Writers’ Gold Found In Memories

Drawing On Memories

My Mother’s Table

With Easter come and gone, I’m struck by how memories, of what once was, hit me during this time. A few tears were shed as I recalled generations sitting around the table feasting on my mother’s delicious cooking, followed by the cracking of coloured eggs and Ukrainian folk songs.

Memories are writers’ gold; it’s what we draw on when we write any story. Whether it’s from our childhood, travels, other experiences, or something we’ve read. As writers, we mine that gold. What we remember triggers the magic that comes out on the page. When a memory bubbles to the surface, unbeckoned, it somehow inspires, or coaxes a thought, or embellishes what is already written.

Classics like Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, Hemingway’s The Old Man And The Sea, and bestsellers like Kathryn Stockett’s The Help are products of writers using what they know, what they remember. Harper Lee’s father was a lawyer who represented black men at a time when racism was rampant in the south. Hemingway was a fisherman who had his own battles with fish. How else could he have written what he did with such veracity? And Kathryn Stockett’s family had a black maid, so she understood the culture that employed servants who were considered less than equal.

By weaving their memories, their observations into their fiction, these authors gave us a richness and authenticity that would otherwise be missing.  There’s a certain alchemy that takes place when a writer draws from remembrance and begins to write, allowing the muse to take him/her further.

My Mother’s Tales

Those who know me, know that I’m pretty sappy. I cry easily, like my dad, who would weep when my mother talked about how hard it was in the old country. She came to Canada in 1929 when she was 14, from what is now western Ukraine.

My Baba, Lukia Mazurec, and Me

Memories of her tales around the kitchen table and Dad’s watery eyes come up for me now as I’m polishing my baba’s story. My grandmother, Lukia Mazurec, went through a lot, and yet I don’t remember seeing her cry, even though the grief she carried was unimaginable, too much for one soul to bear.

Because of that memory, the title of my book in progress was initially titled No Time For Tears, until I discovered there were too many with that title already on Amazon. So now, I’ve come up with Lukia’s Lot, like Angela’s Ashes, or Sophie’s Choice. But maybe it’ll just be Lukia. Maybe that’s enough.

Working Memories Into My Novels

When I wrote A Cry From The Deep, I wrote about someone unlike me in many ways. I haven’t lived in the places my protagonist, Catherine Fitzgerald, lived in, but I’ve travelled to Provence, Manhattan and Ireland, and the visual imagery I carried in my head found its way into my story. As for the underwater scenes, I haven’t scuba dived but I’ve snorkelled and my memories of what that felt like were added to Catherine’s thoughts as she dove into the sea. I also used my granddaughter as a model for the spunky Alex, Catherine’s daughter.

As for The Rubber Fence, since it was inspired by my work on a psychiatric ward, I had plenty of memories to draw from. Some sharp, and some not so much, but nonetheless I had enough to trigger more thoughts that led me to story details that I hadn’t planned on. That’s the beauty of marrying memories with the characters we writers create. We put what we know on the page and allow the characters to also dictate where they want to go.

Thoughts and Comments?

What do you think? How much do you rely on memories to shape what ends up in your stories? Do you find that your memories come unbidden and find their way into your characters’ voices? And as readers, can you tell when writers of fiction are drawing from their own experiences? Do you wonder what’s true in the novel? All comments are welcome.

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