Hello and welcome back.

We all have memories of what happened in our formative years. These can be used for our stories. Even if the memories are painful such as being the victim of childhood bullying, the death of a loved one, or being rejected by a romantic interest.

Some of our memories can also be one of great joy. Like your parents agreeing to get you that new bike, computer game system or letting you have a kitten or puppy. And of course not being rejected by a romantic interest.

A great way to incorporate these memories into your stories is to write them into your character’s backstories. For example if you have a character who has been unlucky in love, this might, or likely would influence the character’s view of the opposite sex.

Take a man who has been rejected by scores of women. Put in his backstory or his viewpoints of women that they’re only interested in a man with lots of money and a high income. This can be done like this: Jeff walks up to Sharon at the smoothie bar. They’ve both completed their workouts and are in need of refreshment. He’s had his eye on her for a few weeks. He smiles and is about to ask her to join him, “she’ll say no, just like all the others,” he thinks and turns away.

The other take on that could be from Sharon’s point of view. She might have the view that the man is supposed to take the action and be the one to ask the woman out. So put her POV of the same scene like this: What is he waiting for? He’s been giving me the eye for weeks. Just ask me out already, why are so many men such wimps?

This creates an obvious conflict, the woman waiting to be asked out and the man not having the nerve to ask a woman out who he is attracted to.

Another way to use memories and to create conflict is to have one character remembering a joyful memory and the other character having a painful memory of something similar. As an example of this have a man and a woman who recently moved in together. One of them wants a dog and the other is scared of dogs, perhaps from being attacked by a dog as a child.

Larry says, “I see this ad in the paper for German Shepherd puppies, we should get one.”

Darlene’s hands begin to shake as her mind takes her back to the six year old child that was attacked and pinned to the ground by a dog that at the time outweighed her by fifty pounds. “I’m not really a dog person.”

“Ah come on,” Larry says. “I’ve always had a dog growing up. Besides it’ll keep you safe and protected when I’m not here.”

“I just don’t think it’s a good idea,” she says.

Those are two ways that your memories can be used in your writing.