CREATIVE WRITING INSIGHTS: “A Memoir or a Novel - How Does One Decide Which Way to Craft a Story Based on Real Life Events?” by Lorilyn Roberts

 Recently on a Linked-In discussion group, someone made this comment:  

“I’m strongly biased toward fiction unless you are trading on celebrity or some highly publicized event. Memoirs put out as imparting the wisdom of the elders or holding up your past mistakes as object lessons turn me off. The fact you were a moron yesterday doesn’t make you a genius today. Journals and memoirs may be great for family but most are less attractive to a general audience and often convey the message of pleading to be loved or admired. Make it fiction and you can be more candid and the reader can decide whether your experience was informative, moving or amusing based on its own merits.” 

I strongly disagree with his statement and share the following thoughts:

Memoirs are some of the most powerful pieces written today, but people are shortsighted. They don’t always see the value of first-hand accounts in the present. Without memoirs, we have history written by partial observers who bring their own worldview into play—maybe at the expense of writing with accuracy the way the events actually happened. Second-hand accounts are never as factual as first-hand stories and never as valuable for historical purposes. 

Many people love reading memoirs and will look for them in libraries and bookstores. Life experiences written by people reveal more about society than any history book or journalist covering a story. I am thankful for all the memoirs written today by all sorts of people to give us a peek into the present and the past.

For example, the world never would have known of Anne Frank if she had not written her diary. She was an unknown 13-year-old kid before her father published her diary.

If you have a compelling story to tell, tell it with passion, revealing your innermost struggles and thoughts. Being “real” with the reader will make your story come alive. In my memoir Children of Dreams about the international adoption of my daughters, I was open and vulnerable. That was the right way to tell that story. I could never have fictionalized it. 

I just wrote another book and this one is fiction, Seventh Dimension - The Door. In contrast with Children of Dreams, I took certain events from my own life and turned them into fantasy. I had a story to tell and the only way to tell it was as allegory and to fictionalize it. The point being, do what the story calls for and write it. Don’t let naysayers talk you out of writing your story the way you feel it needs to be told. At the end of the day, you have to live with the result and be happy with the story and the way you wrote it. 

These are some thoughts I would consider:  Who is your target audience? What is your purpose in writing your story? Can anyone be hurt or impacted negatively if you write your book as a memoir? If you write your story as a memoir in hopes of making money, you need to write your book as “creative nonfiction,” using fictional techniques.

For example, you need a beginning, a middle, and an end. You need to think in terms of “scenes” and “plot” and “problems” that need to be solved. The reader needs a takeaway—what can he learn from your memoir that would be meaningful or cathartic? No one wants to read someone’s boring biography.

If you decide to write your book as fiction, you will have more options and won’t run the risk of being sued or worried about divulging something you might regret later. However, you need the skills to write fiction. Writing fiction is harder than writing a memoir because you have to create “story” out of fiction and make the plot enticing to read. In a future piece, I will suggest some books for writing fiction that I used in my Masters in Creative Writing that I found helpful. 

I have written an award-winning piece on writing memoir that is posted on my website. Here is the link for anyone interested. Some might find it helpful. How to Write a Memoir in Twelve Easy Steps.

The most important thing as a writer is to keep writing and to keep learning—whether you write fiction, nonfiction, or memoir, and enjoy the journey!

CHILDREN OF DREAMS AND THE GOD OF HOPE: Devotional by Lorilyn Roberts

When I took the introductory class for my Master’s in Creative Writing, one of the books I had to read was Writing for Story by Jon Franklin. The fourth chapter in the book, “Stalking the True Short Story,” was based on two famous stories he wrote, one of which was his Pulitzer Prize-winning entry, “Mrs. Kelly’s Monster.”

Because everybody would love to win a Pulitzer Prize, his comments are worth noting. To quote Jon Franklin on page 81: “One of the best ways to teach positive lessons while entertaining at the same time is to write stories about how people successfully cope with the world, endure, and even sometimes win.”

I have thought a lot about that. Much of what I report as a television captioner is mundane news to a world that hardly blinks an eye at the everyday, run-of-the-mill, shoot ‘em up, rob-him blind, dope-addicted, shoddy moral, or over-spending bureaucratic figure news story which people scoff and ignore if it doesn’t affect them directly.

In contrast, Jon Franklin dug deep for the motivations, the conflicts, the resolutions, and the redemptive endings in his books and articles. 

In the same vein, when I wrote Children of Dreams, I wanted to share a part of me that no one else knew. I risked being vulnerable, revealing traits and values that I knew some would not understand. I am not perfect, and did I really want to reveal my failures, confess my doubts, and admit my flaws?

Our lives, particularly if we are memoir authors, must be real, or we will come across every bit like the superficial news stories that I alluded to above—irrelevant to the reader. Too much of our time is lived at a frenzied pace with quick posts on Facebook and Twitter, or text messages written in code, risking little, and only recognizable enough to make us feel we have value in the world of cyberspace.

If you have been forsaken by your family, hurt by others, stuck in a job you hate, gone through a divorce, experienced major health issues, sacrificed your own lost dreams, or struggled in your 

Christian walk, I share unabashedly with profound honesty how God helped me through these tragedies. 

This is the “true story” within the story in Children of Dreams. There is no superficiality—only raw emotion and truth. I had to get permission from my kids and family. There are still open wounds that God will have to heal. There was a price to pay and I am still dealing with it now. Do I regret it? No. I know God will eventually redeem all which is broken.

The typical reader, much like a typical reporter, will see Children of Dreams as another adoption story; give it a cursory glance, and move on. The sensate reader, who reads for deeper meaning, will experience God’s profound love and redemptive hope, knowing without any doubt, that God is the fulfiller of dreams.

My desire is that the reader will be stirred—emotionally renewed and batteries charged, believing if God can do the impossible for me, he can do the same for him. God can heal infected wounds, redeem broken dreams, and convince the skeptic to believe in miracles. None of us should live as though we have no hope, and Children of Dreams is a testimony to God’s grace, reassuring the reader that where there is God, there is always hope.

Lorilyn grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, and currently lives in Gainesville, Florida. She is pursuing her Master of Arts in Creative Writing from Perelandra College.

Lorilyn is a media professional, providing broadcast captioning for television, but makes time to pursue her passion for creative writing.

She has homeschooled her daughters for the past fifteen years.  

Lorilyn has published two books, The Donkey and the King and Children of Dreams; is president of the Gainesville, Florida, Word Weavers Chapter; and the founder of the John 316 Marketing Network.

Lorilyn's personal website can be found at http://lorilynroberts.com 

CREATIVE WRITING INSIGHTS: “Get Real,” by Lorilyn Roberts: Based on Ken Kuhlken’s Book “Writing and the Spirit”

Becoming the person God created me to be has been fraught with unbelievable obstacles. I don’t know whether it is so with others, but from the time I was a child, I have struggled with being “me.” 

A broken home at an early age, unrealistic expectations, lack of spiritual truth, insecurity, and a failure to recognize me as “created in God’s image” kept me on dead-end roads for years.

The gumption never to give up in search of truth was God’s gift. His unconditional love has enabled me to overcome the demons from the past, the lies I believed, and the grace to let go of the hurt. Redemption is the reward in this world for a life well-finished in spite of perilous beginnings. And for that I am thankful.

CREATIVE WRITING INSIGHTS: “The Gumption Factor In Writing And Getting Published,” by Lorilyn Roberts

In my advanced writing class at Perelandra College, Professor Ken Kuhlken wrote, “When we have preconceptions, we need to let go of them if we hope to find new answers.”

Preconceptions can set us up for failure if we are rigid. But what if we use our preconceptions to catapult us to a level of excellence not limited by our finite vision?

A couple of years ago, I wrote my memoir about the adoption of my two daughters as creative nonfiction. I meticulously researched facts and details I had forgotten. I scoured the Internet to verify locations, names, dates, and chronological order of events. I pulled out every document I had saved from both adoptions and poured my heart and soul into my writing.

I asked many friends, professional acquaintances, and editor-journalism-communication types to read Children of Dreams and offer suggestions on how I could make it better. I listened and made revisions that created an almost unbelievable story.

Two weeks before the Florida Christian Writer’s Conference in 2009, I sent off my completed manuscript to be reviewed by an editor attending the conference. I spent $50 and downloaded a file to prepare myself for the right attitude while at the conference. I had attended this conference twice before and came away both times disillusioned. This time I was determined not to let that happened.

I couldn’t think of anything that an editor could say to me for which I would not have an answer. I launched my website before the conference and signed up for the marketing class with Randy Ingermanson. I was ready to dive in and market my book if an editor or agent offered me a contract on Children of Dreams. I did not feel like I was setting myself up for failure. I always set lofty goals and then leave the outcome in God’s hands.

The conference arrived and I was excited to be there. I couldn’t wait to share the joy of my book with others. But when I showed my manuscript around, I was surprised by the comments.

“No one is publishing memoirs right now,” one person said. “Oh, a memoir,” another stated. People stepped back from me like I had bad breath. Nobody would read one line and acted like I had written something C-rated at best. But I remained positive. I was certain when I received my manuscript back from the reviewing editor the next day, he would be interested.

The moment arrived when all the reviews were handed out to the attendees. When mine wasn’t, I went up and inquired. Despite the volunteers looking everywhere, they didn’t have mine. While my book was “lost,” all the remaining slots to meet with other editors filled up. Nobody knew where my book was. If the editor who had received my manuscript didn’t like it, I would have no opportunity to present my book to someone else.

To say I was disillusioned is an understatement, but it didn’t come close to what I felt when my manuscript was found. I read the note the editor wrote. “You might consider submitting this to a magazine.”

If the editor had read one paragraph of that 235-page manuscript, he would have known the story couldn’t be condensed into an article. I had presented part of it to a “Focus on the Family” editor a year earlier, and her comment was, “It’s too long. If you can shorten it, we would love to take another look.” I was unwilling to cut it down more, and it was that comment that made me realize I needed to write the whole story. It took 235 pages to do the story justice.

I did meet later with a couple of editors at the conference and was told by them—as well as an agent, “When you have one thousand people on an opt-in list, come back and talk to us.” While I was nice to them, I thought to myself, if I had one thousand people on an opt-in list, why would I need you?

As a result of that experience, my “gumption” kicked in. I reassessed what I really wanted. What was important to me? Sometimes “no’s” become wonderful opportunities to think “outside the box.” We are free to pursue goals we never would have considered if we had been given what our preconceived ideas told us we wanted.

The key is to be open to change, to give up something to receive something better. Since God controls the outcome, we should focus on the process and what we can do to enhance our chance to achieve our goal.

I have never met an author who didn’t have a lot of gumption to become published. Good writing and successful marketing are key, and money helps the process to go faster as far as exposure, but without the seed within us never to give up, the chances are we won’t go anywhere with our writing.

Today I have forty-three reviews with five stars on Amazon. I thank all my friends and professional contacts every time a new five-star review goes up, knowing without their honest input—and yes, some of it hurt—Children of Dreams wouldn’t have all those wonderful reviews.

My gumption not to give up is still intact, and I am more determined than ever to share my writing with others. Preconceived ideas have long gone out the window. I am setting a new path into the unknown with the John 3:16 Marketing Network, writing a new young adult fantasy novel, obtaining my Master’s in Creative Writing, and hopefully someday will teach at the university level in China when I finish my education.

God gives us a cup overflowing with opportunity when we commit our way to Him. Gumption is the human quality He endears us with to get us started. If God is for us, who can be against us?

You can read more about Lorilyn on her website at LorilynRoberts.com