Lisa Dale Norton |
Your Life As Story: Writing Narrative Nonfiction Crafting A Narrative From Life Experience — Part II by Lisa Dale Norton June 2007 Authorlink is proud to welcome Lisa Dale Norton as a regular monthly columnist. She is nationally recognized as a writing instructor with a passion for story. Read more about Lisa. Reader Note: This is the conclusion of of a two-part series begun with the May column. |
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"You chart the course you followed as you came to terms with that life-altering event. . .." —Norton |
After you have chosen one of the events from your life, after which everything changed, you begin the work every memoirist must step up to: gathering your material. You chart the course you followed as you came to terms with that life-altering event, taking note of the potent memories that rise–the people you encountered and the events that filled your days as you walked a new landscape, finding your way through a time of change and transition. | |
"Look for vivid memory pictures. I call them Shimmering Images. . ." —Norton |
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"These Shimmering Images become |
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"Write each Shimmering Image in a white-hot first draft . . ." —Norton |
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". . . the journey . . . is the coming to terms with an event after which everything was different . . ." —Norton |
Remember that the journey of your memoir (the body of the story) is the coming to terms with an event after which everything was different, something that upset the status quo of your life. Choose just one event, and then seek the Shimmering Images from that time in your life. |
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". . . that creates narrative pull/tension in your story." —Norton |
It is that journey, the unfolding of the way you came to terms with change, that creates narrative pull/tension in your story. The reader keeps reading to see what you will do. "What happened next?" the reader asks, and turns the page…. |
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About Lisa Dale Norton |
Lisa Dale Norton is the author of Hawk Flies Above: Journey to the Heart of the Sandhills (Picador USA/St. Martin's Press). She teaches for the UCLA Writers' Extension Program, the Gotham Writers' Workshop, and the Whidbey MFA Program. Lisa speaks nationally on her passion: the power of story to transform lives. She lives in Santa Fe. www.lisadalenorton.com
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