HOW TO WRITE LESS and say more? Keeping things spare is a hard task, but one you must master in the process of learning to write well. This is a particularly heinous assignment when it comes to memoir, since what you are asked to prune are family members, moments from your own life, things you did, said, ate, read and, well, you get the idea.

 

To learn to write spare, I always suggest the list.

“A list?” This is inevitably the response when I suggest this, and I’ve suggested it, oh, two- or three thousand times in the years I’ve been teaching and coaching memoir.

“Can you give me an example?” I’ll be asked.

I can. One fall, a student brought to class a list of things he did not do that summer — sort of a reverse take on the old what-you-did-on-your-vacation school assignment. The list included all the normal things one does in the warm months. He did none of them, including putting out the patio furniture and connecting the hose. And about halfway through the list it became apparent to all in the room that what he did not do was commit suicide. He never said so, though he stated it clearly in his list.

Yes. In his list. No prologue. No epilogue. No context. We got it. And we cried. And we learned a mighty lesson. He wrote less and said so very much more than we expected to hear in a list. Everyone in the class was fully informed. That’s good memoir.

Want to write some lists? Let me give you the best example of a list that I’ve ever read.

Now, write your own. Learn to write less and say more by using this simple device for your very best memoir writing.

If you’d like, leave your list — or even just the beginning of your list — below and let me comment on it.