Into Thin Air Blog Post #4

Reflections on Writing Memoir:
    Writing a memoir is a big task. You have to write about a time in your life that may be just a few hours and make it into a couple hundred pages. No biggie, right? Not only do the authors have to write about that moment in their life to fill a book, they also have to remember it. This would be a huge struggle for anyone, as most people can't even remember what has happened in the past two hours of their life. Considering that Krakauer had serious brain cell loss on Everest and was still able to write this memoir in such detail, I applaud him. Of course he had to make some stuff up to fill up all 300 something pages. This would be helpful in setting the mood because you could sometimes have certain details that would fit a sad or happy mood better than others. In Krakauer's book, he has a ton of other people's accounts to help fill in his memory, which is a good approach. Unfortunately, my experiences don't involve nationally recognized writers filling in the story for me because I don't have those type of connections.
    When I have to write my own memoir, I wonder if my voice will be informative like Krakauer's. Sometimes, the book even gets boring, so I hope I won't be like that. It will be a struggle not to write like that because I prefer writing formal papers better than narratives. I personally admire Krakauer for his writing style, but since it is a memoir and not a textbook, I probably would not like to use his style. With writing a memoir of my own, I don't know if I could get to the complexity as Krakauer's, as he is probably three or four times my age. I don't have as much experience writing or just in life, so it's going to be difficult creating a memoir, but I look forward to trying :)