Posted by Kathleen Pooler/@kathypooler with Robin L.Flanigan/@thekineticpen
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” Marcel Proust
Robin L. Flanigan is an award-winning writer/editor and author who has climbed Mt Kilimanjaro. We met on Twitter when she reached out to me with this message:
“I look forward to reading more about your book. We have similar motives, though the one I’m writing is about someone else.”
In an interesting twist, she is writing the story of a fellow hiker who, after the freak death of her husband, decided to make the trip to deal with her grief and found a second chance of love. My first thought was that she was ghostwriting this woman’s harrowing story. And yet, she was there on the same journey and tells me she is writing it from “the close-third point of view.” She explains more in this interview.
Welcome , Robin!
KP: Robin, not too many people climb Mt Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Tanzania. I am intrigued by this fact alone. But you have taken it one step further and decided to write about it. Tell us about your current work-in-progress. Do you have a working title?
RF: It has been quite the journey, literally and figuratively. Bonnie and I were both part of a group that climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro in 2008 to raise money for cancer research and awareness. For her, the trip, which took place nearly two years after her husband’s accidental death, was a symbolic triumph over hardship – a tangible way for the two-time cancer survivor to prevail over pain once more. Welcoming a new man into her life during the process was a bonus. Her inspirational, moving story of faith, courage and conviction offers an unflinching look at what it can take to move forward and, ultimately, to heal.
People often ask whether I have a working title. I don’t. I feel like the right one is going to hit me once I finish writing and read the book, all the way through, for the first time, beginning to end.
KP: How did this project come to be? What is the story behind the story?
RF: I still get goosebumps when I tell this story. One Saturday over breakfast, I said to my husband, “I want to write a book.” I’d tinkered with the idea before, but strictly with memoir, and the truth was I’d lost interest in a book about myself.
“Why don’t you write about Bonnie?” he’d answered.
I thought it would be an incredible opportunity to tell her story, but worried it would be difficult for her to relive the night of the accident, which I felt needed to be thoroughly described. Still, I called her Monday morning, and blabbed on for probably too long about my idea. She was silent for a moment after I finished, then said, “On Saturday morning, probably about the time you were having breakfast, I was praying. I said, ‘God, I have no idea how, but it’s time. It’s time I tell my story. Robin, God brought you to me.’”
Tears poured from my eyes, and from then on, no matter how many work deadlines cause me to fall short of my self-prescribed weekly writing quota, I’ve never doubted that this project is supposed to happen.
KP: Memoir is a slice of life told like a story about your life which offers lessons learned. But you are writing about someone else’s life from the “close-third” point-of-view. Please explain what you mean by that and if you feel this qualifies it to be a memoir vs creative non-fiction. I have heard that writing memoir in the first person tends to bring the reader closer to the story. How can you achieve the same with the “close-third” point-of-view?
RF: As a journalist, I’ve been trained to hone in on seemingly inconsequential details, plopping readers into a scene they can easily imagine. I don’t think a book has to be told in the first person to achieve that intimacy. To bring the reader as close as possible to Bonnie’s perspective, I tell the story from her point of view (providing back stories on other central characters, but only when Bonnie would know them), and incorporate her thoughts in italics during the book’s most pivotal moments. Lastly, I think that my own experience on the mountain, though not overtly part of the story, provides a depth that I wouldn’t be able to get if I were simply ghostwriting her memoir.
KP: One of the biggest challenges in writing about real life events is to turn these events into a story that will interest readers. How have you found your story structure and what themes drive your narrative?
RF: It took a while to figure out the story structure, and given that I’m still in the writing process (I hope to finish by the end of the year), I feel like I’ll continue to work on pacing. That said, it eventually became clear that the real-time story arc would need to focus on Kilimanjaro. The mountain tied together her past, present and future.
I did make a decision early on to start the book with a prologue of the accident scene. Because Bonnie was the one who found her husband, I wanted readers to be thrown immediately into her experience and to care deeply for her.
Between the real-time scenes written in present tense are flashbacks that develop Bonnie’s character and reveal the parts of her life – as a child, as a two-time cancer survivor, as a married woman, and as a new widow – that have brought her to this lofty goal of climbing a 19,342-foot mountain.
Throughout are themes of loss, persistence, and love.
KP: As an experienced writer/author/editor, do you have any further tips for those who wish to capture real life events and turn them into a story that will appeal to readers?
RF: It makes my head hurt to think about the number of hours I’ve spent interviewing Bonnie and those who know her. (It makes their heads hurt, too!) But the devil is in the details for a reason. Ask good questions, circle back and peel away another layer, then repeat. Use the Internet, bookstore, library, photo albums, journals and any other source that could offer insight into your subject. In my case, I searched for insight about grief, cancer, and the terrain we’d encountered in Africa. When I learned that Bonnie had received two prayer shawls, I found a book on the history of shawl-knitting ministry and used some of its information to better illustrate why the gifts were so meaningful. And I used a journal she’d kept after her husband’s death, among other things, to document her journey.
KP: Since you are writing about someone else’s experience, one that you witnessed first-hand, what techniques are you using to capture this woman’s voice?
RF: Mainly by weaving together critical themes throughout the book. I’ve constantly asked Bonnie to make connections, to show me why she does what she does. By now we’ve spent so much time together, I can hear her voice – her favorite expressions, her delivery – without even trying.
Thank you Robin for sharing your story as well as the story behind your story of your work-in-progress. I hope you’ll keep us posted on the launch of this book and its unique close third point-of-view. You show that there are many ways to get our stories into the hands of readers.
Robin L. Flanigan is an award-winning writer and editor whose work has appeared in books, magazines, newspapers, websites, and other media. She lives in Rochester, N.Y., with her husband and 7-year-old daughter.
E-mail: robin@thekineticpen.com
Twitter: @thekineticpen
How about you? Have you ever written or read anything written in the close-third point-of-view? Do you think this qualifies as a memoir?
We’d love to hear your thoughts. Please leave your comments below~
Robin has agreed to give away a copy on the anthology, Silent Embrace: Perspectives on Birth and Adoption to a commenter whose name will be selected in a random drawing of commenters. Her essay is “Moving Close” is in this anthology.
The anthology can be ordered on Amazon.
ANNOUNCEMENT: Congratulations to Kathy. Your name was selected in a random drawing to receive a copy of Louise Mathewson’s memoir Life Interrupted: Living with Brain Injury.
This Week: On Thursday, 8/16, I’ll be over at Author Winsome Campbell-Brown’s Woman, Beauty, Purpose, and Empowerment blog with an interview. Hope you’ll stop by!
Next Week:
Monday, 8/19: “7 Tips on Using Beta Readers in Memoir Revision”
Thursday8/22: “Writing Rants” by Cheryl Stahle
Saturday, 8/24: ” WOW! Women on Writing Book Review and Give Away: A Southern Place by Elaine Drennon Little.