I got an email from one of the students in my last online Afternoon Character Intensive. Since the workshop, he'd had a mini-breakthrough about his memoir--specifically the cast of characters he's trying to include. His mixed-up, even dangerous, family history means the players onstage are very individual, with quirks and tendencies. But he knew them so well, he'd not written that individuality onto the page.
It was hard enough coming to terms with their effect in his life. He wanted to write what happened, not who done it.
But he also knew that characters in memoir must be memorable--as memorable as those in a good novel--for readers to really grasp their importance and impact.
As he worked on one of the charts we use in the class to track key character arcs (growth of different characters who matter to the story), the breakthrough came.
