10 Memories \ Writing Exercise
I took an online writing workshop with One Story last year, and one of the exercises from it that I loved most was one intended to show people how to take real memories and turn them into fictional stories. Memories have all kinds of strong associations, and the detail that comes from them helps make fiction feel real as well.
After coming up with the list of 10 memories, pick one of them out and use that to structure & build a story around.
10 MEMORIES
- I remember the trellis and the mulberries, how small my hand was in hers, and how her yellow hair looked like gold with the sun behind her.
- I remember laughing when she showed me how to open maple seeds and stick them to my nose.
- I remember when she put the lincoln logs into two rows, one for me and one for her, to show me old she was.
- I remember thinking there was magic in her fingers when she peeled the scab off my knee and it didn't bleed.
- I remember listening to them with my ear to the floor, the raw hurt in her voice and the deep rumble of his brass retort.
- I remember when she left.
- I remember sitting in the car outside the Acme, how old I suddenly felt, with my groceries and my mortgage and my kids and my pregnant wife.
- I remember the smell of her vomit in my nose as I emptied her bowl into the sink and tried to figure out how I'd be able to juggle everything.
- I remember the crack in my sister's voice when she told me we needed to make sure our mother knew we'd be alright without her.
- I remember how she gasped desperately for air, the way her body, so small and frail, kept fighting even though she'd given up.
THE BIRTHRIGHT
I remember thinking there was magic in my mom's fingers when she peeled the scab off my knee and it didn't bleed. I think I always knew, even before then, that there was something different about our family. I asked my mom about it once and she shhhh'd me with a wink and a finger to her lips, and didn't say a word.
She was gone before I turned sixteen. It was like a magic trick. First she got skinny, then the color went out of her lips and her hair and I knew that she was dying. A month later we were sitting on the back porch painting and I couldn't even look at her because itlooked like someone'd stretched her skin out across her bones. I wish I could have looked at her.
A few years later I met the girl I'd marry. Jane had blue-green eyes and long dark hair and a devastating wit that made her hard to keep up with. She liked to go fast. We'd go for drives late at night because her parents were always fighting and my dad was always crying and both of us wanted to be anywhere but home.
We were almost over as soon as we began. We were doing sixty on a country road, and her car was rattling like it was ready to come apart.
"How old is this thing," I asked her.
"It's old," she said, "but it's mine. And it's fast."
It was fall and the leaves were coming down and it'd been raining for three straight days. Her front right tire hit the shoulder on a turn and it took us right into a stubborn old tree with strong roots. It was right where God put it, and it wasn't gonna budge an inch, not even for young love.
It was such a shitty car. The airbags didn't go off. We shouldn't have been going so fast.
"Jane?"
She was slumped in her seat, her nose bloodied. The seatbelt was holding her up. I knew she was hurt. She was always moving. Always talking.
I fell out of the car when I opened my door. On country roads like that, sometimes the shoulder doubles as a ditch for rainwater runoff. I crawled to the front of the car, fingers digging in the mud, then pulled myself back to my feet.
"Jane," I said again, crossing round behind the tree to get to her. The front half of the car was wrecked. It was hers and it was gone. Broken.
I got her door open and checked on her. She was still breathing, but it didn't feel right. She opened her eyes and blinked at me.
"Jane?"
"I can't," she whimpered, her face twisted in pain. "Something's wrong, Jim."
"It's okay, don't move, I've got you."
"I pulled her out of the car and carried her across the road to get a little distance from the wreck. I shouldn't have moved her. I knew right away I shouldn't have moved her.
There was urgency bordering on panic in her voice. "Jim, my back doesn't feel right. I think I need to go to the hospital."
I rolled her onto her side as gently as I could. It was her back. It was broken. I could sense it before I even touched her. I put my hand to her, and my fingers felt like they were burning.
"Here?" I asked. I didn't need an answer. I knew.
"Yeah," she said, but her voice sounded strange, like she was a thousand miles from me. I was somewhere else, and I was thinking of my mother. I was thinking of all the times she'd kissed something better when I was a kid. As if she could fix whatever was wrong with a bit of tenderness and sheer force of will. I remembered the soft pink skin underneath that scab. I remembered the way she peeled it off with a wink. I could have sworn her hands were glowing.
"Hold on," I said, and something stirred inside me. Something ancient. Something older and more stubborn than that stupid tree. A birthright.