Adding Emotions to Memoir
Stories are memorable because of how they make us feel. We gravitate toward a reading experience, choosing the next book out of our pile based on whether we want to go down a dark path and come out better for it, or escape into a simpler time, or lose ourselves in the lives of other characters as they work through messes we relate to. In all of these examples, we’re looking for an emotional connection. And this is just as true in memoir as it is in fiction.
Writing memoir means remembering and possibly reliving the emotions tied to the experience.
Adding Emotions to Memoir
The primary difference I see between memoirs in editorial work and published memoirs out in the world lies in the emotional component. Similar to fiction, where the writer often has the plot worked out and needs to go back to flesh out characters, so in memoir do writers need to revisit each scene to address what happens emotionally. For this reason, I’ve come to think of writing memoir as a two-step process.
Think of writing memoir as a two-step process
In step one, writers do all the background research. They get the details of their story down as best as they remember them, and often consult with others who share memories of what happened. They note the date, the time of day, who was in the room. This draft is largely for the writer to work out what happened to them, and then what happened as a result.
Step Two is where things get interesting. Now the framework is in place, and it’s time to consider how these events made them feel, and how they reacted as a result. This can be difficult, particularly when remembering traumatizing events from life. Sometimes we work hard to move past things that upset us, and while we appreciate what we learned from the experience, and the new perspective we have on the other side of it, revisiting what happened and reliving the emotions can feel like it’s too much.
And yet.
Those emotions, those hard things we felt, that’s what readers remember feeling, too. And that’s what connects them to your story. If you try to gloss over, or only get into a high level of what you felt, the reader will feel cheated. We know there was a deeper experience there. What happened is only part of the story. Showing what you felt about it tells the reader why the experience mattered, why you still carry it with you today.
The emotional component of your story adds nuance and depth, and is what differentiates your experience from someone else’s. For example, there are many stories of addiction and its impact on both the users and their loved ones. People read them not because they’re unfamiliar with how the situation plays out, but because they connect with the storyteller, and care about how that writer specifically handled it.
To get through adding an emotional layer to your memoir, first look at it as a whole and break it into the beginning, the middle, and the end. Write down how you felt overall in each of these sections, and note how your feelings and perspective shifted. With this in mind, push yourself to go back to the beginning section and remember the specific emotions of each scene. How did you feel when the thing that set your story into motion happened? How did you feel before it happened? And then how did this push you to feel the way you did in the middle?
break editing into smaller pieces
Give yourself time to delve into each section, but consider setting a time limit. Something like:
Day One
This morning I’m going to look at the first 25 pages, and write down every feeling and reaction I remember having. Then I’m going to look at my draft and see where I can work these reaction beats in.
Day Two
Today I’m going to look at pages 25-75. This is where things get sticky, the part I’ve tried to forget, so I’m going to push through more, write down what I felt, and then eat a hot fudge sundae.
Day Three
Now that I have the feelings down, I’ll go back to the text and make sure the reader feels it, too. I’ll add reaction beats, and make sure I’m showing things in scenes instead of long blocks of expository telling that distance the reader.
remember to build in time for self-care
And so on. Create a schedule for yourself, and build in a plan for stress relief after you write. You lived through something, and you need to show how that felt, but once you’re done writing it’s time to return to who you learned to be once it was over. And then hit it again the next day, and the next, until you’ve worked your way through to the end. Your readers will thank you. And they’ll remember your story.
Struggling with layering reaction beats into your story? Check out the ways I can help at Good Story Editing!
