What is vignette writing? A vignette writing in literature is a brief, focused writing of a thought, memory or episode that is usually presented to provide a short or descriptive moment in time that helps to support the bigger story being told. A vignette can support the plot or create a subplot to create tension or establish a neutral resting point. A vignette can be many things.
A vignette writing is usually less than 1,000 words and typically has a title. My earlier vignettes ranged between 300 to 600 words in length. Some of my newer vignettes are now greater than 1,000 words. And all my vignette writings have a title that presents the hint to the content of the writing, A Muse Title.
My vignette writings are also my muse writings. As I write these vignettes, I seek out the muse of my inspiration. In the memories of my life writings my muse is the character of the memory which is usually myself. In other writings my muse might be a character who appears for a moment, but this character establishes the purpose of that writing.
On this site, my vignette writings represent my first draft writings for my first Memoir and for several young adult fiction books that are based on my troubled teenage years. Each vignette is titled to help me develop how my story will be joined together and will inform which vignettes become the basis for future fiction writings.
So how do I begin my vignettes.
My approach is to first recall the memory or event of what I plan to write about and then create a muse title for the writing. This muse title can change as the vignette writing evolves. This then sets into motion the writing of the draft of the event or memory which is usually about 250 words to 350 words. I will allow for a day to pass before I come back to the draft. This break allows me to consider more about what I am writing and how to present it in a way that should not create a liability issue with any of the people referenced in the vignette. I also do not use names, real or fictitious. I will refer to family in the way that generalizes a presence in that memory.
Once I do return to the vignette piece, I will continue the writing and typically for over a week or so I will add and edit until I believe that the writing reflects what I want the reader to experience. I strive to present quality, at least in its first draft form, rather than quantity.
And a thought for you.
If you are writing a vignette to express your story, don’t rush it. Take the long road and you will appreciate what you have written. Remember, your story is important, so tell it with meaning. And if you get emotional when writing your piece, go ahead and get out a good cry. Tears dry, but your story remains forever when put onto paper.
Cheers…
Now I will share how I am bringing them together to create the first draft manuscript of my first memoir even though I am still writing my story.
When I first started my writing back in July 2024 it was more therapeutic than a direct decision to write a book. My initial exploration into writing about my recent experiences and my past has now become an effort to write my story and present it to the world.
In researching on how to write a memoir I learned that for some writers they simply start writing a chapter with multiple thoughts on what they want to say in that chapter and then work to elongate those thoughts into a cohesive story with many edits along the way. I considered this method of writing, gave it a brief try, and discovered that I could not get past the first pages of my story because I couldn’t organize my thoughts clearly and that caused me to write mostly word salad and word vomit.
After this unsuccessful attempt in my early writings, I looked for other ways to express my story, and how I could do that with a cohesive process. This is when I started to read about story vignettes in literature. It was nice to learn that a story vignette involved small word counts, and I felt that I could be successful in writing a vignette. I noted this in my Vignette Writing piece previously published here.
As I began writing about my experience of having a heart attack, the infamous Widow Maker, my goal was to simply achieve the 300-to-500-word count goal in a single vignette writing. And I was very proud that I was achieving my goal with each written piece. And it also made me think that I should share experiences with others to help them and their experience.
At this time, I created a web blog to share my story and the vignettes that I had written and the one that I would be writing in the future. I launched this web blog on the 2024 Labor Day weekend. This was my website to help others.
Fast forward.
So, I have now completed over 60 vignettes since I launched my web blog. When I published about 45 vignettes, I realized that my website was becoming very difficult to navigate. I needed a way to get to the vignettes more quickly.
What I needed to do was to create something that made some sense in basic book formatting for my vignettes. So, based on how my story was developing, I began to put the vignettes, which are now becoming actual chapters, into sections that represent time periods and, in the parts, where the story can come together.
With this knowledge in hand, I created a table of contents page and put my vignettes into a proper location and timeline order. Having vignette titles is most helpful.
This organization also allowed me to capture my childhood memories before they are lost and how these memories could be incorporated into this memoir. Since my therapist kept inquiring about my past, I preferred to write about them instead of verbally discussing them.
So, currently I have identified 15 sections in 3 parts for my memoir. And in each section are the vignettes that tell the story of that specific time in my life. Additionally, I will most likely have 100 vignettes in this memoir covering the event that triggered my writing, the one-year period for recovery, and the younger years of my life remembered,
Based on this, my word count should be around 85,000 to 90,000 once I finish with my first draft vignettes and formalize the manuscript draft. And I am anticipating several edits and potential rewrites of some areas before I will declare my manuscript ready to submit a query to a literary agent for representation.
So, when writing your vignettes you may discover that you have one or more fiction novels hidden in your story so garb ahold to these clues. This is a plus to writing vignettes.
To date I have identified 2 young adult fiction novels embedded in my story from my teenage years. Who knows, you might have some too.
Write what you know, and you will be rewarded…