that, I will post it on here, so keep tuned! (: