August Theme: The Stories We Carry
Big Question: Why do certain stories stay with us?
Week 2: Memory and Storytelling
Welcome to the second week of exploring The Stories We Carry on Daily Drafts & Dialogues
Last week, we started the month off by focusing our Drafts on The Books That Changed Us, reflecting on and writing about those books that stay with us long after we’ve read them, and why. If you’ve already spent time writing from those prompts and exploring their related Dialogues and Books posts, you’ve already reflected on why certain stories stay with us long after we’ve encountered them, mainly in books.
This week, we’ll be going a little deeper, reaching beyond the stories we find within the pages of books, to explore the nature of memory itself and how it influences the stories we decide to write and read, and how many of those stories stay with us long after we’ve initially encountered them.
As writers, we rely on our memory to fill the pages we draft. Yet those memories are often filled with gaps, uncertainties, and details that fluctuate in vivacity over time. And what we remember about a story may differ from what another person remembers. As readers and listeners, we also rely on our memory to understand and relate to the stories we encounter, and those memories can determine what portions of a story we relate to, overlook, or remember for our own stints of storytelling.
Our memories are embedded in our encounters with storytelling, through and through.
An old photograph can make us question something we thought we understood about a story someone told us about a friend or family member. Visiting a familiar place can bring back a feeling linked to a story or memory from our past before we can explain where it came from or why. And the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and others day in and day out dictate the course of not only our days but our entire lives.
So, this week we’re going to take a deeper look into those stories we remember, which may arrive in bits and fragments, and how they shape our encounters with storytelling overall. And we’ll examine how we use what we remember as material for our own creative work, to keep the tradition of storytelling alive and well.
Don’t worry if you missed last week’s posts, you can still jump into our conversation about The Stories We Carry today!
While all posts on Daily Drafts & Dialogues are connected to their monthly themes with weekly focuses (which start each Saturday with a post of prompts like the one you’re reading now) they can still be enjoyed individually as well and are always available in the Archive.
Remember, you’ll see my response to one of the creative prompts in tomorrow’s post, my response to one of the reflective journaling prompts on Wednesday, as well as dialogues about books and the stories we carry, over the course of the upcoming week.
I hope to see what you come up with for one of these prompts in the Drafters Workshop Chat soon too, so we can further discuss the role memory plays in the stories we carry.
General Tips for Every Prompt
Start with one specific memory or detail instead of trying to cover an entire period of your life.
Write what you can remember before deciding what the memory you’re exploring means.
Let uncertainty spark your curiosity so that you can genuinely explore the memory or story you’re writing about without a preordained agenda.
Consider how another person might remember the same experience you’re exploring differently.
Grant yourself permission to fictionalize personal material when doing so helps you write more freely.
Pay attention to the details that remain clear even when the larger context of what you’re writing about has become difficult to recall or explain.
Let the meaning of your piece develop during the writing process rather than deciding everything before you begin.
Invitation for the Week: Choose one prompt that brings a memory to mind and use your response to explore why the story accompanying that memory has remained with you.
Quick Note: While I will always encourage writers to write to the extent of their heart’s content, I would suggest starting with one prompt from each section first. Select the creative prompt and reflective prompt that seem to really speak to you first, then see where those writing experiences lead you before attempting to complete the rest of the prompts. If you end up completing all or most of the prompts after that, that’s amazing! But if you don’t, that’s perfectly fine too. You won’t run out of opportunities to see prompts like this because there will be another post of prompts available next Saturday when this one is auto-archived.
Creative Prompts About Memory and Storytelling
1. The Memory That Changes
Write a story from the perspective of someone remembering an event incorrectly or in fragments, who slowly begins to face the complete truth behind the memory they had of the event.
Focus On:
letting your character feel confident about their recollection, even when the reader has reason to doubt it.
using small inconsistencies to gradually reveal that the character’s version of events may not be accurate.
unraveling what the character gains or protects by holding onto an incorrect or fragmented memory.
Skills to Practice:
Developing an unreliable narrator without immediately revealing the truth about them to the reader
Using subtle details to create uncertainty and narrative tension
Showing how a character’s emotional state can influence the way they remember an experience
Tip: Give your character a strong reason to trust their initial version of events. Their certainty will make the contradictions that come later more compelling.
Feeling Stuck?
Choose an event involving several people. Decide what your character remembers most clearly, then imagine what another person present would say happened instead, and why.
2. The Photograph’s Revelation
Write a scene where a photograph reveals a forgotten or buried truth to someone.
Focus On:
giving the photograph one detail that challenges what your character believes about the past.
allowing your character to discover the significance of the image rather than explaining it immediately.
revealing what your character has forgotten and why that forgotten information or memory matters now.
Skills to Practice:
Using visual details to create a meaningful revelation
Controlling the pace of how and when important information reaches the reader
Showing a character’s shifts in understanding through their reactions
Tip: Focus on your character’s response to the photograph instead of rushing to explain its entire history.
Feeling Stuck?
Imagine finding an old photograph inside a box or book at your parents’ or grandparents’ house. Then consider what you would do if you recognized the setting in the photograph but not a particular person who’s lingering in the background.
3. Childhood Memorial
Write a poem about a place from your childhood or a character’s childhood.
Focus On:
choosing a specific place rather than trying to capture an entire childhood.
using physical and sensory details to communicate what the place means.
allowing the emotional meaning of the place to emerge through the images in the poem.
Skills to Practice:
Creating a strong sense of place through sensory imagery
Choosing precise details to poetize a memory instead of relying on general descriptions
Allowing images to communicate emotions without directly explaining those emotions
Tip: Begin with what you can picture in your mind rather than what you think the place is supposed to represent.
Feeling Stuck?
Choose one location from your childhood or your character’s childhood and write down everything you can remember about a small area of it. Seek the images that still feel unusually clear.
4. When Memory Slips
Write a story in which a character’s memory becomes unreliable or is completely inaccessible.
Focus On:
creating a specific memory your character is unable to access or retrieve, and the reasons behind why.
introducing uncertainty in a way that makes the character question what they know and believe.
exploring how the character responds when their incomplete versions of the past can no longer be trusted.
Skills to Practice:
Creating suspense through uncertainty rather than immediate revelation or explanation
Showing internal conflict through a character’s changing thoughts and reactions via a first-person narrative
Controlling the flow of information so that the reader discovers the problem with the character’s memory gradually
Tip: One contradiction, interaction, or piece of evidence can be enough to destabilize one’s ability to trust their memory.
Feeling Stuck?
Give your character a story about their past that they want to access, like a childhood birthday party or a wedding ceremony. Then include something that happens in the present that forces them to distrust their own memory about the story.
5. The Artifact That Carries a History
Write about an artifact that carries someone’s history, or an entire family’s history, like an heirloom, hand-stitched coat, or oil painting.
Focus On:
choosing an artifact that has acquired personal and ancestral significance, and why.
using the artifact’s physical condition to suggest something about its history, like a dent or a tear it has.
considering why the artifact has been kept and what it represents to its owner or owners.
Skills to Practice:
Revealing what characters care about through physical details of an artifact
Including backstory without over-explaining everything that happened to the artifact
Using an artifact as a central element to emotional storytelling and memory
Tip: Focus on signs of use, care, and personalization, such as scratches, repairs, handwriting, stains, worn surfaces, etc.
Feeling Stuck?
Pick an object that belonged to a character in one of your favorite books. Imagine where it came from and why its owner could not bring themselves to throw it away. Then use that example to inspire your own writing.
Reflective Journaling Prompts for Memory and Storytelling
6. The Memories Behind the Stories You Tell
How does memory influence your writing and the stories you tell?
Focus On:
the ways your personal memories shape the subjects, characters, emotions, or themes you return to in your writing.
whether you tend to preserve memories as they happen or reshape them through imagination and storytelling later.
how writing allows you to understand, revisit, or give new meaning to memorable experiences from your past.
the memories that seem to surface naturally when you sit down to write.
Skills to Practice:
Reflecting on the relationship between lived experience and creative expression
Identifying recurring themes or emotional patterns in your writing
Turning personal reflections into meaningful insight for the stories you tell
Tip: Don’t worry about explaining an entire memory and its backstory. Instead, start with the feeling a memory leaves behind.
Feeling Stuck?
Think about a piece of writing you’ve created that feels especially personal. What memory, person, place, or experience might have inadvertently found its way into the work?
7. The Memories You Return To
What memories do you return to most often, and why?
Focus On:
the moments from your life that you find yourself remembering again and again.
why certain memories remain vivid while others have faded or disappeared.
whether you return to these memories with a sense of comfort, curiosity, regret, gratitude, longing, or another emotion.
what these recurring memories might reveal about what matters to you now.
Skills to Practice:
Identifying emotionally significant moments from your past
Exploring the emotions beneath a memory rather than simply recounting what happened
Using reflection to uncover possible themes for future writing
Tip: The most useful memories for your writing aren’t always the biggest or most tragic ones. Sometimes an ordinary moment holds one of the most personal and significant stories you can tell.
Feeling Stuck?
Make a list of five memories that visit you often and unexpectedly. They can be ordinary moments like a conversation at a family meal, a photo of a day at the beach, a casual goodbye, as well as major life events. Choose the one that carries the strongest emotion with it.
8. The Truth You Owe Your Stories
Do you think, as a writer, that you should be honest about your own experiences?
Focus On:
what honesty means when writing about real experiences, especially when the memories driving the writing are incomplete or subjective.
the difference between factual accuracy and emotional truth.
the ways writers may alter, combine, omit, or reinterpret details while still honoring the heart and ‘truth’ of an experience.
where you personally draw the line between protecting yourself, protecting others, and telling the truth of a story or real-life experience.
Skills to Practice:
Distinguishing between factual truth and emotional truth in storytelling
Thinking critically about ethics and responsibility when writing from lived experience
Making intentional choices about what to reveal, change, or leave unsaid
Tip: Ask yourself: “What is the deepest truth of this experience?” Your answer to this question may be more important than recounting a perfect timeline of events.
Feeling Stuck?
Imagine you are writing about a difficult experience but cannot, or don’t want to, tell every detail exactly as it happened. What would you need to preserve for the heart of the story to still feel true?
9. The Details That Breathe Life into Your Memories
What details make a memory feel alive to you?
Focus On:
the sensory details that can transport you back to a particular moment in time.
the sounds, smells, textures, colors, tastes, objects, gestures, and small observations attached to your most vivid memories.
the way specific details can communicate an emotion without explicitly naming it.
some of the seemingly insignificant details that have remained with you and why they matter.
Skills to Practice:
Using sensory details to create vivid writing that resonates
Replacing general descriptions with specific observations
Allowing physical, everyday details to carry emotional meaning
Tip: Pretend like the memory is happening in real time and write about it in the present tense instead of the past tense. And as you’re writing, choose three sensory details and build the memory around them rather than trying to describe everything abstractly from the memory itself.
Feeling Stuck?
Choose one memory and imagine yourself standing inside it or reliving it again. What or who is directly in front of you? What can you hear and smell? What is the temperature? What is your body doing? Etc.
10. When the Past Changes
How has your understanding of the past changed?
Focus On:
how growing older or gaining new experiences has changed the way you interpret something that happened in your past.
whether you now see a person, decision, relationship, or event differently than you once did.
what you understand now that you could not have understood at a certain time in your past.
how memories can evolve as we change, even when original events remain the same.
Skills to Practice:
Examining past experiences from multiple and fresh perspectives
Using hindsight to create depth and complexity in your writing
Recognizing how time can change the meaning we assign to a memory
Tip: Let your present self have a conversation with your past self. The distance between those two perspectives can become the heart of the reflection piece you end up writing.
Feeling Stuck?
Choose a memory you understood one way when you were younger, then finish this sentence: “Back then, I thought ____. Now, I understand ____.”
Join the Conversation
Writing about our memories, and memory itself, gives us an interesting opportunity to look closely at the stories we carry and why, as well as how they inform our writing and storytelling. It allows us to examine and question older interpretations of events without dismissing the person we were when we first formed them, and allows us to acknowledge what we no longer remember while still finding meaning in what remains.
As these prompts will show, writing about what we remember, or want to remember, or memory itself, can be surprisingly useful and may even reveal something that has remained invisible to us for quite some time. It may also raise interesting questions worth following and writing about in the future.
While completing these prompts, try to remember to ask yourself what keeps drawing you back to the stories you remember and tell, as the answers you find might point toward a larger story that still needs to be written. And as we continue discussing the stories we carry in September, let’s continue to consider the memories that have not only found their way into our writing but have influenced how we tell the stories we tell.
You’re invited to join the Drafters Workshop Chat at any time throughout the month to share your writing, as well as your thoughts on the writing process.
You don’t need a polished draft or a published piece to join the conversation. Just bring an excerpt of something you wrote, a few lines about what you’re working on, or an observation about your writing that you’d like to share. Or get a conversation going by answering this week’s question: How do memories affect what we write?
Thanks so much for being here. I can’t wait to see your next comment or chat reply.
Until then, happy writing and reading!
Please don’t forget to like and share this post if you enjoyed it so others can enjoy it too. Thank you!
Continue Exploring September’s Theme, The Stories We Carry
Week 1 Posts: The Books That Changed Us
Writing Prompts About Books That Changed Us
Can a book genuinely change who we are?
What My Favorite Books Say About Me
The Anatomy of Books That Have Changed Us
20 Banned Books That Have Changed Us
ICYM August’s Theme, The Creative Life
Go more in depth with The Creative Life Writing Collection
September’s The Stories We Carry Writing Collection is coming soon!
Popular Posts from Week 4: Preparing for What Comes Next
Writing Prompts for What Comes Next in Your Creative Life
Popular Posts from Week 3: The Messy Middle
Writing Prompts for Navigating ‘The Messy Middle’
Reading Notes: The Cemetery of Untold Stories
Popular Posts from Week 2: Creative Habits
Immersive Storytelling Mode and the ArXiv
Reading Notes: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
The Habits That Help Me and My Creative Life Most
Popular Posts from Week 1: Making Space
A Day Alive in the Lakeside Library
How to Make Space and Time for Your Creative Life
The Creative Life as Play and Work