Articles written by Sue William Silverman

As writers, we bring readers inside our stories by crafting artful and sensory sentences. If I simply stated, for example, that my father molested me, of course you’d think that’s sad, but you might not feel the sadness.

Or, if I simply told you that I once struggled with a sexual addiction, you’d probably think “that’s unfortunate.” But you wouldn’t feel my words, emotionally.

Here, for example, by using sensory language (from Love Sick) to describe a seedy motel room where I met a dangerous man, I try to fully reveal the darkness of the addiction: “I feel a damp chill between my shoulder blades. How can love be two bodies wrapped in a sheet that’s singed by careless cigarettes, here, in a room with plastic curtains, tin ashtrays, stained carpet, and artificial air.”

The words we seek are those that artistically re-create and illuminate our worlds, internal and external, on the page, by evoking how those worlds feel, taste, sound, smell, look. As much as possible, avoid abstract words and rely, instead, on the five senses.

Rather than write, for example, “I was in love with a cute guy,” you could write, “John’s hands, the color of cinnamon, stroked my bare shoulders.”

Do you see how the first sentence sounds flat and informational? In the second, however, you can smell cinnamon, and feel that cute guy stroking your shoulders.

Let’s try a brief writing exercise. In one sentence, describe your favorite item of clothing from elementary school. In the description, try to slant the external details in such a way that they evoke an interior feeling.

Here is what I mean: Let’s say, for example, my favorite item of clothing was a yellow dress. If I felt happy on the day I wore it, I would write: “When I wore my yellow dress, I felt as if buttercup petals sprinkled from the hem as I skipped to school.”

If, on the other hand, I felt sad on the day I wore it, I would write: “The dress cast a pall on my skin, sickly and yellow.”

We write memoir to better understand ourselves, as well as to bring a reader with us on our journeys. To ensure the reader feels the fullness of your story, focus each scene around sensory imagery.

Everyone has a story to tell. “Fearless Confessions” is a guidebook for people who want to take possession of their lives by putting their experiences down on paper—or in a website or e-book. Enhanced with illustrative examples from many different writers as well as writing exercises, this guide helps writers navigate a range of issues from craft to ethics to marketing and will be useful to both beginners and more accomplished writers.

Author Sue William Silverman says: “It’s crucial to cultivate the courage to tell one’s truth in the face of forces—from family members to the media—who would prefer that people with inconvenient pasts remain silent.”

Sue William Silverman’s memoir, Love Sick: One Woman’s Journey through Sexual Addiction (W. W. Norton), is also a Lifetime Television original movie. Her first memoir, Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You, won the AWP award in creative nonfiction. She teaches in the MFA in Writing Program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, and her most recent book is Fearless Confessions: A Writer’s Guide to Memoir, published with the University of Georgia Press (View the video book trailer.) As a professional speaker, Sue has appeared on The View, Anderson Cooper 360, and CNN Headline News. For more about Sue, please visit www.suewilliamsilverman.com.