Memoir – Writing

Types of Memoirs

• Childhood experiences
• Family experiences
• Travel essay
• Inspirational
• Educational
• Crime or injustices you have encountered

Essential Parts

Types of Structure: How the memoir is organized and related.

Chronological: A clear, logical, linear method of following the events.

• Told from beginning to end.
• Begin with the most significant moment, the inciting incident.
• Continue with the essential scenes to the end.

Semi–Chronological: Stories are told in a fragmented manner.

• Not specifically told in a linear method of the timeline.
• Sometimes the story is revealed as times goes according to the calendar.
• Tweak the story to make it more meaningful and interesting.
• Flashbacks or flashforwards may be used to move to other points in the story.

Episodic: A large piece may be made of smaller incidents or events.

• Each episode is a single chapter.
• Each episode must have a beginning, middle, and end with some kind of a climax.

Setting: Where and when the story takes place.

• There may be two, three, or more settings.
• Must be an important part in the story.
• Should add intensity, beauty, and memorable sensory moments to the story.
  • Consider weather, light and shadow, mood, time of season or of day.
  • Physical details add an emotional impact for the reader.
• Influences and affects character.
• Develops the plot of the story.
• Intersperse setting details with action and maybe dialogue.

Characters: The real-life people in the story.

• Reveal their motivation for wanting something.
  • Everyone does things for a reason, even it they don’t realize it.
• Reveal one or two details that suggest the essence of the character’s appearance
  • Show them in meaningful action.
  • Use details that suggest the character’s age.
  • Use “showing” more than “telling.”
    • Example: “Telling” – He is generous and confident.
    • Example: “Showing” – He threw a five-dollar bill down on the table for the cup of coffee, winked at the waitress, and left.
• As in novel writing, the character must grow to the end of the story.
  • Must show the difference between the character you once were and who you are now.
• Introducing new characters into the story
  • Use names if the character is already familiar to the reader.
  • Let the context show the character’s role.
    • Example of “don’t”: Don’t introduce your husband as “Steve, my husband.”

Dialogue: The conversations between the characters.

• Should move the story forward and not be just chit-chat.
  • Use cause and effect to reveal things and advance the story.
  • Characters should meaningfully discuss the main story tension.
• Consider the visuals that accompany what is said.
• Shows what the character thinks and believes happens.
• Types of Dialogue:
• Summary: Presents only a summary of the dialogue.
  • Used to tell the reader something without giving too many details.
    • Example: Sally told her mother she needed to skip the party that night.
• Indirect: Gives only a sense of words, phrases, and rhythms.
  • Does not tell what is said verbatim.
    • Example: Sally burst into the room. Mom swept her into a hug and tried to coax away her tears. She burbled about how her friends hated her.
• Direct: Reveals characters vividly.
  • Tells exactly what a character says.
    • Example: “Mom, I can’t go to school ever again,” Sally said on a sob.
• Combination: Summary, indirect and direct types are used together in the same passage.

Voice: The writer’s unique word choice, rhythm, and manner to reveal the story.

• Conversational Voice: Reveals the author’s personality, with a personal touch.
  • Don’t give a laundry list of facts, events, or descriptions.
  • Reveals the personality: cynical, witty, dry, passionate, emotional, opinionated.
  • Reveals how the author speaks: choppy, proper, poetic.
• Reflective Voice: Looks back on experiences from a distance with hindsight.
  • Used to make sense of the past experience.

Point of View: The character’s viewpoint to tell the story.

• Memoirs are told in first person singular with the author as the narrator, using “I.”

Theme: Memoirs are basically stories of survival of some experience.

• Convey what was learned from the experience: peace, resilience, empathy.
• Shown through key scenes, moments in time, and tension in the story.
• Survival examples: harsh childhood, cancer, alcoholism, divorce, death of a loved one, kidnapping, serious accident.