Memoir-true story books and films to study: approximately 40% of - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

memoir true story books and films to study approximately
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Memoir-true story books and films to study: approximately 40% of - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Memoir-true story books and films to study: approximately 40% of Best Picture nominees in the last few years, including Darkest Hour, The Post, Hidden Figures, The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything, Foxcatcher, Wild, Selma, 12 Years A


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Memoir-true story books and films to study: approximately 40% of Best Picture nominees in the last few years, including Darkest Hour, The Post, Hidden Figures, The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything, Foxcatcher, Wild, Selma, 12 Years A Slave, Captain Philips, Dallas Buyers Club, Milk, The Blind Side, Girl Interrupted, Eat Pray Love, The Year of Magical Thinking, Catch Me If You Can, Into Thin Air

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  • 3. There is typically no single desire line in a

person’s real life by which you can track the storyline.

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Memoir is much more thematic than all other story forms, which are more concerned with desire line and plot.

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Remember: wound is not the weakness. Weakness is the internal flaw that grows from that wound.

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Caution: a big danger in memoir is to make your hero – which is you – all good.

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This has to be new information that only came to you because you wrote this book.

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The storyteller frame puts you in someone’s

  • mind. This allows you total freedom to tell the

events in any order you want.

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Two advantages:

  • 1. allows you to compress the story and get rid
  • f dead space,
  • 2. you can unify the desire lines.
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We know from drama that the intimate

  • pponent is the most powerful opponent of all

because they can do more damage than any

  • ther.
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The biggest problem you face in memoir-true story is lack of plot.

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Because the hero in a memoir is yourself, reveals are often mini self-revelations.

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Key point: many reveals in memoir are about understanding events differently now than when you first experienced them.

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Memoir is not about returning to your past, it’s about changing your future.

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Assignment for next class IF YOU ARE WRITING SCENES FOR YOUR STORY:

  • 1. write the next three scenes in the story where

there is dialogue That means three scenes, not three chapters. Be sure to start by listing the premise in 1 line

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Assignment for next class IF YOU ARE WRITING SCENES FOR YOUR STORY:

  • 2. write your hero’s weakness in 1 line
  • 3. write the endpoint of your hero’s character

change, In other words, his or her self-revelation

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IF YOUR STORY IS AT ANY OTHER STEP OF THE WRITING PROCESS

  • 4. Important: state which assignment you are doing
  • 5. follow the instructions for that month’s assignment

Don’t hand in more than the assignment asks for.

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IF YOUR STORY IS AT ANY OTHER STEP OF THE WRITING PROCESS

  • 6. send in any question you have about story in

general or about your story in particular

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Remember: hand in only 1 assignment at a time.

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Next class: Wednesday, February 20