Resources for Memoir Writing

 

 

Memoir is a popular genre of writing that explores personal history. The author writes a factual, truthful account taken from personal life and includes reflections about the experience.  

 

There are many forms of memoir writing. A successful memoir usually includes these common characteristics: 

 

1- Tell a factual, true (to you) life story. In exposition of a narrative memoir, the story, introduces the main player, setting, and time frame and basic conflict. 

 

2- Topics for memoirs are as different as people are. Be short and clear. Some examples of memoir topics: Overcoming adversity. Rags to riches. Coming of age. Childhood trauma. Sexual abuse. Drug addition and recovery. Gambling. Racial injustice. 

 

3- Specify a timeline. The timeline provides a story focus. It can be one day. A week. The eight months your mother was dying. The three years you fought cancer. Your teen years. A decade. A timeline guides what scenes to include (and exclude) in telling the story.  

 

4- Make a list of scenes. This list provides an outline for your story, much like a storyboard does for cinema. A scene list guides the development of your memoir. Start with a long list. You need 28 to 56 scenes for enough content to write a book.  

 

5- Select a frame to unify the content in the book. Be cognizant when a particular image reappears over and over. You can identify a frame to use when you look for a dominant or reoccurring image in your writing. For a memoir, the frame could be: An open window. An empty room. The reoccurring dream. The color red. A  garden.The frame creates a running thread to holds the story-scenes together and help unify the story line of the memoir.

 

6- Arrange scenes in a dramatic arc. The arc forms the the story's path: Rising action, Climax, Falling Action. Resolution. Rising and falling action creates tension and holds the reader's attention. Organize scenes, build suspense to a crisis, move to resolution. 

 

7- Reflect on what happens. Your reflections contrast the present-you with a younger, less experienced you. Be honest. Admit your mistakes. Show how you've changed.  Reflections mine the gold in each scene, chapter or part of the book.

 

8- Transformation. The memoir tracks how you face a problem, change and grow. The element of transformation is a major reason why the reader takes the memoir journey with you. Give them tips about how to change. Shake up your writing, learn from yourself as you write. Writing a memoir can change you. 

 

9- Use compelling language. Use active and muscular verbs. Use concrete details about shape, color, weight, size. Avoid generalization and cliches. Engage the senses: sight, sound, smell, hearing, feeling, touch. Rewrite a scene from the past in the present tense. Rewrite a scene in the first person (for intimacy). Or third person (to create distance).

 

10-Consider hybrid forms to surprise and engage the reader. Select a literary structure for a scaffold. Some examples: Mixed media for a mosaic. Arrange scenes as pearls on a string. Present in straight chronological order. Or take time leaps. The memoirist can combine prose with various writing hybrids. Hybrid variations add interest to the prose. Some examples include: poems, a dated diary or journal entry, email, old letter, family photo.

 

 

Some Good Memoir Resources

 

Writers Block Party - Check out the CRAFT articles for great essays by authors and publishers: setting, arc, writing in first person.  https://writersblockpartyblog.com/category/craft/

 

How to Start Writing a Memoir: 10 Tips for Starting Your Memoir, Written by MasterClass, Last updated: Aug 30, 2021  https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-start-writing-a-memoir 

 

How to Write a Memoir: 7 Ways to Tell a Powerful Story by Brooke Warner | The Write Life, Sep 4, 2023. https://thewritelife.com/how-to-write-a-memoir/

 

What is a Narrative Arc? || Oregon State Guide to Literary Terms. https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/wlf/what-narrative-arc-oregon-state-guide-literary-terms

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The Ultimate-Three Act Structure Worksheet. AssetsGlobalWebsite.   https://assets-global.website-files.com/61a901161719c64106fde73b/62d98e37f06f990225a8e9b2_Dabble_Three_Act_Worksheet.pdf

 

 

May your writing in February & March 2024 prosper, memoir and otherwise!