Five Powerhouse P's for Your Memoir Opening

Everyone knows that the first paragraph of a story is the most important and often determines whether a reader will continue or set the story aside. Follow tips in this guest post from Matilda Butler to learn how to gain instant reader connection with a hot opening paragraph. Read the tips, then put them into practice by entering the “First Paragraph” Contest described below the tips.

Don’t dawdle about the contest. Entries are due by midnight PDT September 3. It’s only a few words, so you can do it! If you are already nodding your head, then here's the link to the contest rules http://bit.ly/URBTFh

Still Working on Your Opening and Want Suggestions?

In my previous life as president of a small high tech company, we regularly set our goals around the 4 P's of marketing (Product, Place, Price, Promotion). In my current life as writer and writing coach, I've spent an inordinate amount of energy focused on opening sentences and opening paragraphs. A few years ago, I even did a series called Opening Salvos and a second one called Memoir Moments with both delving into effective openings. This led me to develop 5 P's of openings (People, Place, Plot Problem, Persuasion, Prose).

What's the big deal? The opening paragraph is just a paragraph. Your book will have many paragraphs but it is the first one that will probably determine if a reader stays around long enough to see all those other paragraphs you've carefully constructed.

Let me share five P's that will move you toward a powerful opening:

#1. People: There are two groups of people to consider for your first paragraph --audience and characters in your story. Picture your audience, a reader or even a room full of readers. Who are they? Why would they be interested in your story? What needs do they have that your book meets? How can you engage them emotionally in your story?

Once you have thought through your audience, see if one or two characters in your story can be introduced in the opening paragraph in a way to engage that audience you've just spent time understanding. How will you introduce your character? With dialogue? With descriptive detail? Does your reader begin to ask himself or herself questions about your character, to interact with your story? If so, then you have a strong first paragraph and you've hooked your reader.

Remember, the first paragraph is when you begin the relationship between you, your story, and your audience.

#2. Place: People don't float around. They are anchored by place and time. Readers are willing to be lost in a fog, but not for long. They want to know the context around your story and two important elements are place and time. There are many ways to work place and its correlate time into your paragraph without blatantly stating them. You might mention:

"...glistening snow on the Grand Tetons..."

"The usually benign trade winds were bringing the Big Island trouble this time..."

"Three new airports had been built in Singapore since my previous visit in 1966. But it wasn't aviation concerns that brought me back."

Of course, sometimes it is fast and efficient to put place and perhaps time on the line before the first paragraph where it might serve as a foreshadowing or connection with history:

Dallas, November 22, 1963

Oklahoma City, September 11, 2001

or merely a locator so that the reader can fill in details that you won't have to write:

Summer, 1942

New Orleans

#3. Plot Problem: Your plot, the cause and effect events of your story, will be revealed over the length of your book. But the opening paragraph can begin to hint at the plot or more specifically the problem that drives your story. What is your story about? Try to foreshadow your plot in your opening.

#4. Persuasion: No potential reader has unlimited time and resources. Your readers, just like you, decide what to read and how many books to purchase. So it is up to you to be persuasive in your opening paragraph. Is your story worth reading? Of course, you can't just say something like, "Read this story as it will change your life." Instead, you need to intrigue your reader with the notion of a fascinating or important or humorous or... story that is worth his or her time and money. Even a book that is written for one's family and therefore has no out of pocket cost for the reader must be compelling enough for a family member to want to spend time with it.

You'll need to find a way to be persuasive through provocative dialogue, or fascinating sensory details, or rich character description, or exotic places/past times, or strong emotional connections. It is a case of show, don't tell.

#5. Prose: Polish your prose. From the start, your words need to be true to your style and voice. You definitely don't want to pull a bait and switch on your readers by changing the point of view or tone between your opening and your later chapters. The same tale could be told with humor, drama, mystery. However, only one approach is right for you.

And finally, just because you have written your first paragraph, it doesn't mean it is ready for prime time. Put it aside for a few days. Go back and read it again. Think about how the reader will react. Get a friend to read it or even better a member of your writing group. This takes us back to #1 People. Consider if you have begun your relationship with readers in the way that works for you and your story.

Enter Your First Paragraph (Fiction or NonFiction) in Our Contest

Pamela Jane Bell is a regular guest blogger on http://WomensMemoirs.com. She is the popular author of more books than I have fingers and is currently completing her memoir. Pamela came up with this fantastic idea for a First Paragraph contest and I couldn't resist. She has judged many contests and is excited about this one.

For full rules, please go to:

http://bit.ly/URBTFh

Just remember that all entries must be submitted by midnight September 3. Winners will be announced later in the month.

Write now: Polish an opening paragraph in an old story or write a new one, and enter the contest.

Matilda Butler is an award-winning co--author of the collective memoir Rosie's Daughters: The "First Woman To" Generation Tells Its Story and Writing Alchemy: How to Write Fast and Deep and Co-Founder of Women’s Memoirs.com.

It Takes a Village to Bring a Story to Life

I never read Hillary Clinton’s book, It Takes a Village, but the title stuck with me, and in recent months I’ve realized how relevant it is to writing, especially life writing.

Last week I shared a story with a writing group and received several ideas for ways to improve it. This morning as I prepared to revise the draft, I had a moment of brilliant clarity, realizing that:

I would never keep writing if I had to do it alone. Yes, the act of transferring words from mind to paper requires a certain degree of isolation, but without feedback from others and the hope of eventual readers, I would be soon lose interest.

I learn from the examples of others. My writing continues to evolve and develop as I read and critique stories written by others. Beyond that, my understanding of life and the human spirit grows and evolves as I read an endless variety of life stories and memoirs, especially in groups.

My best writing results from collaboration. My recent experience polishing The Heart and Craft of Writing Compelling Description dispelled any doubt about this. The keen eyes of numerous writing buddies kept me from embarrassing myself and inspired improvement in the material between those covers. And so it will be with the story I mentioned earlier.

My village makes things happen. Call it a village, call it a tribe. In our new age of indie publishing, writing villagers band together to trumpet the news of new arrivals they help deliver. Villagers write reviews. They host guest posts. They tweet.

Sharing stories build bonds. Whether it’s a long-term group like the Monroeville Library Life Writers, a class lasting a few weeks, or an online forum, people who share stories care about each other. Nothing bridges gaps of different backgrounds, ethnic and national origins, religion, gender and other culturally imposed boundaries faster than sharing stories. Stories move from heart to heart, evoking strong levels of compassion and caring.

Story knows no boundaries. Today stories travel around the globe with something approaching the speed of thought. Yesterday I read heart-grabbing stories written by people living in Iraq, Egypt, Romania,  and England and exchanged emails with writer friends in England, Israel and Australia. Someone in Japan ordered my book. I will never meet these people face-to-face, but we know each other as our hearts touch through shared stories.

I am part of a vibrant, thriving writing village. Many of my fellow villagers are working on book manuscripts. Those books will be stronger and more polished, and they will be read more widely because of the help and input of others in the village. Some write for the sheer joy and challenge of doing so, and to create a legacy of personal and family history for their families. In either case, the village is a safe place to hone skills, unravel personal mysteries, and find cheerleaders to keep our fingers flying.

This village can change the world. As stories build bonds, they feed a growing awareness that “what happens to one, happens to all.” They bring a sense of urgency and personal involvement to every corner of the globe. Just as pendulum clocks standing against a shared wall begin to tick in unison, so hearts bonded by story entrain and unite. Soon, I hope very soon, Story People of the global writing village will collectively cry out, ENOUGH ALREADY! And nightmares of oppression will finally end.

Write now: Let YOUR story be heard. Join a writing group, locally or online – or both (use the gadget in the sidebar to join the free Life Writers’ Forum). Email copies of stories to friends and family. Submit to anthologies or local papers. Start a writing group at your library, church, senior center or other community location. (Send me an email and ask for a free copy of my facilitator guide for starting these groups). However, wherever, let your story be heard!

Guest Post – Cheering for Life

I’ve been following Susan Payne’s Blog The Water Witch’s Daughter (written under the pseudonym SuziCate) for at least a couple of years and each time I read it, I’m enchanted with the combination of breathtaking photos and heartwarming insights, touching stories and snippets of life.

Susan recently published her first book, Stepping into the Wilderness, an anthology of sixty encouraging posts from her blog. Each contains five thought provoking questions to promote inner growth through reflection or journal writing. In addition, each piece contains five writing exercises for enriching the writing experience. Each contains five thought provoking questions to promote inner growth through reflection or journal writing. In addition, each piece contains five writing exercises for enriching the writing experience, and in this post she shares a touching story with prompts for you to write about parallel experiences.

“Is my letter crooked?” I adjusted the large “N” stretching across her sweater and pinned it in place.

“How about my hair? My bangs ok? My pony tail too high?”

“You’re perfect. Now, get out there and get us going!” She was beautiful, popular, and my best friend.

Her skirt flung to and fro as she swung her hips to the beat. Green and gold pompoms danced through the air as all the girls followed her lead in waving their arms above their heads. The bleachers smelled of sweat and mixed perfumes as we clapped, yelled, and stomped. She jumped from the human pyramid, long, muscular legs spread, back arched as her arms almost touched midway, and landed on her feet. She ran across the gym clapping and cheering, “Go green. Go gold!” She encouraged the football players. She encouraged us to get into the team spirit. By the end of the pep rally I was so caught up in school pride goose bumps tickled my skin and sent a chill over me.

Her damp bangs formed a ridge around her dark eyes. Her ponytail hung limp, but she bounced. She asked, “How was the new routine?”

“You performed flawlessly!” And that she did. Oh, how I wished I was wearing the short swirly skirt and toting pompoms. She tossed the pompoms to me…”Hold ‘em for a minute. Will ya’?”

“Sure.” She had no idea how I loved the times I helped carry her stuff. I thrust my arms skyward mocking her earlier movements. Problem was I jerked back and forth. I didn’t have her grace. Honestly, I didn’t have a rhythmic bone in my body. I tripped over my own feet, and my voice was definitely not the sing-song type.

Still, somehow she talked me into going to cheerleader practice camp. I flopped. She encouraged me to keep trying, telling me I’d eventually get it. I didn’t get it. I dropped out before tryouts. Though we walked our days together, she was swamped with cheerleading duties, and I was busy with my own fortes of being literary magazine editor and newspaper reporter. Still, we supported one another with our gifts. I helped her write her school papers, and she helped me develop confidence.

About fifteen years later, I told her on the phone it was going to be ok. I told her she could beat the cancer. I encouraged her to do the chemo, the radiation, go to Mexico, swim the Atlantic, to do whatever she needed to live.

She suffered, but her faith and courage proved to be as strong as her grace. I called her every week and traveled four hours to visit when I could. On the last visit, she was so weak she could barely eat or speak. “Don’t pray for me anymore. I think God is tired of hearing my name and wants you to pray for someone else. I need you to do something else for me. Will you?”

“I’ll do anything you want,” I said as I squinted my eyes to hold back the tears.

“I need you to tell my story, to encourage others to keep faith no matter what. And I want you to write my obituary.”

“There’s no need for an obituary. You’re going to be fine.” I knew I was lying but I just couldn’t bring myself to have this conversation.

“Promise me you’ll write it.” Her fingers pulled at mine.

“I promise.” I squeezed her fingers for confirmation.

A few days later I awoke about five a.m. to a cool wind sweeping across my soul. I knew before I got the call. I wrote the obituary and delivered the eulogy. As she requested, I encouraged all in attendance to keep the faith.

I never learned to dance, nor did I develop a singing voice. Still, I am a cheerleader. A cheerleader of life, that is. Through reflection of these many years I am learning my friend’s story, though it seems she knew mine all along.

As a genealogy enthusiast I write memoir. As a person who feels emotion deeply, I wrote poetry. As a hiker and canoeist, I write prose about my connection with nature. As a creative, I write fiction. From my soul, I write inspiring words to encourage others. I say this to you: Embrace this beautiful life of yours, and live your time here with passion and love.

Walking Along the Edge of the Woods:

How do you deal with loss? Do you close up and shut down? Do you face it head on? Do you rely on faith?

Have you ever been asked to something difficult but felt obligated to do it? How did you deal with it emotionally?

When have you felt your prayers or needs were not being heard? Did you remain encouraged things would get better?

Have you ever known with certainly in your soul something has occurred before receiving confirmation?

Do you have a best friend? Why is this person important in your life?

Stepping into the Wilderness:

Write a death scene. Have your character make a bizarre request of a loved one.

Write a memoir about how a non-achievement in your life became a gain in the long run.

Write a narrative about the best friends of your life. Tell us how they have changed or remained through the seasons of your life.

Write a dialogue between two people where one wishes to emulate the other.

Write a short story about someone keeping hope alive in a bleak situation. Use your setting to convey the bleakness of story’s situation.

The above questions and exercises are not in my book but are an example of those contained in my book.

Susan’s book, Stepping into the Wilderness, is available on Amazon in both Kindle and print, and you can visit her on the web at The Water Witch’s Daughter.

Metaphor for a New Year

Pictures make powerful story prompts, and this picture of a  crumbling sidewalk is no exception. It strikes me as a metaphor for our path thorough life and fits with the general theme of the new year and story.

Each New Year’s Day I’m reminded that life is a cyclical process. Each year exists within the “container” of twelve oscillating months that fit on a series of rectangular sheets roughly the shape of a sidewalk slab progressing through the year.

Though some may be similar, no two years are quite the same. Even on a newly poured sidewalk, you’ll find variations from one slab to the next, and by the time a sidewalk reaches the age and condition of this one, the differences among the sections are huge.

Each year in our lives has a story to tell. Although it’s anyone’s guess what it might be, it appears likely that each section of this sidewalk experienced some individually unique stresses, leading to its individual array of cracks, chunks and deformities.

This sidewalk is a visible record of the effects of a year – probably in reality a series of years. Our life writing, whether public or private is a visible record of the effects of years on our lives.

A freshly poured sidewalk traversing a lovely landscape is relatively uninteresting in its apparent uniformity and smoothness. It’s good for roller skating, pushing strollers, and playing hopscotch, but otherwise little more than a convenience for walking from place to place. A life with no challenges would be a dull life indeed.

This sidewalk is full of stories. It has repairs and subsidence and other areas that appear to be intact. Some spots are damp. How did this all happen? Is this the result of natural aging or damage? Has it experienced floods? Did a careless crane drop a wrecking ball? What might that have felt like, and how does the sidewalk see itself now? Various years evoke similar questions.

Looking toward the future, this sidewalk will need further repair to remain safe and useful. Lives sometimes need repair, and writing can be a powerful way to effect it.

Taken as a whole, this sidewalk is traveled by people on their way to a destination. Whatever the condition of the rest of the path, this section presents challenges to keep your balance and avoid stumbling. Some years are like that.

At this point my mind wanders to another task for today or tomorrow: updating my personal timeline – the rough equivalent of adding a new block to the sidewalk of my life. I see the similarity between my timeline and this sidewalk. Each year on my timeline is different. Some years were smooth, some were rough and challenging.

Like this sidewalk, the challenging years are the most intriguing, the most likely to provide insight, and the most likely to intrigue readers if I write about them.

I find a certain sort of dignified beauty in this sidewalk, and also in years of challenge.

Write now: Update your personal timeline. Start one if you don’t have one. Pick a year that was especially challenging and write about it. Describe each of the fragments, and how it came to be. What did it mean to you then, and what lessons have you learned? Use this sidewalk graphic as a prompt if it fits.

Photo credit: Bart Everson

Keeping Travel Memories Fresh

Travel, especially foreign travel, is a great way to broaden your horizons and enrich your life. I’ve been especially fortunate to have the opportunity over the last twenty years to visit every continent except Australia, and have all sorts of great stories to tell of my experiences.

One of the best way’s I’ve found to keep these memories from fading is to write about them, but when I am constantly barraged by one spectacular sight after another, ongoing connections with fascinating people, and an endless stream of unfamiliar surroundings, it all blurs together, even before I get home.

I’ve often begun a trip with a fresh notebook in hand, intending to journal events on a daily basis. Once I managed to do this for five whole days. I can use precious time to immerse myself in the adventure, sleep, or journal. The bottom priority never gets done!

Our recent trip to China went much better in this respect, because I used multiple streams of input to record experiences rather than relying on a single mode:

Daily event sheets — Unlike previous trips which we’ve mostly done on our own, we made arrangements to go to China with Vantage Tours, and happily give them five stars for performance. One of the many reasons for this rating was the daily event sheets our guide provided. Each one detailed times and destinations, with brief notes about what we’d be seeing and doing. What a valuable memory jogger!

Mini-notebook — As an after-thought, I stuck a tiny spiral-bound notebook in my bag. It fit in my small hip pouch. Our guides often used bus time en route to daily destinations for short lectures on local customs, history, and such things. It was so easy to whip out my little notebook and capture the content.

Voice recorder — I stripped most of the music content and took along a Zen Plus V mp3 player for making quick voice notes about amazing things I saw, impressions, smells, sounds, and other things that wouldn’t come through in a photo. The Zen conveniently hangs around my neck, so it was easy to keep track of. It’s not a good choice for audio you want to share, and it’s not as easy to use as a dedicated recorder, but it’s better than nothing. Many cell phones, cameras, and other mp3 players also include this function.

Photos — Between the two of us, we have nearly 10,000 photos. Many of mine were quick shots made for memory joggers, not sharing. It’s easy to get carried away with digital, especially if you carry along a laptop! We made lots of separate folders for downloads, to keep track of the location for each batch, and I synchronized the clocks on our cameras so we can pool resources and sort by time. A few of these photos will find their way onto a website and into a slideshow for sharing at libraries and similar locations.

E-mail — I don’t recommend spending lots of vacation time writing e-mail, but I kept a document for recording thoughts that I could quickly paste into e-mails later, and added to it while photos downloaded.

Standard journal — I even wrote a few pages in the larger spiral I took as an official trip journal.

What will I do with this wealth of information? I may take time to compile a complete document with the story of our trip, or I may not get around to it. That doesn’t matter. Recording the details helps cement trip memories in my mind, and will serve as reference material if questions come up later. I took the notes primarily for myself, and if others benefit, so much the better.

Write now: about a fantastic vacation you took. It may be recent or far in the past. It may involve overseas travel, or a trip to the park across town. Include descriptions of the scenery, impressions of the people you saw, the place you stayed, any smells you remember (food, flower fragrances, etc.), weather, comforts, discomforts, memorable events, travel challenges, and anything else you remember. Include photos if you have them.

White Skies

Any three-year-old child will tell you, the sky is blue. That’s one of the fundamental truths in life. Even on a cloudy day, you know that blue sky lies above the clouds, soon to return. Blue sky, green grass, white snow, clear air. These are constants you can count on. Unless you live in China. Maybe other places in Asia too, but China is the one I know about. In China the sky is white. So is the air. Not white like snow, but white like pearl dust.

I’d heard about the air quality problems in China, and I expected to find nasty brown air when I stepped off the plane in Beijing last month. Imagine my surprise at finding pearly, milky mist, not the sinister, visibly toxic smog I had anticipated. Perhaps this is just an anomaly, I thought. Perhaps tomorrow the mist will clear. But it didn’t. It varied in brightness and luminosity, and we had occasional rain, but it never cleared. The same conditions prevailed in Xian, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Chongqin, and Guilin. They remained constant out in the country as we cruised along the Yangtze River through the three gorges from Wushan to Chongqin. Finally, in Hong Kong we saw patches of pale blue between the clouds.

To my vast relief, the visible air presented little challenge to breathing. I found it a source of continual fascination, more novel than being surrounded by cities too vast to fathom, an endless sea of Asian faces, and incomprehensible language and signs. The mist magnified the sun’s strength, diffusing it to generalized glare that taxed the limits of my camera and hurt my eyes.

Shanghai Skyline through hotel room window

The air absorbed the cities. In Shanghai our hotel room was on the 35th floor of a tower high above the city. Clusters of skyscrapers filled the landscape as far as I could see around an arc of about 120º. I have no idea how far this cityscape extends — the edges melted into the mist.

In contrast to the sky and air, the grass and trees were reliably, intensely green — the same green I know and love at home. The earth was brown, and water variable. These constants reassured me that I had not left Planet Earth.

I loved every minute of the twenty days we spent in China, seeing the sights, wandering random city streets, taking copious notes and thousands of pictures. I loved the openness of the people, who always returned a smile and nod, and often asked us, in halting English or simple gestures, to pose for pictures with them. Those who were able to ask were endlessly curious about our opinion of China. They are intensely proud of the progress their country is making, and Olympic Fever raged like the Spanish Flu. It matters immensely to ordinary people that Americans think highly of China.

In the end, it’s the white sky and air hovering above and around that sea of welcoming faces that I remember. China, the land of the white sky. It would be hard to get used to, and much as I loved my stay in China, it’s good to be home where the sky is blue, as it is supposed to be, even on a gray rainy day like today.

Write now: about a time when you were in a situation where some fundamental element of life was changed. Perhaps you visited the desert and missed the greenness of your part of the country. Perhaps you live in the desert and felt claustrophobic amid endless trees. Seashore, mountains, cities, country. Differences are good and help us appreciate our home surroundings. How do you react and handle these differences?