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20 Jun 2023
Writer's Digest Mar/Apr 2022
www.writersdigest.com
IS IT MEMOIR, PERSONAL ESSAY OR PRESCRIPTIVE?
William Kenower
Understanding how POV differs in these types of personal narratives is crucial to tell the most powerful and effective version of your story.
1. Memoir. How we tell a story about something that happened to us in the past. Autobiography presumes that the reader already knows who the author (celebrity) is. e.g. John Cleese's autobiography - So, Anyway.
A writer of personal narrarative must establish from the first paragraph whatg experience the reader can expect to have. In a pure memoir, the character is rhe only POV present in the story. Pure memoir reads very much like fiction. The author does NOT address the reader directly to explain. To tell the story accurately, you tell from the character's POV. It requires forgiveness as the character does not know he is going to make mistakes.
2. Personal Essay.
Essays describing entirely one's personal experiences, rather than "call to action" articles. The latter is meant to inspire action in others. The author sees a problem with the world, believes he ahs the solution and lays out why and how the change should be brought about.
It is like a memoir, describes the changes that occurred only within the author as a consequence of their experiences. One of several stories. A memoir allows the story to do all the teaching while the authori in the personally essay is present periodically to speak directly to the reader.
Many writers find conveying the lesson in the personal essay most challenging. They are shy to state something definitive about love, loss, or creativity. Someone will probably disagree with you.
So they prefer the memoir where the story does all the talking.
3. Prescriptive.
The author is most present of the 3 categories.
It is called work instructional or self-help. The author has lerned something, probably given lectures or taught workshops on the subject. wants to share what they have learned so that the reader might improve their health, finances or their writing. This article and most of WD articles fall into this category.
The author is an instructor. The bhook is an instruction manual. Stories may be used to illustrate.
The reader understands that the author will be the one delivering the message.
Prescriptive and personal essays seem rather close as the author is present to some degree throughout. The difference has to do with the story being shared. A personal essay is still mostly a story or stories. The prescriptive essay is mostly instruction. The stories in prescriptive work are largely ILLUSTRATIVE, SHOW EXAMPLES of how to apply certain techniques.
A story is always driven by what a character believes is true at the time the story is taking place.
CHOOSING YOUR CATEGORY
If the author really listens to their story, the story will tell that author what it wants to be.
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