Memory Lane

It’s time to get your story down on paper

By Dale Dauten

At the other extreme are the people who tell me, “You should write my life story! It would make a great book!” Some people even offer to hire me to write a biography or ghost write an autobiography. Given that I have a list of my own writing projects to get to, I have to take a pass on such offers, but I decided it was time to put together some thoughts on how you might go about writing down your life story.

No, hold on. That sounds too daunting, to talk about “your life story.” Writing is intimidating to most people, even to successful authors. (Sidney Sheldon: “A blank piece of paper is God’s way of telling us how hard it is to be God.”) So let’s just talk about getting a few memories down on paper – and when I say paper, I mean paper, computer page, audio or video file. Doing it is easy. Starting is hard.

A walk down Memory Lane

Let’s begin with the image of “a walk down Memory Lane.” That’s going to make the process easier. I was curious where that phrase originated and read that it was popularized by a song “Memory Lane” in 1924, although the first use was in the Hamilton Literary Magazine back in 1894, used to describe the main street of an old town: “Thro the centre of the town a quaint old street, paved with square blocks of various hues from a somber gray to a bright crimson, runs down to the sea. This is Memory Lane—lonely and drear to some, pleasant and gay to others.”

Why am I trying your patience with that story is that it suggests to me a nifty way to make the process of writing your memories come alive. Here’s how I suggest you start:

Create a timeline of your life, your own Memory Lane. No need to throw in genealogy or a family tree just yet; rather, put down a line from your birth to today and start adding events in between: homes, moves, schools, marriages, jobs, birth/deaths. That’s Memory Lane.

But I wouldn’t suggest you start your writing journey down that lane in a linear fashion. No, you just want to begin to collect short stories about your experiences. Look at your Lane and let your thinking be like movement on a Ouija Board — let it land on a spot and that’s where you start. Then, let memories flow. This isn’t a time for “less is more” – that’s the editing part, for much later. Now you’re just asking yourself questions about that point in time:

What did that place/time look like?

Maybe you’re remembering the house your parents moved you to as a teenager. Your might describe your teen bedroom like this: “It was ugly, I suppose, with cheap imitation walnut paneling and no windows.”

Okay, that’s not terribly interesting, but you’ve set the scene. Now you start to ask yourself about the place…

What did it feel like?

Who there mattered?

What did I learn from that place and time?

And here you might let your mind and memories wander. Back to that teen bedroom as an example:

“It wasn’t much, but it was my own room. It was private – at least if you didn’t say anything. The walls were so thin I could hear everything my sister said in her room next door. I’d hear her talking to her best friend, making fun of the boys who flirted with her, the same ones she’d just been nice to on the phone. That made me suspicious of women and that may explain why I waited so long to start dating.”

Now we’re getting somewhere. That recollection will lead to others — in our example, the writer might then add a new entry on Memory Lane: the first date. It won’t be long until you have to redo your Memory Lane, expanding it. Soon you’ll have a collection of memories.

GROWING THE COLLECTION

RECOLLECTING TOGETHER

Some of those memories will be important shared moments. If the other people involved were still around, you’ve set yourself up for a meaningful conversation, going to the others and asking, “What do you remember about…?” This might add context to your own reflections, or simply allow you to record a different version of events.

VISUALS

You can also start to add in photographs. These not only add a welcome visual element to the stories, but they will be an aid to memory.

OBJECTS

Another avenue into memories is through possessions – a car, a watch, a musical instrument, a piece of jewelry or art. Tell a story about these and they could help turn the objects into family heirlooms, perhaps ones with enormous sentimental value.

EXTERNALS

Connecting your life with historical events can give perspective to anyone who might read what you’ve written. There are giant events like the moon landing, more localized ones like a flood or tornado, and also events like a real estate crash.

* * * *

As you can see just by reading this far, you’ll soon have a lot of memories for your Memory Lane.

THEN WHAT?

At some point, you’ll turn to editing what you’ve been putting down. As any professional writer knows, “writing is rewriting.” Here a spell- and grammar-checker is helpful. But, more importantly, you’ll want to tighten up some stories and add details to others. Some thoughts on creating a readable recollection:

Write for one person. Even though you might share your memories with a number of people, it helps if you picture one or two people in your mind as you write. Write the story for, say, your daughter or your nephew. By picturing that person, you’ll know what will make them laugh or cry or gasp. Your goal is always to share the feeling, not just the event.

Don’t try to write impressively. If you’re trying to impress readers with your vocabulary or complex sentences, you’ll just take them out of the story. You want colorful language not polysyllabic words. Take that little example from earlier, about a teen bedroom – the longest word was “suspicious” and the example used first person (I/me/my) five times in a short paragraph. Keep things clear. If I ask a colleague to read a draft of something I’ve written, I always say, “Please put a mark next to any sentence you had to reread to make sense of.”

It’s a garden, not a jungle. As you’re putting done memories, the more the better. But if you want to shape those stories into something others will gladly read, you’ll probably need more pruning and less fertilizing – in other words, ya gotta cut. Here’s where it helps to have a specific reader in mind (the one person you’re picturing as you write that we described above). Picture yourself reading your text aloud to that person and you can imagine where their interest is waning. It may even happen that you start to bore yourself – that’s a good thing because that’s when you know you’ve become objective about what you’ve written and you are becoming skilled at pruning.

Time to share. Finally, if you’re ready to share what you’ve written, you’ll want to ask someone who is kind but honest to give you feedback. It’s probably wise to start with just a story or two. They will, no doubt, be supportive and tell it’s great. So you need to ask questions. Where did your mind wander? What parts did you have to read more than once to make sense of? Did it ever feel too slow? Too fast? Where did you have questions?

A ”Memory Lane” Writers’ Group?

Even better than asking a friend for feedback would be to have a writers’ group to share excerpts with. Perhaps we should start one. If you’re interested in being part of a group at the park that is writing memories, let me know. We could start writing over the park’s off-season and meet in person in the fall.

(Photos: the writer, Marcos Paulo Prado; street scene, Olivia Hutcherson)