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