Memoir Basics 3: Adding feelings, judgments, and explanations

Explanations

Always full of people

Let’s look at explanations.

Again, let’s read a snippet with and without the explanation. What does it add to the passage?

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Our home was always full of people visiting from the village. Hospitality is an important part of Pashtun culture.

I Am MalalaMalala YousafzaiSource

As the name suggests, explanations are all about the whys. There could have been any number of reasons why their family always had company. The explanation goes beyond a simple recount and helps us understand more about the Pashtun culture, that it was important to Malala’s family, and that they were friendly, social people.

Our home was always full of people visiting from the village. Hospitality is an important part of Pashtun culture.

I Am MalalaMalala YousafzaiSource

Here are some examples, using the same pattern.

We headed straight to Mrs McKenzie’s back shed. She often confiscated anything of ours that accidentally fell into her yard and locked it in there, so it was the best place to start.

I told Ms Finch the truth. She could always see through a lie, no matter how clever the liar.

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