21 Mar Q & A of the Month : Bringing emotion into memoir writing
A writer asked how she could bring more emotion into a piece of memoir writing.
My advice: focus on two or three key moments which you remember as turning points during your life and then slow the writing down.
This works for both fiction and non-fiction stories. You slow down everything that is happening to your main point-of-view character within a 1-minute or 5-minute period. You focus on capturing everything that’s going on internally and externally for the character. Try to write it fast, even time yourself for 15 minutes, so you don¹t think about it too much.
You might want to try writing it long hand and if it’s hard for you, take yourself out of your usual writing routine. Go to a park or a busy café. It’s important to get into the body and the emotions of the character. It’s about making the reader really FEEL everything your character feels.