The Memory Palace Method of Storytelling
If the mind was an abandoned palace, and the hero of the
story was thrown away into that palace, what he would do? He would walk through
the palace, explore it, investigate the details, and ultimately, find a way to
escape and return to his original world. The technique of “Memory Palace”
allows your characters to do just that.
“Memory palace,” also called as “Method of Loci,” is a
creative writing technique used to remember vast amounts of information. In
storytelling, the technique can help the writer craft a character or even the
entire story by delving into the intricate structures and mechanisms of their
mind.
The technique relies on putting the character in a tangible,
imaginary landscape and then scanning different parts of that landscape,
investigating what part mirrors which aspect of your character’s personality.
It could be a real or imaginary space, such as a library, a
museum, a fantastical castle, a garden, a hilltop forest, a shop, a market, or
anything. Consider this place as your “Memory Palace.” The next part is to walk
through different parts of this “memory palace” and look deeply. Each part of
this imaginary palace represents a different aspect of your character’s life or
a major theme of your story.
A kitchen might serve one purpose while a bookshop the
other. A garden might serve one purpose for the character while an airport
might open up interesting possibilities for you to take your story forward.
If you are willing to delve deeper, you can also assign
different imaginary objects in this imaginary landscape to represent or explore
different attributes of your character or storyline. The object could be a
simple as a blade of grass or a wall clock.
Consider this example: Lila’s Memory Palace
Lila sat at her desk, the blank pages of her new notebook
yawning before her like an abandoned attic. She wanted to write a list of
goals, tasks, and to-dos to organize, but what she really desired was to carve
out a picture of her life’s universe. When swarms of thoughts buzzing and
rumbling in her head became too noisy for her to actually jot down any words in
the notebook, she closed her eyes and started an inner journey into the halls
of her “Memory Palace.”
The Grand Hall
Sitting at her desk with closed eyes, in a meditative mode,
Lila took a mental trip into the “Grand Hall” of her “Memory Palace.” A giant
silk banner unrolling before her on a wall and an enormous wooden table in the
center were some of the details she could see. On top of the table was a
glowing orb. Taking a mental note, Lila placed her ambition on this orb: Write
a novel. At this point, the character of the writer had set an intention to
accomplish a goal.
The Conservatory
The next room in Lila’s Memory Palace turned out to be her
“Conservatory,” a garden where she stored all her creative ideas and projects. While
walking in this garden, she imagined a giant blank notebook in place of the
soil. Suddenly, the blank pages began to sprout with colorful flowers, grasses,
tiny bugs, and trees, that represented ideas, stories, and the projects she
desired to work on.
The Library
The long corridor of “Library” in her “Memory Palace” was
sprawling with shelves of books. These, however, were not typical books. In
Lila’s inner world, each book represented a collection of memories, dreams,
desires, thoughts, everything she liked or disliked, loved or hated, the
chronicle of her individual self.
The Observatory
Finally, Lila stepped into the “Observatory” of her “Memory
Palace” and started peering through the telescope to project her greatest and
the best self in the stars and the galaxies. A famous writer with dozens of
successful, published novels, a house filled with pieces of art, a mini library
of her own, a garden of solace.
By the time Lila opened her eyes, she had navigated a
landscape in the “Memory Palace” of her mind and now she was ready to jump into
her notebook and scribble down all the details she saw in that dark, inner
world, tell a story no one but only she could see.
