Image via Wikipedia-a jury selection--commons license. wiki/File Do all personal experience authors have the same challenges when writing about their lives? Maybe the first hardest thing to do is different for each one, or for most. If you are thinking about writing your story, what is your biggest challenge now? I'm interested to know. E-mail: jean.purcell@opinebooks.com
What does your life experience have in common, for example, with the Henry Fonda character in the movie, Twelve Angry Men? He was a regular guy, serving on a murder case jury. He was not the foreman, and he was not the loudest, youngest, handomest, or richest juror. We don't know about his education, profession, or family. We did learn, watching the movie or play, that he had one thing more than everyone else on the jury: conviction about the case. He thought and felt deeply about seemingly small yet potentially serious flaws in the evidence presented to prosecute the murder case before the jury. And he never gave up trying to get jurors to think it through, to help find why something did not fit. He convinced the jury, one person at a time, of reasonable doubt. They voted "not guilty," although at the beginning they had leaned heavily toward a "guilty" verdict. Those facts alone, however, would not make drama. It was how they were shown that made words, characters, script and film...classic.
Your story has equal, although not the same, dramatic interest, with early assumptions, successes, failures, misunderstandings, loss or disappointment, dreams, changing minds, change of mind, biases, and influences of other people, happenings, and beliefs. Every life--yours or someone you want to write about--has those or equally challenging parts, and so it's true if you envision a book about significant times of transformation in human experience. Are you aware of the exact positives that your story--the one you want to write--has? Let me know. Let me share your comments--anonymously, if you wish--with other writers who want to know.
Copyright (c)2011 Opinari Writers and Jean Purcell
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