Dr. Allbaugh, thank you for writing this--I'm always interested in how memoir writers think of audience. For the longest time I struggled with deciding who my audience was despite feeling a very clear narrative pull. It isn't until about the tenth revision that I'm finally getting ahold of who exactly this is for.
Also, I'm grateful for your voice. I look forward to reading these!
Drew, thank you for reading. I am with you--ten revisions may be conservative in terms of discovering audience. Sometimes, reading memoir can feel a bit like reading a poem in that I feel myself as a reader listening and looking over someone's shoulder to the words.
I love the title for the poetry collection. The memoir could just be Banishment: Surviving My Son's Suicide. Adds a little more mystery. "Banishment"? Where did the author go? Did he send himself into exile? Why? From what? Where? Was that experience helpful? How so? Is banishment necessary to survival? To his survival? I wonder. I need to read the book!
Emily, thank you for these insightful questions. Many of them to answer. I think I like your editing of the title better than mine. I have since changed it again, of course. In my most recent version, I'm calling it "Wrestling the Angel: Surviving a Suicide." What do you think of that? The Wrestling part is a reference to Jacob's wrestling with God or the angel, and it gets at a lot of what I had to do to persist in my faith. Thank you, and I hope to talk with you soon.
Yes. I like "Wrestling the Angel." It suggests the struggle of the survivor (the author) but also the reader who wrestles with what suicide does to family and friends.
Dr. Allbaugh, thank you for writing this--I'm always interested in how memoir writers think of audience. For the longest time I struggled with deciding who my audience was despite feeling a very clear narrative pull. It isn't until about the tenth revision that I'm finally getting ahold of who exactly this is for.
Also, I'm grateful for your voice. I look forward to reading these!
Drew, thank you for reading. I am with you--ten revisions may be conservative in terms of discovering audience. Sometimes, reading memoir can feel a bit like reading a poem in that I feel myself as a reader listening and looking over someone's shoulder to the words.
So good to hear from you!
I love the title for the poetry collection. The memoir could just be Banishment: Surviving My Son's Suicide. Adds a little more mystery. "Banishment"? Where did the author go? Did he send himself into exile? Why? From what? Where? Was that experience helpful? How so? Is banishment necessary to survival? To his survival? I wonder. I need to read the book!
Emily, thank you for these insightful questions. Many of them to answer. I think I like your editing of the title better than mine. I have since changed it again, of course. In my most recent version, I'm calling it "Wrestling the Angel: Surviving a Suicide." What do you think of that? The Wrestling part is a reference to Jacob's wrestling with God or the angel, and it gets at a lot of what I had to do to persist in my faith. Thank you, and I hope to talk with you soon.
Yes. I like "Wrestling the Angel." It suggests the struggle of the survivor (the author) but also the reader who wrestles with what suicide does to family and friends.