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Gary Zinsser's How To Write A Memoir

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In Zinsser’s “How to Write a Memoir” he gives you three pieces of advice, be yourself, speak freely, and think small. I’m going to be comparing these three pieces of advice to my memoir I’ve read ”Guts”. I will be writing at least 5 paragraphs minimum for my essay. Now that I told you what I’m going to be doing, lets get right to it!

Zinsser says in his “How to Write a Memoir” that it is best if you write like It’s from the point of view of a child. ”Guts doesn’t do this very well because Gary Paulsen only writes from the point of view of a child only a few times in the story. One time he writes from a child’s point of view is when he says he was 7 years old and he saw a plane crash into the ocean and sharks ate the people who were in the water. Gary is seventy-seven years old. Neither I nor anyone else would think he is a child. Just to prove that he doesn’t write in a child’s perspective, I’ve found a quote from “Guts”. On page 126, “I can’t think of many things including Iditarod ‘s or sailing the Pacific…” …show more content…

In his memoir he tells his life adventures from when he was a young adult until now as an old man. Some of the events he talks about surviving in the wilderness, sledding with his team of dogs, hunting to survive and eat, and eating guts and eyeballs not to starve. At the near end of the memoir Gary gives us ways to cook game or fish in the wild, this is another way he speaks freely. Unlike other writers he uses different a type of writing like if someone would say “ They were” someone else would use a specific name like “Sam and John were”. So that about raps it up for the first two pieces of Zinsser’s advice now lets get on the last piece of advice, think

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