By David W. Berner
At a memoir writing workshop I conducted a few years ago, a participant who had been quietly listening to my offerings for over an hour, had said nothing, and had not taken part in the Q&A session afterward came up to me as I was packing up to leave, introduced herself and said, “My life is just not interesting. I have absolutely nothing to write about.”
I knew nothing about this woman, nothing about her life, but I knew she was dead wrong.
“I have something for you,” I said. “It’s a quote. It’s mine, but not entirely. It was molded from all the great memoirs I’ve read and all the wonderful books I’ve studied about how to write and write memoir—books like Beth Kephart’s Handling the Truth Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, and Dinty W. Moore’s The Mindful Writer. So it is not entirely mine.”
The woman studied me for a moment, silently, as if she was ready to dismiss what I had to say before I said it.
“It’s not the life you have,” I said, “it’s how you reflect on that life that makes a good memoir.”
She wasn’t quite ready yet to believe me. “But I haven’t climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, my father didn’t beat me, I’ve lived a quite life, uneventful,” she argued.
“Then why did you come to this workshop?“ I asked. “Surely you think there’s something to write about.”
“I don’t know what that is,” she said.
“I think you do. I think you do.”
I asked her to consider the moments in her life that stood out the most. Be honest, authentic, and do not hold back. Write down the good, the bad, and the ugly. Just a sentence or two for each. After writing maybe twenty of these, you may begin to see a pattern. Maybe they tie to together. Maybe only a few of them do. Write twenty more. Keep at it until something begins to surface. Then take those items and find what bonds them. What is the central theme? The focus? This is where your memoir may begin to emerge.
Memoir is not autobiography. It’s not about an entire life—birth to old age. It’s about an aspect of that life, a sliver of it, a part of it. And with this, knowing what to leave out of your story is just as important as knowing what to put in. More than anything else a writer of memoir must reflect, reflect, reflect. What do these events mean in the bigger picture? What do they say about your life? Events in and of themselves are not enough. You must explore deeper.
I once had a student writer working on a personal essay who thought he had a pretty good idea. He wanted to write about how he trains for running the Chicago Marathon.
“That’s fine,” I said, “but go deeper. Why do you run the marathon every year?”
“Why?” he asked quizzically. “Well, I like to.”
“I guarantee there’s more than that.”
I asked him to go home and think about it. Two days later he returned to my class.
“I know why I run the marathon now,” he said. “It’s because of my father. He doesn’t take care of himself. Never works out; never eats right. And I want to be a role model for him because my father is my best friend.”
He had his story. He had the event and he had his focus for meaningful reflection.
His story was not fantastical. He hadn’t climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro either. So for the woman who said her life wasn’t interesting enough, or anyone else who believes that—consider what might be your personal marathon. What in life was or is so important, so impactful that it is bigger than the event itself?
And as you go through this discovery process, read good memoirs. Read the ones that call to you, but also try something you may not necessarily have reached for at first glance. Study what the authors do, how they reflect on events, and how they shape their story.
At the risk of sounding like a guru, remember that every life has meaning. It has heart, emotion, guts, glory, and tragedy. And in all of this there is always a story somewhere. Go find it.
About the Author: David W. Berner is a journalist, broadcaster, teacher, and author of two award-winning books: Accidental Lessons, which earned the Royal Dragonfly Grand Prize for Literature, and Any Road Will Take You There, which was a Grand Prize Finalist for the 2015 Hoffer Award for Books. Berner’s stories have been published in a number of literary magazines and journals, and his broadcast reporting and audio documentaries have aired on the CBS Radio Network and dozens of public radio stations across America. He teaches at Columbia College Chicago
His new book of essays is the next best thing to storytelling around a bonfire. In There’s a Hamster in the Dashboard, Berner shares stories of “a life in pets”—from a collie that herds Berner home when the author goes “streaking” through the neighborhood as a two-year-old, to a father crying in front of his son for the only time in his life while burying the family dog on the Fourth of July. And from the ant farm that seems like a great learning experience (until the ants learn how to escape), to the hamster that sets out on its own road trip (but only gets as far as the dashboard). Along the way, Berner shows that pets not only connect us with the animal world, but also with each other and with ourselves. The result is a collection of essays that is insightful and humorous, entertaining and touching.
You can buy his book here:
Print or Ebook: Amazon
Print copy only: Dream of Things
Twitter hashtag: # HamsterDash
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