faran

Technical advice for one writing the memoirs of a young man (in a most painful situation), please.

JulieJordanScott

Dear Faran,

What sort of technical advice are you seeking?

Grammatical stuff, how to format your memoir, where to start, how to handle the emotions of the story, etc?

Fill me in more and I will be glad to help... I wrote my memoir of a challenging time and am now writing one of an incredibly rewarding, flow time.

Just let me know more of what you want and I will be glad to help.

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42 Days of Writing Passionately

faran

Thanks for your reply. I know that I didn't elaborate enough, because I was in a rush.

I wanted to know, mainly, what should be avoided. I find myself occasionally getting too descriptive of the surroundings though a description is necessary.

It is a persecution, prison, and torture story taking place in Iran.

JulieJordanScott

Dear Faran,

Wow. Your topic does sound very intense.

I was just reading the book called "The First Five Pages" and was once again reminded about the overuse of adjectives and adverbs.

Are your descriptions varied?

How can you weave your description into the story itself?

I would think many people would be curious of your experiences, so I hope you will continue to courageously put your thoughts on paper.

With Passionate Gratitude,

Julie Jordan Scott

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http://www.5passions.com home of
42 Days of Writing Passionately

americanwriter

Sounds like an interesting prospect. Unless you're editing as you go, I would wait until you've gotten it all down and then taken a little time distance from it. When you come back at it in a few weeks to edit, the must-fixes will be more apprent.

There are several good books on writing memoirs.
William Zinsser has one. If you do a search in books at Amazon.com put in "write memoir" and it should pull it up.

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