by Ros Woolner
‘We are all walking histories’, Louise tells us. So you could almost say we have a duty to write about our lives.
Louise is an engaging workshop leader. She starts by reading an excerpt from A Death in the Family, a controversial memoir by Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgaard. Taken from near the beginning of the book, this extract focuses on mealtimes round the kitchen table. In describing the differences between meals prepared by his father and those prepared by his mother, and the way the children’s behaviour changes when their father is present, Knausgaard introduces tension and hints at a difficult relationship with his father. As Louise says, the kitchen table – like a car – makes an effective setting in both memoir and fiction because it's a constrained space. We also discuss the usefulness of food – as a way of introducing another of the senses and as a way of adding period detail.
The second extract Louise reads is taken from The Instant by Amy Liptrot and describes new love and a camping trip in the forest. We discuss the effectiveness of contrast – between urban and rural settings, or between global events and local memories. What we’re looking for is the details that only we notice or remember.
As a first exercise, we each write about a place that has great meaning for us: from a ‘barn’ at Horseley Fields where four young men spend three years building a boat, to a house without electricity, where a young girl finishes reading her book by moonlight.
For our second writing exercise, we can choose to write about: - a family gathering, - a friend we are no longer in touch with, or - a trend/fashion/fad that we remember from school.
Although we may start off by writing down events in chronological order for ourselves, what we’re aiming to do, Louise tells us, is select stand-out memories (like beacons) and find a way of linking them to create a narrative that will engage the reader: ‘Life writing is about making the everyday interesting’. For those of us who find ourselves with a dry list of facts, Louise has an encouraging message: It doesn’t mean we have failed; it just means that what we have is not yet the finished product.
As Sonny says in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, ‘Everything will be alright in the end. If it’s not alright, then it’s not yet the end’.
About Louise Palfreyman
Louise Palfreyman’s short fiction has been included in Best British Short Stories and journals and anthologies in the UK and America. She opened the inaugural London Short Story Festival, and has appeared at literary events across the UK.
In 2018, she published a collection of stories for young adult readers called Once Upon a Time in Birmingham: Women Who Dared to Dream with The Emma Press.
Louise is a Room 204 writer-in-development with Writing West Midlands and delivers short story mentoring. She is also a copywriter for hire. You can read more about her on her website.
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