I’ll tell you what ”bio-vignette” means to me and what my extensive search for it turned up.
When I began to teach people how to capture the character of their mothers’, I wanted them to tell a short story about “her” that in the telling would give the listener a good idea who this woman is, at her core, by illuminating an anecdote or moments in time on paper. I asked people to reveal the essence of “her” character in a short and sudden memoir, where “she” is the main attraction.
This brings us to memoir, a record, chronicle, or account of a person’s life? According to Inkspell: Memoir is a piece of autobiographical writing, usually shorter in nature than a comprehensive autobiography. The memoir, especially as it is being used in publishing today, often tries to capture certain highlights or meaningful moments in one’s past, often including a contemplation of the meaning of that event at the time of the writing of the memoir. The memoir may be more emotional and concerned with capturing particular scenes, or a series of events, rather than documenting every fact of a person’s life…
Yes, this is what I was asking for, in not so many words! And not in those words. I was looking for a more descriptive expression of just exactly how I saw the image of the “mother memoirs” reflected in story. Memoirs can be entertaining, but they are prevalent as cats and perhaps, dare I say, a little monotonous and definitely self-aggrandizing. And they are generally autobiographical accounts – that is about oneself, rather than biographical accounts about someone other than self. Whereas, my formulation of bio-vignettes goes beyond entertaining to inspiring and uniting as the story tellers write about someone who holds great significance in their lives.
I looked up the definitions for biography and vignette just now for this blog, since I’ve never been able to find a definition for bio-vignette when I Google. I felt certain the term bio-vignette would show up, but it didn’t. Could it be that I’ve personally used that term for so many years that I thought it had been coined?
According to WikiAnswers: Biography is a written story of another person’s life. An autobiography is a written story of a person’s life written by that person.
According to Merriam-Webster: Vignette is 1: a running ornament (as of vine leaves, tendrils, and grapes) put on or just before a title page or at the beginning or end of a chapter ; also : a small decorative design or picture so placed 2 a: a picture (as an engraving or photograph) that shades off gradually into the surrounding paper b: the pictorial part of a postage stamp design as distinguished from the frame and lettering 3 a: a short descriptive literary sketch b: a brief incident or scene (as in a play or movie).
Have I made up the definition when I put biography and vignette together as bio-vignette? Coined the term myself? Maybe – you tell me if you can find it anywhere. My TellTale Souls website actually came up on the first page of my Google search for bio-vignette! I was amazed. I placed bio-vignette in the glossary of literary terms in my “how to” guidebook, Give the Gift of Story, when it was first published in 2001, but, of course, that didn’t land it in the American Heritage Dictionary.
Way back then, for the purposes of teaching people to write “Mother Memoir,” I wrote this definition, “Bio-vignette: Your short, descriptive story capturing the spirit or essence of someone who had a significant impact upon your life.” I really wouldn’t change that definition much now; it gets the message across.
This is not my attempt to take credit for something if, indeed, credit is due someone else. Since my searches to find bio-vignette came up with nothing, I’ll claim it as my own.
Recent Comments