NEW! American Lives: A Reader, edited by Tobias Wolff

Memoir
THE FORTUNE TELLER'S KISS
Growing up Turkish in the Bronx
STILL AVAILABLE:
The Blue Farm: POEMS
Poetry about the value of family, poetry, the mystery of Peru, and more...

WRITING PERSONAL HISTORIES - HER-STORIES

Creating Nonfiction - One Story at a Time

November 2, 2009

Tags: one story, creative nonfiction

Sometimes it's wrong to think of a TOTAL book of nonfiction or memoir. For me, I have to create the tales from real life one story at a time. I've tried to plan out an entire book like it was a novel, but it never ever works for me, so I got the light-bulb brilliant idea to write one, just one, personal history, or essay, and then another and another...That is indeed how my first full-length memoir, "The Fortune Teller's Kiss" got made: one story at a time, and then I connected the dots. But don't even think that far ahead. Just complete ONE tale, beginning, middle, end.

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