Going "in scene" in memoir
What it means and why it can transform your story
I work with a lot of memoirists in my capacity as a writing mentor. (So much so that I wonder if I am getting a little nudge from the universe to write memoir, but that’s a story for another day).
One of the most common lines of editorial feedback I give is, “can you go ‘in scene’ here?”
Let me explain what I mean, because I think it might be helpful to both non-fiction and fiction writers.
Take these two examples:
I was so upset with my brother when one autumn he told me that our pet rabbit had died. It was the end of our relationship as we knew it.
Vs
It was Friday. I skipped home from school. The weekend had finally come and I had two whole days to spend with my new rabbit. I had begged my parents for months to let me have a rabbit, promising that I would clean out it’s hutch and make sure it had all the pellets and lettuce it could eat.
As I got close to the house, I sped up, kicking up the autumn leaves that had filled the pavements, usually I loved to make piles of leaves before jumping into them but that day all I wanted was to get home. During my morning maths class, I had planned an obstacle course in my head. I was going to train Muffin to run it. I was itching to ask Mum if there were shows like Crufts but for rabbits. I just knew Muffin was a talented rabbit and I knew my shelves were going to be full of our medals and cups. I would have to get rid of my whole troll collection to make space. I had already decided which cousin would get which troll. Brian would get the purple haired one and Maria would get the one with rainbow hair. Sally wouldn’t be getting any because she stole one of my barbies last time she came round and then denied it.
As soon as I got home, I crashed through the front door and ran out to the garden to Muffin’s hutch. I couldn’t wait another moment to feel her soft fur and her warm wriggling body in my hands.
“Fox got her,” my brother shouted down from his bedroom window before I managed to undo the lock of the hutch.
I stopped still. “Got who?”
I searched for Muffin’s fluff. Come on Muffin, be here.
“Your rabbit,” he said, the smirk on his face obvious without me having to look at him.
I felt sick but I wouldn’t let him be right. I ripped open the hutch and called out Muffin’s name.
Hopefully, you can see the difference.
The first example states a fact but the second really brings us in to the story, builds up the hopes and dreams making the resulting bad news hit as if the reader themselves are receiving the news. They already care about the rabbit and the dreams our protagonist has for their life with it, so they feel the loss more acutely.
Memoirists are often tentative about going ‘in scene,’ because they are telling stories about things that often happened decades ago.
“How can I remember the exact words that were said?” they will ask me. “How can I remember what day of the week it was, what the weather was like?”
And the answer is, of course you can’t (in many cases anyway). However, I think readers of memoirs understand this. There is a difference between fabricating a story (see the Salt Path allegations) and doing your best to remember something pivotal that happened and taking the reader into the scene with you. There is a difference between a lie and the truth as best you remember it.
So, if we work from that space, writing about an incident in the moment- “in scene” can often be far more powerful than writing an overview or summary. It is also often more impactful that more general descriptions of things that happened every summer, or every Christmas for example. Rather than painting a vivid but general description of summer camp take us into a specific moment on one summer camp that was pivotal/important to the story you are telling.
In many ways, a memoir should read like a novel, except that it’s true.
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Recommendations
A few things I’ve enjoyed recently…
Book: I recently read Giovanni’s Room by Jame’s Baldwin and I was captivated by it. It was hot here in London, so I read it under trees and on sweltering hot buses, transported to 1950s Paris and into the conflicted heart and mind of the protagonist, David.
Article: This piece by Michael Pollan asks what novelists can teach neuroscientists about consciousness. It’s a bit of a dense read but very interesting.
Newsletter: Yet again Jenna Satterthwaite’s newsletter is brimming with great information that so many people don’t discuss. Here she demystifies 12 normal things that happen after your book is published.
Mentoring
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Notes
Thanks for being here
it really always does come down to show don't tell.