Telling True Stories Tutorial Week 2
Honor Moore "Twelve years and counting"
I wanted to know the actual truth
If I looked at her from my contemporary vantage point, I would find new facts of life hiding in plain view.
No biography is a mere chronology of the subject's life... each life can be told in a variety of ways.
It was not my relationship with my father I was interested in … not my love affairs but hers.
Writing exercise
My cousin Vanessa
Wild looking tendrils of curly blonde hair that sit atop an angel like face of a little girl about three years old. She is tall for her age, looking more like a 4 or 5 year old than three. Her round hazel eyes bright with excitement and mischief. Her fingers still plump with innocence and age, like that of a baby but slightly more developed. Little button nose that crinkles when she's grumpy.
Hysteria
Quotes, names and dates
Hearing Maud
More story like
Blanche made us so angry and it was confrontational
Forgot to read it as a student or as a biography
Jarring when it jumped from Blanche to the author
A little unconventional
Living it with the author
unconventional because it puts the readers in the story
Living it with the author
Unconventional because it puts the readers in the story
Unconventional because it read like a story more than a biography
External to the subject.
Looking at what happened rather than being there.
Relates to the subject through deafness
People who are doing research, looking back in the past
strong sense of setting and character
Offer you an insight into a life that may be different than yours
The subject is the daughter of a famous figure.
Relating with the subject helps readers trust the biographer more.
It was like a memoir as well as a biography
Authors sense of finding someone to relate to
First person
Mentions her name change speaks to her lack of control of her life. It's evidence for what she is saying.
Katerina compares to herself through emotion.
Recollections
More conventional more fact base
You're going to hear the whole life story
Very public figures
Unconventional because of the people they choose to focus on
Jumps around rather than chronological
Unconventional because of the people they choose to focus their stories on
Historical and historical context
Why would they disclose who they are?
Authority comes from who you are and what relation you have to the person.
Hello Stranger
All the writers own impression
If it wasn't in biography week how would we know what it was?
Can you write a dog's biography
Speculative biography