The document provides guidance on writing memoir scenes in 3 key points: 1) Significant turning points and emotionally resonant experiences should be selected to build the structure of the memoir through a series of scenes. 2) Effective scenes show rather than tell through vivid sensory details, actions, dialogue and reflection to immerse the reader. 3) Different types of narrators like guiding, reflecting and "then" narrators can be used to weave interpretation and insight while moving through time. The example given illustrates these elements well.

1. Linda Joy Myers
Layering
Meaning Into
Your Scenes

2. The Power of Memoir
The inner story of the protagonist,
you, who has a need to understand
something and find a new perspective.
Out of the many events in your life,
scenes are selected for their power to
show action and emotion. Writers often
say, “There are so many memories,
where do I start?”

3. š Discover your most significant moments. Where is the
emotional fire in your story?
šTurning points are the important events that show the
progress through your struggles and the resolution.
šStart with listing 10-20 turning points. This list will help
you to build the spine of your memoir.
šThe turning points become scenes—beads on the
necklace of your story. These scenes show the unfolding
of your emotionally resonant experiences.
Find Your
Significant
Scenes with
Turning Points

4. Scenes: Create the three-dimensional world of your
story by showing it in detail
šA Scene—captures a moment about something significant
connected to your theme(s)
šA scene is cinematic, full of color, sounds, textures, smells,
creating a three-dimensional picture that takes place in a context.
A scene “shows” more than “tells” the story.
šContext: place and setting, time, weather, geography, and
culture
šCharacters include your community and family
šTime frame—your age, historical events, culturally
significant moments

5. š Actions drive the plot (what happens) with reflection
about that action
šCharacters that have conflict and desire
šDialogue=action and characterization
šVivid descriptions woven into action and movement
šSenses: smells, taste, sounds, textures,
šNarration and narrative voice with reflection and
movement through time.
Necessary
Ingredients for
a Scene

6. Example
(uses vivid Description, sensual detail, action, and reflection)
Page 9:
In high school my definition of “life,” of “action,” of “forever” is modest—to hurtle
up and down Route 17—blaring the Supremes, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles.
Here, I’m free, electric invincible. To survive death I must be invincible, just like
Route 17, where acidic rain and lightning illuminate “Eat Here” signs atop diners.
The limitless wet sky thunders my car to the pavement. Route 17 shivers intensely,
embracing me in its rumbling sounds. At dusk, when the rain stops, I roll down the
window and inhale a bouquet of diesel fumes. Coppery strobes of sunset reflect off
car bumpers…When streetlights and neon ignite, I, underage, sneak into bars and
play foosball and pinball I plunk spare change into the jukebox. I dance with anyone
who asks—Rick, Steve—guys skulking hard-edged consonants. Camel cigarettes are
tucked in the sleeve of their white T-shirts like small packets of death.

7. š Showing in scene
šCreates emotional resonance in the reader
šSensual details light up the brain
šVivid specific details create an unbroken “dream” for
the reader
šTelling is narration that summarizes or offers
thoughts—a necessary part of memoir. Sometimes
telling is incorrectly used to summarize what needs to be
shown.
Show Vs. Tell

8. Example
TELL: Not in the book:
I hiked for two weeks nonstop, got really dirty, and took a bath.
SHOW: Page 129:
I took off my clothes and looked at myself in the full-length mirror.
I was a startling sight.
I did not so much look like a woman who had spent the past three weeks
backpacking in the wilderness as I did like a woman who had been the victim of a violent
and bizarre crime. Bruises that ranged in color from yellow to black lined my arms and
legs, my back and rump, as if I’d been beaten with sticks. My hips and shoulders were
covered with blisters and rashes, inflamed welts and dark scabs where my skin had broken
open from being chafed by my pack. Beneath the bruises and wounds and dirt I could see
new ridges of muscles, my flesh taut in places that had recently been soft.
I filled the tub with water and got in and scrubbed myself with a washcloth and soap.

9. Kinds of
Narrators
š Guiding narrator—sets the stage and guides the
reader. Transitions into and out of flashbacks.
šReflecting narrator—thoughts, reflections, and
emotion reveal the inner world of the protagonist.
šNow narrator—looks back to weave in interpretation
and insight. Moves through time.
šThen narrator—seeing through the eyes of a younger
version of yourself.

10. Example
(guiding narrator, action, reflection, and dialogue)
pp. 88-90 (Her baby is born in the context of a quick marriage and the possibility of a birth
defect.)
My mom lingers and takes my hand. I can tell she is trying to transfer every ounce of her
hope and strength out through her arms and into me. Her eyes are full and her lips is
quivering and she whispers, “God bless you, sweetheart.”
This is the first time she’s ever said these words to me. I feel thrilled and scared. Then
she is gone and I am starting at Craig and I’m pushing and pushing and there he is: Chase
Doyle Melton. The nurse whisks him away. My heart stops. I ask, “Why isn’t he crying?”
When no one answers I understand that this is when I get punished. This is it. “Why isn’t he
crying?” I yell. Chase starts to cry.
“He’s fine, honey,” Craig says. “He’s fine. He’s perfect.” Craig is crying, too. We are all
crying now. The nurse hands Chase to me wrapped up in a blanket. The moment I hold him
is one of the first in my life I do not feel like I’m acting. His body fills my arms and I think,
Oh. So this is what my arms are for. In that instant, I forget my loneliness. I am this baby’s
mother. He is mind. I am his. he is the key I’ve been waiting for my entire life. I am
unlocked.

11. Tips & Takeaways
šScenes build the structure of chapters.
šGoal of chapters: to show the evolving inner
and outer world of the protagonist—you.
šA memoir is a story that brings a reader into
the heart of deeply felt experiences.
šYour memoir is your truth seen through your
eyes and expressed in your unique voice.