Memoir Basics 3: Adding feelings, judgments, and explanations

Judgements

Our apartment

In this snippet, the original judgment is clarified and enhanced by focussing on a detail.

Our apartment was bright and warm and welcoming. Burgundy curtains shut the darkness outside and made the one big room even cozier.

Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural RevolutionJi-li JiangSource

Let’s follow that example.

Mrs McKenzie’s house was empty and bare. Patches of raw earth where pot plants and ceramics once stood made the house feel even more abandoned.

Ms Finch was neat and organised. Her speech, her dress sense, her office, even her computer desktop all felt like an extension of her detail-focussed mind.

Your turn

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