The document discusses craft elements from JR Moehringer's memoir The Tender Bar that make it a timeless story. It highlights how Moehringer uses tightly woven themes of fatherlessness, manhood, drinking culture, and baseball to guide the writing. Examples are provided that show how he explores these themes through the narrative voice and deep characterization of characters. Sensory details in vivid scenes are also emphasized as a way to engage readers and draw them into the story. The document concludes by promoting upcoming online classes on analyzing The Tender Bar and learning structure for memoirs.

1. What JR Moehringer’s
THE TENDER BAR can
teach memoirists about
crafting a story that
stands the test of time
Linda Joy Myers & Brooke Warner
www.WriteYourMemoirInSixMonths.com
www.MagicOfMemoir.com

2. Thanks for joining us!
Linda Joy Myers, PhD, is president of the
National Association of Memoir Writers and
the author of Song of the Plains, as well as
Don’t Call Me Mother, The Power of Memoir,
and Journey of Memoir.
Brooke Warner is publisher of She Writes
Press, president of Warner Coaching Inc., and
a TEDx speaker and podcaster. She’s the
author of Write On, Sisters! (coming this
August), Green-Light Your Book, What’s Your
Book? and How to Sell Your Memoir.
Together, Linda Joy and Brooke are the co-
authors of Breaking Ground on Your Memoir
and co-editors of The Magic of Memoir. They
also have a new craft series on memoir that
will launch this fall on SheBooks.

3. How to Use Theme as a North Star to
Guide Your Writing
The Tender Bar’s tightly woven themes include:
• Fatherlessness
• Manhood
• Drinking culture
• Baseball

4. EXAMPLES—Fatherlessness/Manhood:
pp 89-90: I closed my eyes, let my head fall back against the seat, and felt the voices and the
smoke swirling around me. . .
p 152: At Grandpa’s house I threw some things into a bag and Sheryl kissed me good-bye. “Be
a man,” she said . . .
p 184: I read for hours without a break, discovering to my delight that aside from the longing
for home, the poem was also about men . . .
pp 375-76: I felt a surge of love for Steve, and for Colt, and for all the men in Publicans . . .
pp 387-88: My mother fussed with her nine-month-old son, then held him up, admiring him,
and twenty-four years later I admired her in brand new ways . . .
p 409: I slumped against the back of the booth. It hadn’t hit me until then. Manhasset, where
I’d once felt like the only boy without a father, was now a town full of fatherless children.

5. Through-threads:
Blanket:
pp 24-25: I regarded my blanket as a loyal friend in a cruel world, while my
mother saw it as an adult emotional disorder in the making.
pp 174-75: Sometime after my plane took off I realized why I wasn’t
traumatized about saying good-bye.
Mother’s lies:
p 23: The most honest person I’ve ever known, she was a beautiful liar.
p 42: She hugged me, and we linked pinkies. Our first mutual lie.
p 387: My mother’s first lie to me, caught on tape.

6. • The narrative voice—the narration of your story—reveals the tale you are
unraveling for the reader. Specific details keep the narration interesting, not flat
summary.
Two types of narration—guiding and reflective. The goal of narration is to
keep the reader engaged in your story, moved emotionally to keep reading.
—Guiding: The guiding narrator moves the story through time and place.
The reader is kept apprised and grounded in the story at all times.
—Reflective: An intimacy with the reader is created when you reveal your
thoughts and feelings. You go beyond the facts of “what happened” by offering
your motivations, reactions, and emotions.
How to think about narration—
as a tool to give readers context
and interpret events

7. “I went to the beach every day that summer, weather
and hangovers permitting. Upon opening my eyes in the
morning, I’d first check the sky, then consult with Grandma
about what time Uncle Charlie had come home from Dickens.
Fair skies and an early night meant... The more time I spent with
Uncle Charlie, the more I talked like him, walked like him. I put a
hand to my temple when deep in thought, I leaned on my elbow
when I chewed…
One night I found him alone at the dinner table…”
Example, page 96:

8. Context: being told just to do his best, sixth grade
According to my black and white view of the world, it wasn’t
enough to do my best. I had to be perfect. To take care of my
mother, to send her to college. I needed to eliminate all mistakes . . .
I needed to correct those mistakes and avoid making new ones, and
by getting perfect grades, then getting into the perfect college . . .
but with school getting harder, I couldn’t see how I was going to be
perfect, and if I were imperfect, then my mother and grandmother
would be disappointed with me, and I’d be no better than my father,
and then my mother would sing and cry and peck at her calculator—
this was how my mind raced . . .
Example, page 71:

9. How to deepen your characters
• Give yourself permission to delve into observation
• Characterization
• Exquisite detail
• Character tagging
• Things and places as characters

10. The men
p 86: Each of the men also went by a nickname Steve had
bestowed, except Uncle Charlie, who had two—Chas and Goose.
p 96: The more time I spent with Uncle Charlie, the more I talked
like him, walked like him, aped his mannerisms . . .
p 292: Publicans was wall-to-wall storytellers, but none had Bob the
Cop’s ability to hold our attention. Part of it was fear. If we stopped
listening, would he punch us? But part of it was his delivery . . .
p 320: Listening to McGraw, admiring his height and wingspan, and
the incredible width of his trunk and legs . . .

11. Inanimate object as character—
the bicentennial sofa:
p 15: The only new objects in the house were the drinking
glasses, “borrowed” from Dickens, and the Sears living
room sofa . . .
p 150: In the morning I woke from a nightmare in which marines
were storming Grandpa’s house and using the chevrons from their
sleeves to retape the bicentennial sofa. . .
p 305: Bob the Cop helped me move. Walking into Grandpa’s house
he cast a cold eye on the bicentennial sofa and the duct-taped
furniture and I could see him thinking…
p 386: I pushed the tape into the VCR and lay back on the
bicentennial sofa . . .

12. Scenes, sensory details, and vivid
language
• Scenes: the building blocks of your story.
Scenes invite the reader into your heart, body,
and mind to journey with you as you reveal your story.
• Scenes take place at a particular time and place. Characters
interact, there is often dialogue, and sensual details engage the reader.
The most important of these is sensual details.

13. Uncle Charlie poured himself a drink, fixed me a Roy Rogers
and told me to occupy myself…I hopped on a barstool and
spun in slow circles…Hanging upside down from wooden
slats above the bar were hundreds of cocktail glasses, which
caught and reflected the light of the barroom like a vast
chandelier. Along a forty-foot shelf behind the bar were
scores of liquor bottles in a rainbow of colors, also reflecting
the light…the overall effect was like being inside a
kaleidoscope. I ran my hand along the bar top. Solid oak.
Three inches thick…The surface was a tawny orange-yellow,
like the skin of a lion.
Example, page 94:
Sound, taste, smell, vivid description—these connect with the reader’s experience,
creating a deep connection. Brain research shows that the writer/creator’s brain lights
up the same way as readers when they read a scene with sensual details.

14. As my eyes adjusted, I saw that the air was actually a
beautiful pale yellow, though I couldn’t see any lamps or
other possible source of light. The air was the color of beer,
and smelled of beer, and each breath tasted like beer—
malted, foamy, thick. Cutting through the beer smell was an
odor of corruption and decay, though not unpleasant, more
like that of an old forest, in which rotting leaves and mud
refresh your faith in life’s endless cycle. There were also
faint notes of perfumes and colognes, hair tonics and shoe
creams, lemons and steaks and cigars and newspapers, and
an undertone of brine from Manhasset Bay. My eyes
watered.
Example, page 65:

15. CONTINUE WITH US: $99 for our
4-week THE TENDER BAR class.
http://magicofmemoir.com/spring-intensives/
EASY LINK FROM MagicOfMemoir.com
& Check Out MASTERING STRUCTURE
Take us up on both classes for just $179 ($49 off)
Register at www.MagicOfMemoir.com.
Discounted through Friday the 8th.