Writing tips : How to turn memories and life experience into narrative

This year the Southbank Centre in
London is celebrating its 60-year anniversary with a revival of the
1951 Festival of Britain. Wander down to the banks of the Thames and
you’ll find all manner of attractions from a pop-up beach to a
historical exhibition that includes memorabilia, film footage,
photographs and installations in the basement of the Royal Festival
Hall.

I ran a workshop with a group of older people exploring
their memories of the original festival as they worked on preparing
short pieces for Silver Story Slam – a performance event and
intergenerational project working with the local community.




You can read some of the pieces written in the workshop here.




I’m going to share some of the exercises we used and also offer some
general tips on how to turn your memories and life experience into
evocative narrative.

Photographs, objects and images are a great way to stimulate memory
and imagination and I find museums and galleries are an excellent
resource for writers of all levels. We were lucky enough to have an
exhibition full of curated memories to work with, and we spent some time
writing in a faithfully recreated ‘1950s front room’ and using that
environment as a prompt for memories and stories but you may simply want
to root around online, delve into your own family albums or dig out
some treasured objects from the attic.

The things you choose to
work with don’t have to be objects of particular interest in
themselves, they can be quite ordinary and everyday: a mug with a chip
on it or a cheap plastic ornament can be far more evocative than an
expensive painting or objet d’art if it means something to you. Try to
go with your gut, choose something that resonates emotionally, that
makes you feel. Sometimes the thing we don’t want to write about can be
the most fruitful and is, to my mind, always worth considering!

Lists are an excellent way of brainstorming ideas and adding to your
arsenal of concrete detail. If you’re writing about an event in the
past and you want to jog your memory, then try writing some lists
quickly, one after the other. Here’s a few for starters.





Write a list of:

• 5 thing you can do now you couldn’t when you were a child
  
• 5 things you could do as a child that you can’t do now
  
• 5 items of clothing in your wardrobe you no longer wear
  
• 5 things you’ve lost
  
• 5 people you haven’t seen for 5 years
  
• 5 things that happened the year you were born
  

Freewriting really helps to get to the heart of the matter and to cut
through the censor. The trick is to write fast, without stopping, just
to keep your hand moving on the page. Don’t worry about grammar,
spelling or whether what you’re writing makes sense. These are just your
notes and the less perfect they are the better. I also find it a
useful tool when editing, not for the little tweaks, but when a piece
needs a comprehensive redraft and rethink.

Freewriting is often productive when you write ‘against the clock’.

• Choose one of the items from your list.
  
• Freewrite around it for 10 minutes. Allow your mind to wander. Say anything. Just keep the pen moving.
  
• Read through what you’ve written.
  
• Choose one line or train of thought as a starting point and do another 10 minute freewrite from this new starting point.
  

It’s so easy to default to the visual as writers, even though sound,
smell, taste and touch are equally, if not more, suggestive. This
exercise helps you to discover the memories that might be locked inside
an image or object and springboard into other ideas and stories while
activating all five senses.

One of the most important aspects to dramatic storytelling is
conflict. If everything runs smoothly for your character then chances
are it will make for a pretty dull read. Likewise, if the reader has no
investment in the character, because the writer hasn’t given us enough
concrete detail about them and their lives, then a really strong story
can end up being cold and academic.

You’ve got a beginning, middle and an end, your description is
sensually rich and full of unique, concrete detail. If you can answer
the following questions about your story, then it should be fairly sound
on a structural level.

• What happens? It sounds simple, but a pitfall for many beginner
  writers is creating meaningful action within the story. What is the key,
  pivotal event and what change will take place because of it?
  
• What’s at stake? If a billionaire loses £50,000 at roulette, so
  what? If a man gambles away next month’s rent behind his wife’s back
  what will he do to stop her finding out?
  
• What is the CONFLICT? It could be an ‘external’ conflict as in the
  scenario outlined above, or it could be ‘internal’, eg when the man goes
  to his weekly Gamblers’ Anonymous meeting and doesn’t mention the
  incident because he feels ashamed.
  
• Whose story is it anyway? Who are the main characters and whose
  point of view is the story told from? This could affect the tone of the
  piece.
  
• How do you want the reader to feel? Is your story lightly humorous
  or emotionally harrowing? Is it a slow, poignant piece or a quickfire
  comedy? Knowing what kind of story it is you’re writing will help you to
  achieve a consistency of tone and help ground your reader.
  
• What is the timeframe? A day, a week, a month? A lifetime? Ask
  yourself whether the impact of the incident and the timeframe match.
  
• The elevator pitch: can you say, in one sentence, what your story is about? Write it down.
  
• What does your character LEARN by the end of the story? This takes
  us back to the first question. Your character needs to experience
  change. This doesn’t need to be a ‘moral’, in fact, it probably
  shouldn’t be; but something about they way they think, view the world or
  their physical environment or lifestyle should have altered, however
  subtly.