Domain Name Com's Writing Life Stories

Writing Life Stories

Domain Name Com's - : Writing Life Stories

by: Bill Roorbach

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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 808
EAN: 9781884910470
ISBN: 1884910475
Label: Story Press
Manufacturer: Story Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 224
Publication Date: September 30, 2000
Publisher: Story Press
Sales Rank: 274153
Studio: Story Press

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Editorial Review:

Amazon.com:
Bill Roorbach is a chatty writer: his instruction is informal, colloquial, abounding in parenthetical remarks and droll asides. But Roorbach (Summers with Juliet) seems able to inspire even the most recalcitrant writers to uncover memories and ideas they didn't know they had and turn them into something the rest of us would want to read. An early exercise in Writing Life Stories involves making a map of the earliest neighborhood you can remember: "Where did the weird people live?" Roorbach asks. "Where were the off-limits places?" And then, "Tell us a story from your map." Many of the book's subsequent assignments are equally enticing.

Roorbach elaborates on the many elements involved in writing creative nonfiction, including memory, scene setting, ideation, character development, and research. He eschews introductions and conclusions (scaffolding, he says, is for building purposes only) and, "at least in a first draft," embraces truth-telling. "Those places where you catch yourself changing the facts," he warns, "should be alarms, grand signals, signposts saying here's the place to examine most closely for meaning."

Though his writing may be casual, Roorbach is a great believer in precision. "Every person you mention," he says, "should get a quick, sharp, devastatingly exact sketch" (for examples, he refers to the minor characters in books by Paul Theroux, Joan Didion, and John McPhee). Ambiguity, he says, is anathema: "Do what it takes to properly name a tree, a piece of hardware, a street, a town, a school, a neighbor." And finally, be wary of polishing--"you can spend days adjusting sentences in a first paragraph that ought to be cut altogether"--but make sure every paragraph in your memoir or essay is as good as, has as much "urgency" as, the first one. "How much can you get into a sentence?" he asks. "How much can you get into every sentence?" --Jane Steinberg

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Accessible and Demanding
Roorbach guides you step-by-step with exercises and examples that help you write about your life. He also explains what makes good writing different from not-so-good writing. In other words, he holds you to high standards and helps you meet them. Your eventual readers should be grateful!

Rating:

- "Do it Yourself" Memoir
Brief Summary: Bill Roorbach understands that memoir writing is not as simple as putting everything you can remember about your life on paper. Memories are no different than any other source - the characters and the plot must be interesting. To that end, he combines instruction and advice with a series of exercises to produce "the bones" of a good memoir. Starting at the beginning, he covers: finding a good place to write, mapping your memories, scene making and exposition, the ethics of writing ... Read More

Rating:

- Not about writing a biography
This book has lots of exercises for those just beginning to edge near the writing-ledge and will help you dig into your own story. However, this book is only for those wanting to write an auto-biography and those just beginning to venture forth in their writing. If you buy this expecting help on writing someone else's life story you won't find what you're looking for. If you're not a beginning writer and you purchase this, it's likely that you'll be the proud owner of a book full of exercises ... Read More

Rating:

- Good book.... little political agenda (unlike some of the other memoir-writing books out there!)
Good book. Instructs with small easy-to-follow "chunks". Writer has a good sense of humor--evident in his writing. Writing isn't overly academic or political (unlike some of the other "memoir-writing" books out there).

After following Roorbach's lessons, you should be able to competently put out a very nice selection of some of the turning points in your life, special occasions, and those great memories. You'll have enough vivid "word-pictures" that folks will enjoy reading about your ... Read More

Rating:

- valuable suggestions and - insights
This book is full of insights into the writing process.
It offers lots of assignments ,it helps me with writing my life story.

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