Personal Memoirs Writing – Lists and Stories about Places

Our memories are imperfect objects and by the time we have reached maturity our personal memories filing cabinet has already become quite full. As each memory layer is added our memories push the more distant ones to the dusty corners of our minds. Before we start writing our autobiography, personal memoirs or family history we need to access those memories and bring them to the surface so that we can use them in our writing.

When writing a family history, personal memoirs or an autobiography, we need a way of pulling out the past memories and shining a light on them to see if they will have any part in the story we wish to tell.

In this video, Oral Historian Greg Lawrence talks about the power of lists and how they can help your memory recall for personal memoirs writing. The video includes easy techniques that every writer can use. Lists allow you to jot things down memories as you recall them and take advantage of the memory by association process as you prepare to write. The memory method described in the video details how you can use the power of lists to enhance your memory recall.

By preparing memory prompt lists when you come to develop your story structure you are easily able to include details about places, people and events. Later in the “Personal Memoirs Writing” video series Greg will share powerful techniques you can use in organising your memory prompt lists. These techniques will enable you to leverage the power of memory prompts in your writing.

Remember, whether writing a family history, your personal memoirs or autobiography, the list is your friend.

One of the core memory prompt lists, and a pillar of personal memoirs writing, is used to provide your readers with a sense of place. A sense of place helps you contextually place your story’s characters in the events and actions in your story. By including descriptions and details about where your story takes place allows your reader to build up a mental picture of how that place influences your characters and the story you are telling. Details assist readers to empathise with your characters.

The video talks about how to include the different places the characters in your story lived and worked or experienced life events. It provides practical advice for developing useful memory prompts to recall the important places in your own story. Greg provides a descriptive example of an Australian home and setting during the late 1940s and ‘50s where the story teller evokes a real sense of place and by doing so allows the reader to add a layer of understanding about the story teller’s life and perform a mental comparison between the story teller’s experience and their own.

Today’s homes, towns, cities, farms and society are manifestly different from those of even a few short decades ago.  A sense of place helps your story come alive and capture your reader’s attention.