EngAGE Stories

Today a new social network was launched, but this one has a twist: it’s designed to encourage you to write your memoirs by using prompts in the spirit of the Proust Questionnaire. Then, if you wish, you can share them online with your friends and family.

The Proust Questionnaire was a 19th century parlor game popularized by contemporaries of Marcel Proust, French essayist and novelist, that was supposed to reveal your true inner nature through your answers to a series of questions. Samples of the questions at the newly-launched Proust.com: What was your most memorable birthday? When was your first  kiss? What did you admire most about your parents?

You can add photographs or other images to your stories, too, so it’s rather like an on-line scrapbook that enhances the stories you tell. Are you a writer who would find this helpful or inspiring? You can investigate at Proust.com. EngAGE encourages everyone to tell their personal stories, so we’re interested to learn what you think about this new website. Please let us know in the comments on this post!

What do you do with your protagonist if you’re writing a popular series of books that lasts over a period of decades? Do you let him/her grow older? Michael Connelly’s Detective Harry Bosch has aged in real time and will be sixty in the new book due out this fall. Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone is aging more slowly, roughly one year for every 2½ books. But aging hasn’t always been embraced. Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe remained steadfastly in mid-life; James Bond hasn’t aged a day. Read more about a successful author’s dilemma in an article by Alexandra Alter for the Wall Street Journal.