Memory

Element of Writing and Travel Writing: Memory

            

One aspect I enjoy in nonfiction is memory, how the writer recalls it, selects certain details or remembers only a few certain details, the intensity or shallowness of the memory, and what parts are important and not important.                                                                                                      

When I wrote a memoir, I thought it would be easier than fiction, but I quickly discovered that it had its own difficulties. What do I include, and what do I not include? I’m starting to see the same thing in travel writing. Not only is the memory important, but so is the writer’s knowledge and skills in how to effectively bring out the details and story of that memory. The odd thing is, the more you remember, well, the more you remember; specifically, one memory can unlock other memories that the person didn’t mean to recall.                                             

As an example, in my last two travel writing trips, I referenced a video, pictures, and my notebook. The video was an extended memory of what I already saw but could never recall, allowing me to view each painting; my own memories would have failed me in this assignment, as recalling painting isn’t easy. After the second trip, I referenced certain things in my notebook, pictures I took, and a video. All of these re-activated memories that would have never been recalled if I didn’t have all of these extended memory reference materials. I would have forgotten about the lobsters and fish without the pictures, and I even forgot to add my favorite part of the trip, the church, to my writing until I started writing this piece. So interestingly enough, writing this also helped unlock other memories.                                                                                                    

When writing nonfiction, it is so unbelievably important to have things to reference, be it a notebook, tape recorder, pictures, video, or anything else. Without these, the nonfiction piece will lack a certain something, and will feel empty instead of whole, as if there should be something there.                                                                                                                                     

If writers want to remember something, they need to make and event emotional, meaningful, or focus on a certain important detail. When I was writing about my relationship, I easily remember all of the emotional parts, and the parts that I felt were meaningful to me. With the travel writing, I thought a certain painting or the church brought out emotion in me. I remembered how the flowers felt meaningful to me in the painting and how important the music was in that church. I remember the details where the woman was painting and the holy stairs in that center of the church.                                                                                                                               

All of these things can aid memory, and I think it’s important that writers use everything in their arsenal that they can.