Tip O'Day #426 - A Memorist's Voice

Guest blogger Cindy Zelman on “10 Million Links to Help Make Your Memoir Stand Out! (Part 2)”

Or, more simple advice for those new to memoir writing. (Scroll down to the previous blog post if you missed Part 1.)

Suggestion Number 3: Find your voice. You may know that the memoir market is glutted with terrifying and sad stories of sexual abuse, physical abuse, alcoholism, and drug addiction. Does that mean your own story on such topics won’t get the attention of an editor? Well, that may depend on voice. Voice in writing is what sets you apart. It’s a bit of an elusive term.

I will use an analogy to popular music. When you hear a Beatles’ song, you know it’s the Beatles. When you hear an Adele song, you know it’s Adele. Not because of how their voices literally sound, but because their entire presentation is in a unique voice. Four Beatles were vocalists and yet you always knew it was the Beatles playing on the radio, regardless of who sang lead. When you read something by one of your favorite authors, you know it’s that author without even looking at the book jacket. Why? Because of voice, the sound that the writer generates, a tone and an attitude embedded in the writing, that makes his or her writing unique, a DNA stamp of sorts.

One way to develop voice is to write naturally and to write often. Practice. Don’t try to force flowery language or humor or pathos. Write the first draft of your memoir as if you were telling the story to a friend sitting next to you. So, keep on writing and practicing until your voice emerges and your story of drug abuse doesn’t sound like anyone else’s.

Suggestion Number 4: Revise…and revise some more. Did you hear that? REVISE! Then REVISE again! Show your manuscript to friends, enemies, writing workshop participants, teachers, and then REVISE again! (Don’t overuse exclamation points in your writing!) Put the draft away for awhile, reread it, and revise yet again.

Those are my four simple steps to writing a good memoir. Easy right? Absolutely. Not. Writing a memoir is akin to writing a novel and it takes time, but if your story is worth telling, take the time. Don’t worry about the market. There are periods when genres are “hot” as memoirs have been in the past decade, and then they cool off – as they may have at the moment. But I firmly believe if you write a great manuscript, put the time and effort into it -- and that can take years -- eventually, it will find a home, no matter the genre.

I leave you here, with what should be suggestion number 5: read some great memoirs. Here are a few to start with:

Lucky by Alice Sebold
The Liar’s Club by Mary Karr
The Chelsea Whistle by Michelle Tea
Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggars
Townie: A Memoir by Andre Dubus III

So, go to it, writer friends, get down to your writing. And remember there are 3 – 10 million links out there to help you make your memoir stand out, so if this post has not been helpful, Google it and good luck.

Cindy Zelman is a creative nonfiction writer whose work has appeared in numerous journals including Feminist Studies, Connotation Press: An Online Artifact, The Whistling Fire, and Cobalt Review. She is finishing a full-length memoir about how panic disorder and a dysfunctional childhood have affected her romantic relationships. You can read some of her work on her blog, The Early Draft.

Tip O'Day #413 - Three Bits of Advice

Guest blogger Lesley Ann Sharrock says you need to “be yourself, find your own voice, and write for yourself.”

What does it take to be published? Damned if I know, even though I have achieved that honor.

It seems to me that it’s a bit of a lottery.

When I finished my first novel, The Seventh Magpie, I tried going down the traditional route of finding an agent. No luck there, lots of “it’s not for us but another agent may feel differently.” They didn’t. We all know that the large publishers will only look at work that is submitted to them via an agent, so that door was firmly slammed in my face. I finally went directly to a smaller publishing house and they accepted it. Phew!

I have just finished my second novel, Truth Lies Buried, and am back on the old agent hunt because I feel that this one is far more commercial than the first as I have now shifted genres to crime thrillers. I may well be wrong, but only time will tell.

The advice I would give all writers is to be yourself, find your own voice, and write for yourself.

Not everyone will like your work, not even your nearest and dearest. Don’t be deterred. There will be lots of people out there who are just like you and who will tune in to your story, given half a chance. Have your final manuscript edited by a professional, experienced editor before submitting it. This is essential, no matter what route you decide to take, be it the traditional one of finding an agent for your work, submitting directly to small publishers or self-publishing. Make it as perfect as it can be.

You can view the book trailer for The Seventh Magpie here. Check out this author's website at http://lesleyannsharrock.com.

A Personal Essay

Guest blogger Eileen Austen, whose short story “Post Polio Syndrome” was nominated for the UCLA Kirkwood Award, has been widely published in academic circles. Every essayist has a different approach, a unique voice. The blending of creative nonfiction with academic influences can be seen in this essay, “In The Wake Of…”

I am obsessed, I know, with burrowing into dark places, unearthing and chronicling the myriad effects of war on women and children. Many are old and obvious. From Sarajevo to Zaire, rape endures as a deadly weapon. Kids step on land mines, starve or die from unnecessary disease. Families rot away in refugee camps waiting for refuge that never arrives. There is nothing new here.

For me something new, a link previously unconnected came by surprise. Last night at an impromptu gathering of friends, I chanced to meet a woman who has spent the last five years working with Cambodian villagers near the famous temples of Angkor Watt. She described in detail how a mere $240 builds a well, and how the water changes lives. In a society where civilization itself vanished, she provides uniforms and books so children can attend school, wrestles up medicine, creates health care programs and garners donations to pay teachers and nurses. The benefits are measurable.

When I asked what she considered the most important service offered she answered without hesitation: teaching contraception and dispensing otherwise unaffordable, birth control pills. Since the financial burden of a large family is difficult, many children with married, loving parents are sold or given to local orphanages, knowing the chances for adoption are remote. Most often children are sold again into slavery and sex-trafficking.

For anyone who has visited Cambodia’s Killing Fields and its museum of torture, the horrors are shocking and impossible to forget. Many of Cambodia’s impoverished still live in the shadow of the Khmer Rouge. A people stripped of their financial and cultural resources, this war riven legacy has proved disproportionately hard on women and the children they cannot afford to bear. It’s impossible to imagine the pain of selling a child knowing the result is servitude and abuse. To the parents, isn’t this another subtle, disguised form of torture?

In the wake of recent years, opponents of Choice have espoused religion at the expense of economics. They’ve succeeded in erasing any pecuniary considerations from the political discussion even though that is where the debate originated. Choice is and always has been about the economic emancipation of women. The conflagration in Cambodia fueled huge, unintended consequences. So too, might the War Against Women here at home.

Tip O'Day #375 - Which Voice?

Guest blogger Donald McMiken opines on writing distance.

In the paradigm of prose, writers are free to choose several viewpoints; we are not confined to a uniquely personal point of view in telling someone what happened. Within each of our choices of viewpoint there are several further possibilities. The primary choices are first person, second person or third person. It has been said that third person is the most flexible and appropriate point of view — except when it isn’t.

For each viewpoint we have another choice: single or multiple voices. A story may be told from just one, or from different perspectives. At a third level these viewpoints and voices might be singular or the consensus of a collective — plural. To complicate matters, a writer can also be closer or more distant in their viewpoint as intimacy in the tale changes, a perspective that’s called writing distance. More than a few writers, even successful novelists, have trouble changing their writing distance and tense where it could be most effective.

Writing distance refers to how close and personal your voice is, or at the other extreme, how your distant view captures reality through the wider lens of objectivity. Note that objectivity is perceived not actual; even the most deluded holocaust denier can write in an objective third person with a scholarly voice.

You can think of writing distance as like describing a panoramic scene. Picture, if you will, arriving by sea at a tropical island. As you approach you first observe the entire island on the horizon from the boat. As you get closer you can see details of a bay and a dark rainforest. Closer still and you enter this fine bay, heading toward a sunlit beach of white sand. Now you are so close you can no longer see the entire island, just the bay. You move closer through deep blue water. You see fish swim among the coral and dolphins leap and play around the boat, while sunlight sparkles on the water. Then the boat runs aground on the beach and you leap into gentle waves lapping the shore.

You venture across the hot, pristine sand with bare feet leaving footprints that track your journey. Now you can no longer see the whole bay, just white sand, a few palms and a dark foreboding forest dead ahead. You plunge in among the trees and vines. You stand still to allow your eyes to adapt to low light among the undergrowth. Now you can see only an arm’s length in front of you. There is a crash, low guttural rumble, a stench of a carnivore’s breath, then a flash as a monster bares its fangs ahead of you. In the slow-motion shock of an adrenaline rush you leap for a low-hanging branch. You have now closed writing distance.

You are so close that your only writerly choices now are fleeting impressions. At the same time, you will likely change tense, which amplifies immediacy and pace, to reinforce a sense of imminent danger.

Donald’s first novel has not yet been released. He is the author of Secrets of Writing Killer Essays & Reports, available from Amazon here.

Tip O'Day #326 - Know Your Voice

Guest blogger Helen Hanson asks, “Who writes like me?”

I slow danced with an agent for almost a year before I indie-pubbed my first novel, 3 Lies. Pitching a book to an agent requires a thoughtful analysis of the book’s marketability. Better still, he wanted a comparison between my writing and that of someone famous. Yikes! Not even out of the nest and I have to fly with the raptors. I write thrillers so these rare birds never form flocks.

John le Carré? I’ve read nearly all of his books, but he’s a strict spy master. I’m not.

John Grisham? His earlier works held some humor which I employ. But all his books involve a court case. Only one of mine does so far.

Tom Clancy? I want to know the type of weapon the assassin fired. I don’t want to know how to field strip the rifle. Pssst. Don’t tell anyone. I prefer the movies made from his novels.

Ultimately, the tenor of my prose isn’t suggestive of anyone famous. It’s my pain, failure, and triumph permeating the pages of my novels. Each of us writes from air space that no bird can share. People I’ve loved, cultures I’ve enjoyed, strangers I’ve engaged–these are the moments which color the ink from my pen. My favorite authors undoubtedly left traces of their DNA in my consciousness, but the words coming out are strictly my own. And I’m good with that. Even if I never soar with the eagles.

It’s my voice. Loud. Deep. Routinely off-key. But uniquely mine by which to die or fly.

Lean more about Helen at her website or check out her novel 3 Lies here.

Tip O'Day for Writers #130

Guest blogger Joan De La Haye doesn’t follow instructions. I asked for one writing tip, and she came up with eight – each one excellent. All is forgiven.

1. Go on a writing course. The people you'll meet there will be an invaluable support system.

2. Join a writing group in your area or start your own with some of the people you meet on the course, or else join a Yahoo on-line writing group. There are hundreds to choose from in all the different genres.

3. Set aside a place and time each day to write. I know it's hard, but it's the only way you'll ever get that book finished.

4. Read and research your preferred genre, as well as other genre's. In other words read a LOT.

5. Read the following books: Stephen King’s “On Writing” & Strunk & White’s “The Elements of Style” -

6. Find your own voice and style.

7. Send your completed manuscript to as many publishers or agents as possible. You’ll never get published if you don’t put yourself out there.

8. And finally, NEVER give up!

Here's the link to Joan’s blog: http://joandelahaye.wordpress.com/
And here's a link to her book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Shadows-Joan-Haye/dp/0983279209/