Basics of a Memoir
- Write in first person, because this is your story.
- Each memory piece of an event should build in conflict, tension, suspense, and provide a significance in the end.
- Each line and each element in every piece/scene should belong there because it has a purpose toward the overall meaning of the total memoir.
- Scenes should show how a character responds to challenges, conflicts, tension, and life.
- The ending part of a memoir should show how the character has changed by significant events, actions, decisions, and epiphanies.
Background Work
- Pre-plot ideas and scenes, using the universal form for story writing.
- Look for 10 to 20 significant moments of change in your life.
- These are “turning points” and tend to be the “big moments” that affected your life.
- Look for critical choices, influential people, conflicts, beliefs, lessons, and mistakes.
- Draw a long, horizontal line on a piece of paper to represent time.
- Mark your birth about one-fourth of the way along the line.
- Prior to that time, you might want to include events that occurred before then.
- Stories of family, parents, or grandparents.
- Divide the line into sections that represent decades, and chart the years of each decade.
- Locate your “turning points” along the timeline.
Writing a Single Scene/Memory Piece
- Each memory item should take place at a moment in time.
- Use sensual details: smell, sound, texture, description, color, and taste.
- Use “show” instead of “telling” as much as possible.
- Telling: He was generous and confident.
- Showing: He threw down a five-dollar bill for the cup of coffee, winked at the waitress, and left.
- When introducing someone new, use names of people as if they were already familiar to the reader.
- Example: Don’t introduce your husband as “Steve, my husband.”
- Let the context show the role.
Writing the Hook for the Full Memoir
- Without a “hook” to make the reader want to read the full project, it becomes a “so what?” project.
- The Hook shows the purpose for the memoir.
- Begin with an incident that is uncommon in its dramatic or humorous content.
- Even if the event is in the middle of your timeline.
- Begin with a major turning point and cycle back to explain how you got to that point.
Basics of Outlining the Full Memoir
- It usually is based on a three-act structure.
- Act 1 – The Beginning, about 25% of the full project.
- Sets the stage and has a hook to capture the reader’s interest.
- Act 2 – The Middle, about 50% of the project.
- Creates and builds to the drama, conflicts, problems, or life adjustments.
- Act 3 – The Ending, about 25% of the project.
- Has the logical resolutions to the drama, conflicts and problems.
- Should have a satisfying end, leaving the main character (you) with a new understanding.
- Act 1 – The Beginning, about 25% of the full project.
Timelines
Organize the memory events in a way that gives the reader a sense of one memoir building into the next one.
Life Chronologically: May use stories of family, parents, or grandparents prior to the author’s birth.
Birth
Life by Decades: Reveals significant experiences in each decade.
First life decade Second life decade Third life decade Fourth life decade, etc.
Life by Turning Points: Reveals life as determined and changed by changes encountered.
First turning point Second turning point Third turning point
Life by Relationships: Reveals life experiences with various people (friends or family).
Grandparent(s) Parent(s) Sibling 1 Sibling 2 Sibling 3 Cousin 1 Cousin 2