Guest Bloggers

Paint a rich picture. Roger Lubeck

Guest Blogger Roger Lubeck: The importance of details in memoir to enhance your story.

There are people and events in our life that shape who we are. What we value and the lives we lead. The events and people can be big and small. Stopping for cigarettes and the car accident that followed. Taking the last United flight out of New York on September 10, 2001. Growing up in Michigan, water was a part of my life. Swimming and boating, lake cottages, and fish frys; frog legs, whitefish (pike) and perch were staples in that culture and still are. The same was true in Minnesota, except the preferred fish was Walleye caught while ice fishing.

Sometimes in telling a personal story we get lost in the wrong details and back stories. In telling a personal story we forget about plot and pace. Often, I have found myself saying, “I guess you had to be there,” meaning the point of the story was lost on the audience. This is usually a sign that I talked too long, and the audience lost interest. Note the fish story above.

The story you write for a memoir has to be interesting, even entertaining. It has to be more than the facts. Whether a tragedy or comedy, it has to paint a rich picture of the people and times during which your life changing event happened. The story should have a beginning, middle, and end, characters and conflict. In the end, remember, in telling your story, we, an audience of strangers, have to become invested in the story, too.

Roger Lubeck, Ph.D. After a career in consulting and teaching, Roger is focused on writing, photography, book design, and publishing. He is President on the Board of Directors for Redwood Writers. Roger was the editor on four anthologies and a memoir. Roger has designed covers and interiors for eighteen books. Roger’s published work includes business articles, short stories, seven novels, and two business books. Roger has written a contest winning ten-minute play and two prize winning short stories. His newest novel, Ghosts in Horseshoe Canyon, is a modern crime novel set in southern Utah. In addition, Roger is developing a treatment and screen plays for a movie and a new TV comedy.

Roger’s books are available on Amazon.

 

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