Brevity’s nonfiction blog takes a look at a recent short film about writer George Saunders’s thoughts on storytelling, and applies his advice to essay and memoir:
With nonfiction, looking underneath is often less interrogating our imagination and more out-there-with-a-recorder research. It can be challenging to change our own minds, especially about an experience or situation so powerful that we must write it, but better memoir emerges when we move beyond how we felt, how we reacted, and instead look at people’s actions (including our own) and ask why.
