Notes from The Writer's Corner
An inspiring chat with memoirist Sherry Sidoti, don’t miss next Monday with author Marjan Kamali, and more!
This week, we spoke with award-winning author Sherry Sidoti, a true steward of memoir writing. Don’t miss this one if you’re working on a personal story—she shared so many practical tips to help memoirists protect themselves and those they love. Link to recording below.
A few key points from this discussion:
• How to speak your truth and potentially improve relationships in the process
• How to be brave enough to be vulnerable on the page
• How memoir writing can offer a lot of potential for repair
• How memoir writing can transform your view of a story from narrow to global
• And much more!
Visit sherrysidoti.com to learn more about her work. You can follow her on Instagram HERE and check out her Substack HERE.
Next week …
November 3 at 1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. PST
Marjan Kamali for A Craft Conversation
Marjan Kamali is the award-winning author of The Lion Women of Tehran, an instant national bestseller, The Stationery Shop, a national and international bestseller, and Together Tea, a Massachusetts Book Award finalist.
Marjan’s novels are published in translation in more than 30 languages. She is a 2022 recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship.
Marjan holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature from the University of California, Berkeley, a Master of Business Administration from Columbia University, and a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from New York University. Her essays have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Literary Hub, and The Los Angeles Review of Books.
Food for thought …
Craft Tip: Ways to convey emotion in writing without saying the emotion.
Why do this?
To “show” and not “tell.”
To add dimension to your writing.
To put the reader in the scene instead of relaying what was happening to the characters.
To enrich a scene and bring it to life.
Let’s look at a few examples ...
He sat slouched. Cocked his head and peered at me through his hair.
She raises her eyebrows.
He settles his body into a neutral position.
A strange expression flashes across her face.
I woke up with a hollow feeling in my chest.
I felt my jaw tighten.
Peter and Ann exchange a look, eyes wide.
She pressed her lips together like she was trying not to laugh.
He nodded, unable to speak.
His face is flushed and he touches his hand to his brow.
She stared down into her lap.
I looked at him but he didn’t say anything.
I open the icebox door and slam it, slosh milk into my coffee.
She heaves herself off the couch, stomps off.
She tightens her arms around her knees and tucks her chin into the top of them.
As you read through these, did you get a sense of how the characters were feeling? Think of how the language conveyed the feeling: slam, slosh, heave, stomp. Notice how specific emotions were not identified, but you still understood.
To illustrate this even more, let’s look at one sentence and see how different it feels if we switch out some of the language …
Original:
I open the icebox door and slam it closed, slosh milk into my coffee.
What if it was:
I open the icebox door and let it settle closed, swirl milk into my coffee.
See how these sentences have the same action but feel very different?
When revising: Look over your work. Everywhere you say an emotion, see if you can find ways to convey the same thing without stating the emotion. (Hint: Swapping out verbs is a great way to do this.)
Sherry was terrific! So much insight into how to wrangle writing about people you know in memoir. Thank you Sherry and Darcey.