How To Write Memoir In Five Weeks? Make Resolutions

A NEW MEMOIR CLASS began recently. A five-weeker, right from the start its length presented a challenge to how I teach how to write memoir. Most of my weekly classes run longer, sometimes as long as ten weeks. How to handle it, I wondered, as I agreed to this little experiment. And then I remembered some New Year resolutions I had not revisited for a while.

Made last year, these resolutions made for a perfect teaching model, and doling out one each week, I figured, would be a small but sufficient structure for the brief class. It worked well the first week, and then, getting swept up in the questions presented at the beginning of the second class, I utterly forgot to introduce the second of these resolutions. So much for structure, yes? Well, no. What’s really needed here is the recognition that this was not as good an idea as was the structure for the previous five-weeker that began in September.

For that, I used the 5 w’s, introducing one into the beginning of each class and critiquing each of the 12 pieces read each night for that W. The w’s? Who, what, when, where and why, of course, as in who you are and who they are in the piece and how to best characterize all of you, as well as what characterization requires; what the piece is about; when in time it takes place, and what is required to write from the past and the present; where we are in place and how best to describe scenery, houses, supporting material; and of course, that great cosmic question, “why write?”

That five-weeker was great.

This one is, as well, because getting swept off my structure indicates a passion in the room that distracted us from what could possibly have been a stodgy curriculum. Turns out we didn’t need it, and that we are barreling along quite well, which is why I simply put these resolutions here and suggest you read them any time you need a boost.

Enjoy.