Hi, I registered a couple days ago looking for advice/tips for writing. I'd definitely say I'm a new writer. Well I don't even know if I'd call myself that. I'm writing about something that happened to me 23 years ago that had an impact on my life afterwards. So it's non-fiction so I'm unsure if I'm in the right place since this site seems to focus on fiction. But anyways, I'm needing advice on how to recall the past without embellishing it. Plus how to be more descriptive and specifically, how to become better at describing pain without the use of metaphors. Thanks for reading. Ed
Welcome to Writing Forums, Ed! I hope you find what you're looking for here, whatever your interests in writing. This forum aims to provide the best workshopping resources on the internet, and to that end we have a few rules which you should familiarise yourself with before you get stuck in. The main section of the site is the Writing Workshop, where members can post their writing in order to receive critique of their work. However, before we allow members to post their work, they must have met some basic requirements. Firstly, you must have been a member for fourteen days, and have made twenty posts on the forum overall (please note, posts in Word Games do not count towards this). This is so that members, when they post their work, have familiarised themselves with the forums and contributed to them (as well as hopefully learned something for themselves). Secondly, members must provide two constructive reviews of other people's work for each piece of their own that they wish to post. This is because we believe that the focus of workshopping should be equally upon giving reviews as receiving them, as they allow a writer to practice and improve their editing skills, which they can then apply to their own writing. Beyond the Writing Workshop, you will find that we have extensive forums for discussion of aspects of writing, as well as a community area for general discussion. We also run periodic short story and poetry contests, which are good for challenging yourself and expanding your skills. The requirements of the Writing Workshop don't apply to the contests, so new members are allowed (nay, encouraged!) to get stuck in and enter! If you have any questions or problems, then the moderators (myself, Lemex and Dante Dases) should be your first port of call. Any technical problems with the site itself should be directed to Daniel, the site administrator and owner. I would recommend you have a look over the rules so that you know what to expect, and what is expected. But aside from that, I hope you enjoy your time here. Banzai
Welcome, Ed! Memoir and fiction use many of the same techniques, so I'm sure you'll find some useful info here.
Welcome! I agree with chicagoliz that most skills and tips should carry over to non-fiction. However, I've neglected that genre for most of my literary life and cannot provide much assistance. Some of my college courses have required me to delve into it but I'll be the first to admit that it's not really my area. There was one class, though, my creative writing class, that introduced me to an essay by Mimi Schwartz called "Memoir? Fiction? Where's the Line?" that struck me profoundly and helped me understand a basic principle of non-fiction. After a quick Google search, I actually found it for you! http://www.hpregional.org/departments/english/mhassenplug/memoirorfiction.pdf I hope it does you as much (more) good as it did me! I've only written two non-fiction pieces since reading this but I don't think my sanity could have remained intact had I not read this essay...
Thanks for the link. This provided a good deal of confidence! And thanks for the welcomes! My memoir began as an ongoing blog which I continue to post. I planned to write how I came to writing the blog which detailed the past but realized there's too much involved to do that and I'm running out of time. So that's when I thought of writing a book instead. Whether it ever gets published or not is not important.
