Memoir Writing

 Memoir Writing

 

Education Verisimilitude is that quality in a piece of writing that makes it seem "like the real thing" (verum means true in Latin and similis means like). Every story needs a good dose of verisimilitude if it is to be accepted by the reader. If a movie is allegedly set in France, verisimilitude can be established by showing a cafe-terrasse scene. There will be French spoken in the background. The viewer then accepts the fiction that the story "really" takes place in France. If the scene is shot in an 

apartment with English music on the stereo and an American newspaper on the coffee table, it is much harder for the viewer to accept the fiction that the story takes place in Paris. Verisimilitude will be harder to attain (and maintain) not only because the necessary props are missing but also because the cues furnished contradict the fiction of the stated locale. Your reader willingly makes a compact--implicit, of course--with you, the writer. As long as you provide enough clues to make the story seem real, the reader will suspend his disbelief. In other words, he'll go along with the idea that the story really is happening when, where, and how you say it happens. In practice, this means that the writer must select appropriate details to reinforce and corroborate the story. If the story is set in 1935, the people must be doing things people did in 1935-listening to news on the radio, for instance. Conversely they cannot be doing things people were not doing in 1935-watching the news on TV. Establishing verisimilitude in your story does not mean including every detail of a certain time and place. There are far too many details in your life for you to do that. Were you to include all the false starts and the dead ends--not to mention all the

 delicious dinners!--experienced in life, your story would soon be overcrowded, like a room so stuffed with furniture that people cannot get around easily within it. No, you will need to select carefully what you will include. A few judicious details here and others there will do quite nicely--and will be quite enough if you have chosen well. (Think of the Paris cafe-terrasse and of the waiters speaking a few well-placed French words--mais oui, madame--overheard in the background.) The analogy of the tip of the iceberg is a propos here. Only ten percent of the iceberg sticks out of the water while ninety percent is submerged. Seeing just that exposed ten percent of the iceberg, a ship's navigator knows what to expect of the floating mountain of ice. That's the effect you want to achieve in your writing: by including only the most effective and revealing details of your past, you suggest the entire story. If you want to show your family's poverty, describe the worn, faded linoleum in the living room. Going on, however, to describe the mismatched chairs in the kitchen, the frayed towels an

d the chipped dishes, blah-blah-blah, begins to seem like you are creating a catalogue of facts rather than a story. (Suddenly the whole iceberg looms out of the water and the reader is overwhelmed!) Remember: verisimilitude requires that you steer a clear course between boring your reader with too many details (that may only have meaning for you) and leaving your reader up in the air because you have not made the story seem real to others by including just enough specific and striking details. Good luck writing your memoirs custom dissertation