I felt like we had stories about family loyalty; I didn't feel like we had stories about what to do when you felt that loyalty to your family was in conflict with loyalty to yourself.
Tara WestoverRead
I think that when memoir goes wrong, it goes wrong from too much memory, too much detail. It's about clearing all that away and just getting to the story.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Memoirs should focus on the essence of the story rather than excessive details that can overwhelm the narrative.
Tara Westover emphasizes that when writing memoirs, an abundance of details stemming from memory can obscure the main narrative. The quote suggests that effective storytelling requires distilling experiences to their core message, enabling readers to connect with the essence of the story rather than getting lost in minutiae.
Themes
MemoirStorytellingMemoryNarrativeWriting
In practice
Example use cases
In a writing seminar, a participant reflects on Westover's insights about the importance of concise storytelling.
More from Tara Westover
All quotes βI had been educated in the rhythms of the mountain, rhythms in which change was never fundamental, only cyclical. The same sun appeared each morning, swept over the valley, and dropped behind the peak. The snows that fell in winter always melted in the spring.
Tara WestoverRead
We think love is noble, and in some ways, it is. But in some ways, it isn't. Love is just love. And sometimes people do terrible things because of it.
Tara WestoverRead
I was 17 the first time I set foot in a classroom, but 10 years later, I would graduate from Cambridge with a Ph.D. 'Educated' is the story of how I came by my education. It is also the story of how I lost my family.
Tara WestoverRead
Although my family attended the same church as everyone in our town, our religion was not the same. I could stand with my family or with the gentiles... but there was no foothold in between.
Tara WestoverRead
We think about education as a stepping stone into a higher socio-economic class, into a better job. And it does do those things. But I don't think that's what it really is. I experienced it as getting access to different ideas and perspectives and using them to construct my own mind.
Tara WestoverRead
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Lots of people can write a good first page but to sustain it, that's my litmus test. If I flip to the middle of the book and there's a piece of dialogue that's just outstanding, or a description, then I'll flip back to the first page and start it.
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