I have recently launched my workshop, Forever Remembered, for the second time at the Fior d’Italia restaurant.
For six Saturday afternoons, five participants join me for my support in launching their life story project at the Fior d’Italia restaurant in North Beach. It seems different workshops draw different people. In my previous iteration of Forever Remembered, three participants were writing about their mothers. Two were writing about their family history.
But in my workshop just started July 9, three of the participants have already crafted large portions of their autobiographies. Two of them had the same query: how do I structure it?
This past class on July 16 focused on writing techniques. My students had two major concerns: how to structure their manuscripts and how to handle flashbacks.
I tried to make the distinction between the experience of writing the document and its final form. I urged them to consider there is no single rule about how to structure such a document. They could approach it chronologically or they could start with those passages in their lives that were most salient, most emotional or meaningful to them.
“You might find it easier to write it chronologically and change it once the whole manuscript is written. You don’t have to stick with that structure if you find another one that is more effective,” I said.
People who are inexperienced or insecure about their writing may think there are hidden rules about the way things should be done. I hope I relieved them of this misconception. The only thing to strive for is what is most effective.
Insofar as dealing with flashbacks is concerned, I reviewed two techniques that should be helpful to them. One is dealing with the past tense of verbs. A shift from present perfect to past perfect should be enough to signal to the reader that a shift in time has occurred.
Also they could use a device such as Proust made famous: choosing an experience in the present that calls to mind a past event.
For instance when a friend of mine on Thursday gave me a branch of rosemary from her garden, the perfume of the herb transported me to my childhood and my grandmother’s garden where she grew herbs, lettuces and flowers.
