MEMOIR AS STORY

Let us define plot. We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. 'The king died and then the queen died' is a story. 'The king died and then the queen died of grief’ is a plot. The time-sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it. Or again: 'The queen died, no one knew why, until it was discovered that it was through grief at the death of the king.’ This is a plot with a mystery in it, a form capable of high development. It suspends the time-sequence, it moves as far away from the story as its limitations will allow. Consider the death of the queen. If it is in a story we say 'and then?’ If it is in a plot we ask 'why?'
E. M. Forster

A story is essentially an account of how and why life changes. And all great stories, from Antigone to Casablanca, contain some essential elements:

A protagonist (a central character) whose struggles and achievements the listener or reader or viewer cares about—and identifies with.
A catalyst (an inciting incident in the first act) that compels the protagonist to take action. This incident changes the protagonist's world—puts it out of balance. The incident sets up the problems. Important issues are now at stake, and the protagonist must now work to set things right—to put things back into balance.
A set of trials and tribulations (in the second act) that creates obstacles and produces frustration, conflict, and drama—all of which lead (or drive) the protagonist toward significant change. The trials reveal, test, and shape the protagonist’s character and lead the character to a turning point, a point of no return. The protagonist can no longer proceed in usual ways—perceptions and behaviors must change.
A conclusion (In the third act) in which the protagonist either succeeds magnificently—or fails tragically. In either case, the story finds a resolution.

This is the classic beginning-middle-end story structure. It was defined by Aristotle 2,500 years ago, and it has been used by countless others since. It seems to reflect how the human mind wants to organize reality.

Still, the beginning memoirist is left with large questions: What should I say? How should I say it? And where should I begin?

An autobiographic story can be structured in various ways. Some writers divide a life story by years, by decades, by stages—and then move through it in chronological fashion. This approach often helps a memoirist get started.

Others prefer to write about only a special and specific life stage or event—a single slice approach. With this approach, the author explores an experience or event in detail and depth—and avoids the challenge of structuring and describing an entire life story.

In a quest structure, the author describes a goal and then shows how it was achieved—or not achieved. Think of the knight searching for his Holy Grail.

In the quilt approach, the writer assembles individual pieces that may stand alone—and may have little seeming connection to one another. When viewed together, however, the assembled stories tell a larger story. In this quilt-like structure, the author can dispense with smooth transitions and can focus instead on a tight unity within each story or chapter. This structure also provides an opportunity to develop a series of discrete minor character arcs—instead of maintaining focus on a single major protagonist.

Many writers choose the pivotal events approach. With this strategy, the writer describes the major stepping stones in a life—and then shows how these pivotal events shaped that life. How the writer selects, orders, and tracks these events determines the kind of story that will emerge.

The pivotal events approach works well for many writers—and for many it’s a good way to start. If you are such a writer, you might start by assembling a list of the pivotal events—the major stepping stones and turning points—then selecting one and asking yourself these questions:

What was your desire in life before this pivotal event occurred?
When and how did this desire begin? How did it intensify?
Did you struggle to fulfill this desire?
What was the nature of the struggle?
Did you learn anything from the struggle?
How did you change after the pivotal event?
What decisions did you make that indicated a change?
What new awareness came to you at the end of this life stage?
What do you perceive now, as you reflect on the event?

As you review the answers to these questions, you may begin to sense a story. You may see a desire, a struggle, and a conclusion. And after you’ve described several “single slice” pivotal events, you may begin to see a dramatic structure. This dramatic structure follows certain “laws.” It contains a beginning, middle, and end—each of which contains three essential story elements (nine in all). Let’s look at each.

The Beginning: What You Wanted

Initiating incident

A story’s beginning requires a character—a protagonist. In autobiographic writing, this is the easy part. You are the protagonist. The story also needs a time and a place in which something happened to you. This “happening” (you may not have realized it at the time) created a problem and a need, and the event or experience that incited your problem is called an initiating incident. From this incident, all else follows. Example: Cinderella’s father dies (initiating incident)—an event that creates her problem. She’s left with a stepfamily that despises her. This problem leads to her need—to get the hell out of her stepmother’s house and into a better life.

Problem

The problem and need is resolved at story’s end—not necessarily by being solved (although that could be an ending) but by being understood in a way that transforms the protagonist (the main character). The problem can be a character flaw--as innocuous, perhaps, as excessive immaturity or ignorance. Or it can be more serious—a destructive relationship or some difficult life circumstances. Problems come in myriad forms--but whatever the type, it should lead to a desire.

Desire line

By establishing a problem and a need, you begin a desire line. Your desire is the engine of the story, and your desire line is the track on which it runs. The establishment of a strong desire line is the key to dramatic story construction. This line gets the reader interested—it’s a beginning. But if the desire were immediately gratified, you wouldn’t have much of a story. The key in autobiographic narrative is to include not only the account of “what was”—the events in your life—but also what you wished for, what might have been, and even what still might be. Your fantasies, hopes, and dreams are as critical to your story as your life events. These hopes (what you desired) should be described at or near the beginning of the story. The reader can then follow that desire line through the story, observing whether you are getting what you wanted—and rooting for you when you succeed, aching with you when you fail.

The Middle: What You Got

Struggle with adversary

The middle of the story describes a struggle. Your desire is running forward unsatisfied. In the beginning, you’ve defined your desire and have presumably developed a plan for fulfilling it. All lives, however, encounter obstacles, and the middle section describes the struggle between your desire and the ways in which adversaries obstruct your quest. In autobiographic writing, the adversary can be an individual (a punishing parent), an external force (crippling poverty), or a competing need or desire within you (desire for career advancement vs. commitment to family life). Cinderella’s desire for a better life is impeded by her stepfamily—but also by her economic powerlessness and her resulting lack of self-confidence.

The dramatic conflict in a story comes from the friction between your plan for fulfilling your desire and the obstacles your adversaries are creating.

But the desire line doesn’t necessarily go in a straight line—that is, the original desire may develop into a new but related desire. If your story is simply, I want X, and I get (or don’t get) X, you will have either a very short story or a predictable one. Your desire line may twist and turn and escalate. A story might go like this: I want X, but that pursuit is becoming frustrating, so now I want Y, but then I see Z, which is closer to what I really want, but in the end I get X after all, and I don’t want it anymore, or I get X and I’m happy, or I don’t get X but I get Z and I’m happy, or I don’t get X or Y or Z, and I realize I never will until I change. At the end of the story, your desire is either satisfied, unfulfilled, or transformed (with an accompanying final realization).

The turns and escalations in Cinderella’s desire line are clear. She has an overall need to escape her scullery maid role and to find a better life. Her first desire, however, is a simple one—she wants to attend the ball. It’s not a huge desire—it’s reachable. But it wouldn’t be much of a story if her adversaries simply said, “Sure, go ahead. Have a good time.”

At the ball, she lays eyes on the prince, and her desire changes. She wants to dance with him. The original desire has been fulfilled—to attend the ball. Now the ante has been upped—one desire has replaced another. She is still pursing her basic desire (to create a better life), but her first desire (to attend the ball) has escalated into a new desire—she wants to dance with the prince. After the dance, her desire intensifies. She now wants the prince, and then she wants to marry him. So, one can see how Cinderella’s desire line bends and intensifies and escalates at critical points.

Interim pivotal events

You can plot your story by lining up your pivotal events—then building scenes that lead to a specific transforming event. Life, however, rarely moves forward in a straight line. Most desire lines eventually hit a brick wall. Most folks have to swerve. They get waylaid, or they find a more inviting road.

A short story is built around one pivotal event, and the crisis and climax come at the conclusion. But a book-length memoir may have any number of pivotal events (five or ten). The turns created by these interim pivotal events keep the middle of the story interesting. These interim events are the lesser climaxes that occur on the way to the big one.

Precipitating event

The precipitating event is the pivotal event that marks the end of the story’s middle section. It appears close to the end of the story, since the conclusion is much shorter than the middle section. This precipitating event kicks off everything that happens the rest of the way.

The Conclusion: What You Realize

Crisis

The precipitating event pushes everything to a critical juncture. It narrows the protagonist’s options and forces a choice. It causes a crisis. It creates a crossroads—a dilemma that takes the character to a higher or lower moral place, depending on how it’s dealt with. The crisis forces the desire and the problem toward a resolution—a point at which the protagonist must now make a climactic choice.

In “Cinderella,” the precipitating event is the prince’s announcement that he will marry the woman whose foot fits the slipper. The stepsisters can’t force their big feet into the shoe, and Cinderella is presented with an opportunity. She can step forward and claim the slipper—or remain silent and lose the prince. But she doesn’t make a choice. She doesn’t step forward, and this inaction is a dramatic flaw in the story. But here’s the point. It doesn’t matter. The story still works. It doesn’t matter that a piece of the story structure is missing or broken or backwards. A story can still work if the basic tripartite structure—desire, struggle, conclusion—is strong. Cinderella chooses to remain meek and passive. She keeps her mouth shut, and her patience pays off. She turns into a princess, a life altering event—the climax of her story.

Climax

Many writers fail to distinguish between a crisis and a climax. Try this image. Think of the crisis as dam that forces the tension (water) into a narrow space. The climax is the explosion of water that shoots forth from the dam. The climax is a big deal. It’s the payoff. The precipitating event and the crisis build the tension—and set up the climax.

In autobiographic writing, the dramatic climax can be seen this way: it is the scene in the conclusion in which something dies so that something else can live. At the climax of Cinderella’s story, a revolution occurs—both internally and externally. Cinderella’s life as a poor wretch dies. A new life is born—she becomes a princess.

Here, however, is the sticking point. In real life, transformative climaxes rarely occur. We all (at various times) experience a death and a rebirth of the spirit. We all face crossroads, and we all move across certain stepping stones, each of which represents a turning point—a point at which something must die so something else can find life.

These life changing points are often preceded by a crisis, and we sometimes experience unanticipated renewal. But we usually see these climaxes only in retrospect. They are part of an ongoing journey that may stretch over weeks and months and years—and they usually come into full focus only over time.

Some autobiographic writers, straining to create crises and climaxes, manufacture a dramatic event. But finding crises and climaxes in memoir writing is not a matter of adding on—it is a matter of going deeper. A life is filled with dramatic crises and climaxes. They don’t usually occur in an instant or in neat sequential scenes (as in a movie). But they are there, and by writing out your life stepping stones, you can begin to identify the transformations that took you in new directions.

Our ancestors lived simpler lives. Modern lives are longer, more mobile, and more apt to include abrupt changes in personal relationships and occupations. But these modern lives also contain more climactic pivotal events, points at which we make a moral decision, or come to a new awareness, or leave one life passage and enter another.

A climax needn’t be a huge dramatic event. It might be a quiet scene: watching an obsession slip away, for example, or seeing the image of a former love fade away. But in all cases, the climax contains a burst of feeling. An old self or old way of being has been shattered, and a new awareness has erupted. And this new found awareness is the story’s realization.

Realization

At the end of your story, your desire (which has been running throughout) is satisfied or thwarted—or it has been transformed, with an accompanying final realization. In a memoir, your final realization is generally the point of the story—its “lesson.” It completes the climax. It’s the bottom line. It might be a small new perception, a slight shift in your value system, or a moment of insight.

A story can exist without an initiating incident or a precipitating event. But it needs a point—otherwise it’s not a story. It needn’t be a moral point. It can be an emotional, spiritual, or aesthetic point. The storyteller in all cases, however, needs a reason for telling the story.

Charlotte Linde says this about story:

In order to exist in the social world with a comfortable sense of being a good, socially proper, and stable person, an individual needs to have a coherent, acceptable and constantly revised life story. . . .Life stories express our sense of self: who we are and how we got that way. They are also one very important means by which we communicate this sense of self—and negotiate it with others.

Carl Jung asked, “What is your myth—the myth in which you live?” A memoir writing experience can help answer that question. Through the autobiographic process, you restore “romance” and the “fictional flair” of story to your life. You replace old stories of powerlessness with stories of consciousness and revelation, and you achieve a more coherent and appreciative view of your life experience. Explore your story. Understand it. Share it. You will see a meaningful pattern of events—and you will reap rewards.

Orlo J. Otteson
651-278-4824
otteson@aol.com