Write Where the Juice Is

Beginning writers generally write stories like they write email, telling what happened, skimming the tips of the waves. For example, “We camped at Yosemite and saw Half Dome. It was spectacular, but the the place was mobbed. Somebody left food out and a bear knocked over their cooler during the night.”

If a friend sent me an email with that message, I’d assume she wrote it in a hurry, and make a mental note to ask about the intriguingly juicy bear story later.

That friend can be excused for the email. After all, she is on vacation, and I hope she’s immersed in the moment, soaking it all in, so she’ll return home renewed and refreshed. But if she goes on to write stories about that vacation, I hope she’ll wring the juice from that bear. I want to hear things like:

• Did they hear the bear and know it was there?
• If so, how scared were they? What did that feel like?
• If not, how did they find out about it? What was going on around the campground as word spread?
• How close did it come to their campsite?
• Were they in a tent or camper?
• What precautions did they take to minimize bear risk themselves?

Of course you don’t write these details in a vacuum. At a minimum, readers need to know details included in the email to give context to the bear details.

Another example of focus is illustrated by the eagle picture above. The email version of this story is “We spent the afternoon in Canon Beach and had a great time, as always. I got an amazing shot of an eagle.”

Snapping that picture of the eagle was the juice of my day. But if you saw only the enlarged inset of that eagle, you’d think Ah, yes. An eagle. Nice shot! and move on. The larger picture shows the eagle atop a tree in the distance.

But even the larger picture doesn’t tell you that I shot that picture in mid-June, 2012 atop the seaside bluff in Canon Beach, Oregon, and that I was delighted with the performance of the new camera I was using. You don’t know what a delightful day it was, or how far we walked, or how mesmerizing the entire afternoon was.

For me, that eagle is a metaphor for the afternoon. Writing about it in story form, I may include snippets of conversation and my own reflections to anchor it in context:

As we strolled along the top of the bluff, alternately gazing out to sea, and scanning vistas of the town, a moving speck caught my husband’s eye.

“Look! An eagle!”

“Where?”

“It just landed in that tree! See? Right on top.”

Before he finished that sentence, I was zooming out to the limit. Would this new camera hold steady at that zoom? I began slowly breathing out to relax and steady my shot. The eagle was in no hurry. I got four more shots, then took time to marvel at seeing this rare bird through the zoom of my camera display. I marveled at the white head, the regal bearing, the powerful swoop of its wings when it finally soared off. Magnificent! This treat caps the perfect day, I thought. It doesn’t get any better than this.

In our room that evening, I downloaded the day’s pictures. “Look at this shot!” I squealed with pleasure. “With all those pixels, I can zoom in with Photoshop and almost see the feathers.”

On its own, that picture is unremarkable. Without more detail, hearing that I saw it and took the picture is no less so. I need more scene to anchor the relevance of this anecdote within the larger trip report.

Write now: look through an old story and find a juicy detail you told about and glossed over, “e-mail style.” Write a short scene to flesh out that detail and add meat to the bones of that story.

Bride Price: Cannibals, Witch Doctor and Hope

Ian Mathie, author of Bride Price and three (soon to be four) other African Memoirs, is the only person I know who has personally witnessed cannibalism. He put this horrifying event in context as I interviewed him across five time zones and one ocean recently. You can watch the video on YouTube or in the frame below and read the book to find out whether he actually ate any of that man.  

Each of Mathie’s memoirs is unique in structure as well as content, but besides the fact they are all set in African countries, they all share one other feature. While Mathie is definitely telling the story in the context of his own experience, he is telling the stories of people he grew to know, respect and admire. He documents cultures and a way of life that’s all but disappeared in the ensuing thirty years, and his stories are a tribute and reminder that wisdom, love and compassion transcend time, place and culture.



I’m reminded of the works of Margaret Mead I read in cultural anthropology classes way back when. Like Mead, Mathie was a participant observer, by circumstance rather than intention. Though he was in the villages as a water engineer to help build safe water supplies, he kept copious notes and sketches in many languages about the people and his experiences. Like Meade’s, his books should be on the reading list in all schools. The world would be a better place if more diplomats made use of his insight.
 
I read a sweet short story last week that told of the author’s experience ordering breakfast at MacDonald’s. On the surface, what could be more ordinary and less-noteworthy than that? I found the story remarkable. I smelled frying bacon and heard it sizzle in the background. I heard children laughing. And I heard people grumble and complain when the the biscuit supply ran out. I also felt the warmth of a chance encounter and the joy of a day gone right.

Her deft depiction of human nature touched me deeply. Without a word to this effect, she challenged readers to adopt an attitude of gratitude. All this in about 700 words. That little story brightened my day. It’s a gem. In fifty years, it will shine even more brightly as a reminder of life back in 2013.

She and Mathie both focus on others, sharing life through their eyes as a way of expressing love for the people they know and see, and their own joy in life, while indirectly challenging us to choose the way we view life and respond to it.

Documentary stories such as the two I cite expand our vision and awareness. I appreciate both, and strongly encourage you to watch the video, then read Bride Price!
Learn more about Ian Mathie and his books on his website. All four books are available in both print and eBook format. Kindle format is on Amazon, and other formats on Smashwords.

Write Now: Write a story about an ordinary day, whether that’s today or once upon a time. Include your thoughts about the situation and people involved. Let future generations know what life was like from the inside and how it affected you.

Little Story, Lots of Lessons

Closing the covers on a tale of epic proportion is merely a transition on my path of savoring a book. I may spend weeks gnawing on the bones of that book, reliving favorite scenes and savoring the way the details come together. Shorter stories may provide welcome diversion and profound insights, but seldom stick with me as long.

Michel Sauret’s memoir, Child, Hold Me, is an exception. I found the book after following a link to”How Much Does It Cost to Publish a Book?” on Sauret’s meaty blog. A blurb for the book piqued my interest:

From International Book Awards winning author Michel Sauret, “Child, Hold Me,” is a short memoir about losing a child in the womb, told through a man's perspective.

What? A man has written a memoir about miscarriage? Wow! This was new territory for me. I read on and learned that Sauret and his girlfriend were still in college and … the frank confessions in that blurb stunned me. I clicked the link to Amazon.

For less than the  cost of a cappuccino, the story flowed onto my iPad, and I dug in right away. Captivated by phrases as rich as the insights they convey, I read straight to the end. Sauret writes with his heart wide open. I’m reminded of the phrase attributed to an army of authors,

Writing is easy. You just open a vein and bleed onto the page.

Sauret’s literary blood and gutsy writing flowed straight into my heart in little longer than the time required for a physical transfusion. This memoir is short – 88 pages according to Amazon (it’s not available in print) – but lacking in nothing, and it packs a powerful punch. I’ll be chewing on this bone for weeks to come. Some of the points I’ll ponder:

Reading memoir by diverse authors broadens my insight into the human condition. I’d never stopped to think how losing an unborn child might affect a man. Suaret’s frank disclosures jolted me to attention and broadened my point of view. I never intended to limit my perspective of difficulties conceiving and carrying a child to term as strictly a woman’s concern, but I realize now I pretty much did.

What other blinders do I unwittingly wear? I shall keep reading and learn, taking them off, one-by-one.

Self-disclosure builds bonds of trust between writer and reader. Daring to disclose personal truth on the page, especially raw confessions such as Sauret makes, opens portals between people. They crack shells of indifference and preoccupation. They remind us there are people out there. People who live and breathe and bleed when they’re hurt. They snap our little lives into perspective. They breed compassion.

Longer isn’t always better. Sauret writes his tale tersely, within a small space. Yes, I was left hungry for some additional details, but he covered the essential points. In retrospect I realize that the details I hungered for are primarily trivia that’s fun to read at the time, but seldom stored in long-term memory. He stuck to the bones with just enough muscle to make them move. I read the story in two hours, but will ponder it as long as if it took two weeks.

Story transcends boundaries of gender, race, time and place. Saueret’s story reminds me that men can move beyond macho to cry, feel compassion and unbounded love. Ian Mathie’s African Memoir series reminds me that purportedly primitive people are wise in ways we may fail to fathom.  Jerry Waxler’s Memoir Revolution thoroughly explores the world of ways memoir enriches lives.

The advent of digital publishing opens the opportunity to publish a collection of mini-memoirs, much like literary Lego blocks, allowing readers to pic and choose, linking them in a variety of ways. We are freed from the pressure to crank out 75,000 words to make our story worthwhile. Hooray for that!

Write now: think of a major turning point in your life. Outline the elements, including lessons learned, and consider ways of converting that experience into a mini-memoir, writing the bones, with enough muscle to make them move. Share your thoughts about writing in smaller scale. in a comment. Is this liberating? Disappointing?

What Is Truth?

Eight years ago as I pulled together the material that became The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing, I thought I knew the answer to that question: It's what really happened, or what you really think. It's basic honesty, plain and simple. Everybody knows that, right?

That's a good starting point, but based on what I’ve learned and discovered since then, that definition is incomplete and misleading. Some of my increased understanding is old news, things I knew that had not yet integrated into my life writing neuron cluster. Meanwhile, advances in the field of neuroscience continue to deepen understanding of how memory works. These discoveries have profound  relevance for life writers. Here's a list of a few insights worth sharing:

Memory is fallible. Contrary to what you probably heard in psychology class, self-help seminars, and various other places, your subconscious is not packed with every minute detail of every sensation that ever entered your brain. Recent evidence shows that incoming data is filtered, scrubbed, compacted and consolidated. Unless it significantly relates one way or another to something you already know, most new material is filtered out.

Another stumbling block is that our brains often mistake vivid mental images for fact, embedding them as memory. This phenomenon explains many “suppressed” memories that may be planted by certain forms of questioning. Are those “true” memories? Debate rages on.

Memory morphs. Research shows that each time you recall an event or thought, current circumstances and thought become enmeshed in the memory, which may become buried in debris over time.

Perception is personal. If you have not yet done so, read my essay, Mayhem at Camp Ryla for a first person account of sensational and documented differences in personal perception as a simulated crime was committed. Elizabeth Loftus and other researchers have repeatedly verified my observations.

Truth is relative. As you take different points of view, you see truth in different lights. What was true without a doubt to you as a child may look quite different after fifty years of life experience. What seems true to a child is something entirely different to a parent. Experts often disagree on the truth of such fundamentals as the meaning of scripture.

Truth is situational. You may already have noticed how you select aspects of thought depending on who you are talking to. Conversation and writing are both shaped by our perceptions of the people we address. Time dictates filtering. Even if we had all the time in the world, shaping our message for best understanding is also important.

So, again, what is truth? Amazon is full of books on this topic. Here’s my current take. Today my best answer is that truth is found at the core of my being. It’s as ephemeral as an atom, lacking substance and location, but forming the essence of being. I recognize truth as a sensation of rightness or “inner knowingness” that washes over me as my beliefs, values, memories and experience converge in a single bright spot.

Truth does not trump fear, nor does speaking or writing it promise a smooth path. Speaking, writing and living in conformance with truth as you believe and understand it does lead to a sense of integrity and personal peace.

Story that springs from the well of truth within you shines the most brightly. You don’t need to blurt it out. You can veil it, scatter it, turn it upside down. But if it isn’t there, your story will ring hollow.

Writing, especially (but not only) journaling, may be the most powerful way to arrive at your truth. William Faulkner is credited with first saying,  “I never know what I think about something until I read what I’ve written about it.”  The longer you work on a story, the more you dig for detail, the more deeply you know the truth of that story, and the truth of yourself.

Write now: even if you’ve done this before, start fresh and write about a cornerstone memory, ideally one with volatile emotional content. As you write, as yourself the question, “Is this  really true?” Keep writing until the answer to that question is “YES!” Then write the true story.

Evernote – The Writer’s Best Friend

Most writers park scribbled scraps of story ideas, details and ideas for a story-in-progress, delightful descriptions (more about this further down), and other minutiae in a pile to deal with later. We might as well throw those scraps away, because they’re almost never used.

Now there’s a better way. Enter Evernote, the perfect place to store this stuff so you can find it and use it again later, even if you don’t recall that it’s there.

After three years, Evernote has become my digital brain annex. I keep all sorts of stuff there: blog post ideas, story ideas, scraps to use in future stories or handouts. I keep lists of contacts there, along with clipped web articles and recipes. I use it to keep notes of events I’m planning, To Do lists, and grocery lists. I used to make Word documents for a lot of these things, but they become hard to find and seem like overkill for very short scraps. Digital Sticky Notes are even worse.

Notebooks and tags make the Evernote difference. Notebooks are the equivalent of folders. You know the value of folders, and how quickly they fill up. Tags are a new advantage. I take the few seconds it takes to add descriptive tags for each new note so I can find it again, within the folder or .

Evernote is a great way to harvest those delightful descriptions I discuss in a guest post on Cate Russell-Cole’s blog excerpted from The Heart and Craft of Writing Compelling Description. That post tells you how to use a Word document for storing succulent snippets.

I still like and use the Word document so I can read the entire collection in one place. Now I copy each entry into a separate Evernote and tag it with author name and elements it illustrates. For example, one entry is tagged for sound, smell, dialogue, emotion, Linda Joy Myers, and Don’t Call Me Mother. I’ve made a Snips folder just for these notes, because these tags overlap with tags on other types of notes. The Evernote advantage here is that Word will sort only on the first word of the column. Evernote finds any tag, regardless of order.

Another example is found in my Thought Scraps folder where I keep random notes related to writing. I’ll soon use one note there to write a review of Dinty Moore’s memoir, The Accidental Buddhist. I added these tags: Dinty Moore, Buddhist, Buddhism, Memoir, Book Review. I may not remember any given one of these, but the variety makes it easy to find right away, for this and other purposes. If I enter Dinty Moore in the search field on the main Evernote window, it will pop right up, even if I’m not in the Thought Scraps notebook.

The feature that sold me on Evernote is its sync-ability. It works on any platform (except Linux) and device and syncs through the Evernote cloud from one device to another. So I can make a note on my laptop and find it on my iPad or desktop computer. If I’m away from my own machines, I can log onto the Evernote Website and find things online.

The very best feature is that it’s free. Each month you get an allotment of xx additional gigs of storage space. If you store lots of photos or music (yes, you can do that too), you can upgrade to a paid account. You can send notes directly from Evernote by email.

What’s not to like about all this? Give it a try. Move in gradually as I did. I predict you’ll soon be addicted as I am.

Write now: Click over to the Evernote site and browse through all the features. Set up an account, install it on your computer, your smart phone, and whatever else you use. Install the web clipper extension in your browser and save this post as a note to try it out and start building your own digital brain annex.

Disclaimer: I wrote this review because I love the product. I am not receiving any incentives or free product to do so.