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WRITE A
MEMOIR
A 3-Step Guide
Your memoir will be autobiographical, but it will not be your life story.
Confused yet? Stay with me.
To a position of:
• Wealth
• Status
You might start with memories that show how bad things once were for you.
Then you would show pivotal experiences in your life, important people in your
transformation, what you learned, and how you applied certain principles to see
this vast change.
Naturally, the better the stories, the better the memoir. However, great stories
are not the point — and frankly, neither is the memoirist (you).
Don’t buy into the idea that only famous people can sell a memoir. Sure, if you’re
a household name and people are curious about you, that’s an advantage.
But memoirs by nobodies succeed all the time — and for one reason: they
resonate with readers because readers identify with truth. Truth, even hard,
gritty, painful truth, bears transferrable principles.
Memoirs full of such relatable candor attract readers, and readers are what
publishers want. An astute agent or acquisitions editor can predict how relatable
a memoir will be and take a chance on one from an unpublished unknown.
Agents and editors tell me they love to discover such gems — the same way they
love discovering the next great novelist.
You may be the subject, but it’s not about you — it’s about what readers can gain
from your story.
And remember, it’s not that you’ve made something of yourself — even if you
have. Sorry, but nobody cares except those who already love you.
Your understated theme must be, “You’re not alone. What happened to me can
also happen to you.”
That’s what appeals to readers. Even if they do come away from your memoir
impressed with you, it won’t be because you’re so special — even if you are.
Whether they admit it or not, readers care most about their own lives.
Imagine a reader picking up your memoir and thinking, What’s in this for
me?The more of that you offer, the more successful your book will be. Think
transferable principles in a story well told.
Cosmic Commonalities
All people, regardless of age, ethnicity, location, and social status, share certain
felt needs: food, shelter, and love. They fear abandonment, loneliness, and the
loss of loved ones. Regardless your theme, if it touches on any of those wants
and fears, readers will identify.
I can read the memoir of someone of my opposite gender, for whom English
is not her first language, of a different race and religion, who lives halfway
Many writers tell me they fear their theme has been covered many times by
many other memoirists. While it’s true, as the Bible says, that there’s nothing
new under the sun, no one has written your story, your memoir, your way.
While I still say it’s not about you but really about your reader, it’s you who lends
uniqueness to your theme. Write on!
Trust your narrative to do the work of conveying your message. Too many
amateurish memoirists feel the need to eventually turn the spotlight on the
reader with a sort of “So, how about you…?”
Let your experiences and how they impacted you make their own points, and
trust the reader to get it. Beat him over the head with your theme and you run
him off.
You can avoid being preachy by using what I call the Come Alongside Method.
When you show what happened to you, if the principles apply to your reader he
doesn’t need that pointed out. Give him credit.
If you’re afraid to mine your pain deeply enough tell the whole truth, you may
not be ready to write your memoir. There’s little less helpful — or marketable
— than a memoir that glosses over the truth.
So feature anecdotes from your life that support your theme, regardless how
painful it is to resurrect the memories. The more introspective and vulnerable
you are, the more effective will be your memoir.
Worried about throwing family members under the bus by telling the truth?
That’s a legitimate concern. Click on the link above for suggestions.
Telling
My father was a drunk who abused my mother and me. I was scared to death
every time I heard him come in late at night.
Showing
As soon as I heard the gravel crunch beneath the tires and the car door open
and shut, I dove under my bed. I could tell by his footsteps whether Dad
was sober and tired or loaded and looking for a fight. I prayed God would
magically make me big enough to jump between him and my mom, because
she was always his first target…
Use every trick in the novelist’s arsenal to make each anecdote come to life:
dialogue, description, conflict, tension, pacing, everything.
Worry less about chronology than theme. You’re not married to the
autobiographer’s progressive timeline. Tell whatever anecdote fits your point
for each chapter, regardless where they fall on the calendar. Just make the details
clear so the reader knows where you are in the story.
Character Arc
As in a novel, how the protagonist (in this case, you) grows is critical to a
successful story. Your memoir should make clear the difference between who
you are today and who you once were. What you learn along the way becomes
your character arc.
Point of View
It should go without saying that you write a memoir in the first-person. And
just as in a novel, the point-of-view character is the one with the problem, the
challenge, something he’s after. Tell both your outer (what happens) and your
inner (its impact on you) story.
Structure
In his classic How to Write Bestselling Fiction, novelist Dean Koontz outlines what
he calls the Classic Story Structure. Though intended as a framework for a novel,
it strikes me that this would be perfect for a memoir too — provided you don’t
change true events just to make it work.
You might be able to structure your memoir the same way merely by how you
choose to tell the story. As I say, don’t force things, but the closer you can get to
that structure, the more engaging your memoir will be.
For your purposes, Koontz’s Terrible Trouble would be the nadir of your life.
(If nadir is a new word for you, it’s the opposite of zenith.) Take the reader with
you to your lowest point, and show what you did to try to remedy things. If your
experience happens to fit the rest of the structure, so much the better.
Great novels carry a book-length setup that demands a payoff in the end, plus
chapter-length setups and payoffs, and sometimes even the same within scenes.
The same is true for your memoir. Virtually anything that makes the reader
stay with you to find out what happens is a setup that demands a payoff. Even
Avoid using narrative summary to give away too much information too early.
I’ve seen memoir manuscripts where the author tells in the first paragraph how
they went from abject poverty to independent wealth in 20 years, “…and I want
to tell you how that happened.”
To me, that just took the air out of the tension balloon, and many readers would
agree and see no reason to read on. Better to set them up for a payoff and let
them wait. Not so long that you lose them to frustration, but long enough to
build tension.
Memoir Examples
Thoroughly immerse yourself this genre before attempting to write in it. I read
nearly 50 memoirs before I wrote mine (Writing for the Soul). Here’s a list to get
you started:
• All Over But the Shoutin’ by Rick Bragg (my favorite book ever)
• Cultivate by Lara Casey
• A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
• Out of Africa by Karen Blixen
• Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
• Still Woman Enough by Loretta Lynn
• Born Standing Up by Steve Martin
• The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
• This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff
• Molina by Benjie Molina and Joan Ryan
— Jerry B. Jenkins