I interviewed memoirist Kim Foster, author of The Meth Lunches: Food and Longing in an American City and at the end, when I asked for tips for memoirists, she said to get “granular in your writing.” I wanted to talk more about this, but we were at the end of the show. I asked her to say more about that. Here is her generous response:
Sometimes when writer's write, they just don't go deep enough for me. I want to be inside the story and that can't happen if the writer is just telling me what happens. I really try in my writing to get more and more specific in each draft.
There are times when you have to move the plot along to keep the pacing going, but sometimes I want to sit in a moment. Writers need to do both pace and detail. I want to smell it and feel it and know what everything tastes like, and I want the story to tell itself in the details: Why is she drinking Diet Coke? What does that say about her? And why are her nails bitten and chewed? Why is she wearing flip flops in the winter? How do these details help tell us what is happening, or what the character is about, without telling us what is happening?
The idea isn't about getting bogged down in the color of someone's clothes for instance, or describing everything in detail, because that would be boring, but I love when a descriptor of a character or scene tells me something about the story that never gets said.
EXAMPLE:
In my book, there is a section where I have just had a conversation with my foster children's bio mom. She had just found out her rights to them had been terminated. She lost her kids. She and I were devastated.
Since the book is located in Las Vegas where I live, I knew I had to mention the Strip at least once. So, this is about the drive home. I have this news on my mind. It is uncommon for locals to choose to drive home via the Strip. One of my kids is in the car and our tradition is to play Lady Gaga's "Born this Way" when we drive the Strip. This passage doesn't even mention my sadness or my kid's mom's sadness, but I tried to use the crowdedness of the strip, the drinking, the revelry, the lights, the warm desert air, all of it, to show how insignificant her loss is to the world.
THE PASSAGE:
Las Vegas Boulevard is throbbing tonight.
I see crowds of people crushed together at stoplights, and it’s the balm I need. People hold yard-long alcoholic slushy drinks, and sip on them through straws. Boys hang on to girls. Girls hang on to girls, and people push on each other. Friends from other places laugh and take pics of themselves.
It makes me feel like there is more than loss.
I drive slow. I take in the people, the celebrations, the revelers. I see you,
fuck boys and girls in skimpy latex dresses, those heels that make you walk
like a newborn fawn after a few drinks. The gamblers, the moneymakers,
and the people who lose it all. Scraps of music come from cars and casinos. I
smell cocoa butter and cigarettes. A couple ladies are dressed as show girls, in
costumes too flimsy and cheap and crudely spangled to be the real thing. But
the crowd loves them anyway. There is the smell of pot. Pungent and familiar.
It all feels so wild and unruly and fun.
Edie puts on Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way.” Loud. It’s what we play every
time we drive the Strip.
Edie rolls down the windows.
It’s perfect.
I turn it up even louder.
I’ve got light on my face from the neon bouncing off the rearview.
Did you know neon is one of the things that stars are made of?
Did you know that even though my son will be adopted by people who
love him and whom he loves, he will always pine for his first mother?
Did you know neon is the fifth most common element in the galaxy, but
on Earth it is beyond rare?
We are all born superstars.
Did you know that this loss will define his life?
Did you know neon isn’t even used in signs anymore, it’s all LED now?
Did you know that this loss will define Chrissy’s whole life, too?
I’m on the right track, baby, I was born to survive.
Did you know neon is invisible?
Did you know she is invisible?
She is. And so is her pain.
So, the granular-ness is in the details, the specifics. The feel of the night. The feel of its smallness set against something crowded and throbbing. The way neon is invisible like her pain. It's so much more effective than saying, something like: "I was devastated, so I drove home the long way. Took the Strip and took in the crowds laughing and joking, people laughing and drunk and happy, and the mother of my kids is home, invisible, tucked into her pain alone." Etc, etc.
Sometimes slowing down and burrowing down into the details makes all the difference.
Here’s the podcast if you’d like to listen.
I write novels but have recently started publishing my own Substack newsletter which is personal writing and venturing into the memoir space, so this advice from Kim is so helpful. Novelists and memoirists alike can benefit from going granular--the details, the specifics that make a scene, a character, an emotional moment come alive and feel recognizable yet original.
Barbara! Thank you for this. I loved our talk on the pod and this topic of granularness. (and so happy you are here on substack!!!!! Whooohoooo!)