This chapter considers some writing points that you might like to bear in mind before putting pen to paper.

Don’t try to digest everything – read through the chapter and then let ideas wander into your mind over the next few days. Perhaps after you’ve written a chapter or two you can revisit this chapter for more ideas, and again prior to reading through the entire manuscript before the final edit.

A selection of extracts from various amateur writers can be found in Chapter 8. These might also be of assistance as you consider your own writing style.

Feeling comfortable with yourself

Being yourself

The most important advice in this whole chapter is for you to be yourself. People love us for being us, with all of our little imperfections and foibles. If in our writing we try to make ourselves out to be someone we are not, it will not ring true.

As this is likely to be a purely private book, those reading it will know you very well. You will remember some events differently from your readers – that is only to be expected. The memory also plays tricks from time to time. However, if the reader perceives that history is being rewritten on too many occasions your book will lose credibility.

Remember, your readers are on your side. Just be yourself.

Striking the right balance

Most people err on the side of modesty rather than arrogance. However, beware, a book dripping with humility can grate with the reader just as much as arrogance.

Sharing secrets

How much you choose to reveal about yourself is obviously up to you. However, sharing a secret with the reader, even a small one like a hitherto unknown nickname or an embarrassing moment from your childhood, will endear you to your audience.

Many high-profile biographies fall into the trap of keeping the reader at arm’s length. Having reached the final page it is all too easy to feel that you know no more about the person than before you started.

Being natural

Writing the way you speak

As long as you are not trying to be too clever, you will easily fall into a comfortable writing style. The best way to achieve this is to write the way you speak.

The use of a thesaurus can add colour and diversity to your manuscript, but try not to use those words where you have to look up the meaning. If you don’t even know what they mean they are clearly not in your everyday vocabulary.

Using humour

If you are humorous by nature, this will reflect in your writing. Anecdotes are the usual form of introducing humour, and a few well-chosen stories will add to your story. However, think carefully about what you write – once in print it’s there forever . . . and what sounded like a good idea at the time might be a little insensitive.

Additionally, the odd tale against yourself will engage the reader and make it easier to tell a gentle story against someone else.

Being thorough

Not discounting anything

The usual adage about writing a book is that, come the end, the waste-paper basket is full of golden nuggets that failed to make the final cut. However, if they are golden nuggets why shouldn’t they be included?

The fascination in a life story is the detail – the fact that a memory has jumped back into your consciousness after 50 or 60 years must mean something. Include it.

Substituting yourself with a grandparent

A useful test here is to substitute yourself with your grandmother or grandfather. If they had written a book, what would you want to know? The answer has surely got to be, ‘Everything’, or, at the very least, ‘Whatever they chose to say.’

If your grandmother had confided the fact that her favourite colour was sky-blue and that as a child she had an imaginary friend called Boris, you‘d be delighted. It might also explain your vivid imagination or why your favourite colour is sky-blue.

Leaving the editing for later

Just because you write something early on does not mean that it has to appear in the final book if, upon review, you feel that the narrative has become tedious. However, it is easier to make such decisions when you consider the balance of the entire manuscript rather than a few pages at a time.

Obviously, boring your reader is something to be avoided, but care has to be exercised to ensure that it is not simply modesty speaking. Again, ask the question, ‘What would you have wanted your grandfather to have eliminated from his writing?’ At this stage, keep it in. Your readers can always skip pages if they wish – the odds are that they won’t.

Editing will be discussed at greater length in Chapter 12 when it comes to reviewing your manuscript.

Assuming nothing

Whoever your intended audience, it is best to assume no knowledge by the reader. While your children are well aware of the fact that Grandpa had a wooden leg, what about the as yet unborn great-grandchild? Without the relevant knowledge, the story of Grandpa sawing off his leg when he trapped it in a cattle grid takes on a different meaning!

Providing a reference point

Increasingly fewer people know what ten bob was – how many less in 30 years’ time? However, the fact that it is 50p is of less interest than providing a reference as to what that could buy. Your Dad was earning £315s.0d a week at the time . . . and he was manager of the local cinema in charge of 12 staff.

For those who wish to include imperial and decimal values, a conversion chart can be found at the back of the book.

Similarly, everyone knows that Gordon was your best mate, but mentioning that you met on a works outing to the Isle of Wight adds a bit of background to someone who virtually became one of the family. If Gordon suddenly appears in the story from nowhere it might confuse some potential future readers.

Of course, not everything can be explained, and if Vera Lynn is not known in 50 years’ time at least it might make the reader look up her name in a history book.

Ensuring historical consistency

Thinking as you did at the time

The benefit of hindsight can alter how we tell a story. Neville Chamberlain has been treated harshly by history in proclaiming ‘Peace for our time’ . . . he was not so universally scorned on 30 September 1938.

The press has made us very familiar with the present royal family, but what were the feelings of the nation on 12 December 1936 when Edward VIII abdicated?

Trying to project your thinking back in time is not easy, but it makes for a great read.

Using the right words

A follow-on from the above point is trying to be as historically accurate as possible. This involves using the right words in the relevant periods of your life.

The list below will evoke different memories:

• wire set(cat’s whisker
• radiogram
• radio
• record player
• stereo system
• hi-fi
• box brownie
• cine camera.

If you were lucky enough to get a television set for the coronation in 1953 you probably did not call it ‘telly’, ‘TV’ or ‘the box’. And when did an aeroplane become an airplane or plane?

Taking care with time sequence

It is inevitable that your book will date . . . indeed, it is likely to have dated since you first put pen to paper. If you write about your grandchildren, you will probably record their ages and maybe include their pictures. This is fine and is to be expected even though they might be a year older before the book makes its long-awaited appearance.

Where you can be careful is in the use of unspecific timescales. Words and phrases like ‘ago’ and last summer’ will be ambiguous unless you link them to when you are writing or provide a date. To write, ‘We visited Ralph in Spain two years ago’ will be needlessly confusing. The reader will have to refer to the date when the book was written to work out when you mean. It is simpler for the reader if you write, ‘We visited Ralph in Spain in 2004,’ or, ‘We visited Ralph in Spain two years ago, in 2004.’

Telling the story

Setting the context

All good stories need context. Take for example your first school:

• what was it called?
• where was it?
• what was its size:
  • number of classes?
  • number of teachers?
  • the age range per class?
  • how many children per class?
• Is it still a school – or has it perhaps been converted to a two-bedroomed house (that really shows its size)?

• How far away was it?
• How did you get there?
• Who took you to school?
• who was the headmaster?
• Who was your teacher?
• What did he/she look like?
• How strict was he/she?
• Who was your best friend?
• Did you stay in touch?
• What forms of punishment were used?
• Were you ever on the receiving end?
• Why?
• If not, why not? etc.

All of these facts and hundreds more will be woven into the narrative to create the overall picture.

Utilising the why and the how

Many of the broad facts about our life will be similar to countless thousands of others. What differentiates us is how we interpret those facts – how we did what we did and our intentions behind those actions.

The fact that you went swimming every day of the summer holidays of 1936 is impressive, but what is more interesting is the inspiration behind it: the fact that you had seen Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan earlier that year and you wanted to be able to swim like him. In fact, you also got into bodybuilding in a small way and started to watch what you ate. What was not so clever, though, was breaking your arm when you fell out of the tree trying to swing on the ivy . . . how was a 12-year-old to know that it wouldn’t take such weight!

We can also apply these principles to others. Why did your parents live where they did and how did that come about? Think about their circumstances – you may arrive at some interesting conclusions.

Showing not telling

A significant tool used by the storyteller is to impart information by showing rather than telling. Describing the story of Dad hiding Granny’s teeth is amusing, but it also shows us that he had a sense of humour and was a real tease. This is far better than writing, ‘Dad had a great sense of humour.’

Including what you don’t know

Often what you don’t know can be of more interest than what you do, and is certainly worth including. If you don’t know the answers say so. The fact that your school was in a poor area is of interest, but it is even more interesting to know that . . . while it was in a poor area, we had no concept of rich or poor – we were all the same.’

Similarly, ‘I never really thought too much about living through the war; we just carried on as best we could.’

Developing the story

Creating interest from the start

Giving your book a strong opening will engage the reader’s attention from the outset.

If you are starting the book at your birth, instead of writing, ‘I was born . . .’ try to think more laterally – perhaps something like this:

‘I don’t know if it was a ploy by my parents to fend off the seven-year itch, but I was born seven years after my elder brother Bob, 14 years into the marriage of my parents, Joe and Joyce Rice.’

As well as imparting a fair bit of information, you have also created some mystique.

Questioning your story

Your story will be obvious to you and you will therefore make many assumptions. Questioning some of these can lead to interesting results.

This is part of the benefit of attending a life writing class, or perhaps having someone to help you. By discussing the writing, it is easier to spot any ambiguities.

Such questioning is of particular importance when writing about growing up abroad or during the war – experiences that may well be far removed from your reader and which therefore need greater explanation.

Embellishing a story

It is important to think through stories to ensure that a good anecdote is not overlooked. A story can often be embellished considerably simply by sifting it over in your mind.

The broad fact may be that you met Mary at a dance. But how did you hear about the dance? You may have seen it advertised in the corner shop when you popped in to buy some sweets because you missed the bus. You missed the bus because you had been chatting to Fred to find out the Test Match score. So, indirectly, the reason you met and later married Mary was because of cricket . . . and Mary hates cricket! This is a much better story than the bland fact of meeting Mary at a dance.

It is often when lying in bed that you will be able to develop stories in this way . . . but don’t forget to have the notepad handy.

• Q:How much artistic licence can I use?
• A:You are the best judge of this. Ultimately you don’t want your book to be or sound false, but often you will find that the details are already there for a better story with a little thought. Some people like to use speech in their writing – even when reporting a conversation at which it is obvious they could not have been present. This can be a useful device, but may come across as a little strange, certainly if overused. If in doubt, leave this for when you write your novel. Further advice regarding speech appears in the next chapter.

Engaging the reader

Helping the reader to empathise

Nothing warms a reader to the author more than shared emotions. We all feel them, and therefore empathise with the writer.

All emotions can be used, but if you feel uncomfortable with a ‘Mills and Boon’ love story, you might prefer to consider such feelings as embarrassment, frustration, shame and anger.

I still cringe when I think of the time I dropped a catch on the boundary in a house cricket match. I knew it was a six, and so did the third-formers on the boundary rope, but I swore blind it was only a four. It doesn’t matter that Chris Parker won the game off the next delivery, and probably has never given it a second thought. I do and still feel embarrassed by the incident!

A book which lists only successes becomes a total bore and does not ring true. Everybody has some misgivings and failings. It’s our flaws that are endearing.

Appealing to the senses

For those not born at the time, it is easy to think of the years before the 1960s as being grey and dull. They weren’t . . . even though the records we have of that era may be in black and white. Despite the damp day and black and white television pictures, anyone could tell that there was nothing grey about Queen Salote of Tonga at Queen Elizabeth IPs Coronation.

Try to recall colours, sounds, textures and smells. You might even be able to capture the bombardment of the taste buds when you tasted foreign food for the first time.

Checklist

• Do you feel comfortable with how you want to come across in the book?
• How much of your life are you prepared to share with your readers?

Assignments

• Think of how you might start your book.
• Over the next few days try to embellish this in your mind.
• Think of the key stories in your life that might warrant similar development.