As an aspiring writer who wants to write a memoir – you should know about some common tips to tell your story, narrate a challenging time about your childhood, and whatever else it might be. As a human being, you are meant to share your story with others.
But before you jump into the writing process, you should know what the best memoirs of all time have in common.
Keep reading!
The Best Memoirs Are Character-Driven
The first thing you should know about the best memoirs is that nearly all of them are character-driven. Another crucial aspect to know about these memoirs is that they are primarily written in scenes. These two aspects are typically invisible to people who don’t really understand how books are put together.
Many aspiring writers think that they will write their story and that they will start at the beginning – not necessarily at the beginning of their life – but at the beginning of the period they want to share with their readers.
So, novice memoir writers think that they will start at the beginning and then tell their readers about what happened first and second, and third – simply put – they opt for a chronological order.
A chronicle is something that a writer might write for themselves – or write it for the people that know the writer. It is essential to mention that a chronicle differs from a memoir. Sometimes, a chronicle is essential – it is beneficial and valid.
Nonetheless, if you write a chronicle, your book is unlikely to find a publisher publishing books for a big audience as only very specific people will be interested in a chronicle.
Write a Memoir for the General Audience
You will want to write a memoir for the general audience, which is a memoir that your mom reads, your friends read, your sister reads, and everyone loves because those memoirs are amazing. Those are typically memoirs that are crafted like a novel.
The best memoirs aren’t written chronologically – they have many interjections and life discussions. There is a lot of understanding of the bigger picture that is going on – but – specifically, the primary thing that is the most important in the best memoirs is that they are character and scene-driven.
At this point, you might be wondering what we mean by character-driven. This aspect indicates that the readers will grow to love you as the protagonist of the memoir. As a writer, you cannot assume that the person reading the memoir will automatically be on your side, understand who you are, and want to side with you.
Make the Readers Love You as the Protagonist
As the writer of a memoir, you will want to integrate a variety of ways to make your readers grow to love you. For instance, you will want to stick to authenticity and not start your memoir by looking like a prince or princess. You will want to be honest and vulnerable and reveal who you are.
For some reason, we find it hard to connect with people who always portray themselves as perfect.
Sit back and think about all the old stories that you have read in the novels – you see that the perfect person usually gets their fair share of punishment at some point. The underlying reason is that none of us are perfect – we are all essentially flawed.
So, the thing that is at the core of the best memoirs is human flaws and shortcomings. While reading memoirs, we get the sense of revealing ourselves. Maybe a writer might talk about their cancer journey in their memoir – but – another thing that they will be doing is that they will be telling you a lot about who they are and were before that.
The best memoir writers show their readers through different yet very carefully tailored chosen scenes from their lives in which they were at the different stages of their journey. At the end of the day, you can always get help from the best memoir ghostwriters to get the story right – from the beginning to its end.
Show instead of Telling
When you are writing a memoir and attempting to share it with a wide audience, you need to show and not tell what happened – scene after scene. It is crucial to start with an outline when you are working on your memoir that you want your readers to read like a novel.
Your memoir needs to have elements of the hero’s journey in it. In your memoir, you will need to have the universal aspects of storytelling reflected in who you were before by showing your audience instead of telling them.
Instead of telling what happened and how you lived through those crucial happenings in your life, you will want to show your readers through descriptive scenes so they can relive those moments with you. Sure, you will be telling the story through words but in such a way that you will bring your readers into the story and give them details that you wouldn’t otherwise deem relevant.
If you look at it – it is those irrelevant details about who we are and about the scenes that we are walking through on this journey that bring the entire story to life in a way that makes the memoir page-turning.
This way, a memoir is a very different way of writing – you will want your readers on edge to the point where they cannot or do not want to put the book down.
Take your time while working on character development. You could use a mind map for this – or – you could journal a lot about who you are, what you care about, and what you did care about in the beginning before a specific thing occurred in your life that was the ultimate life-changer then.
Write down the things you were thinking about most of the time and what you were doing. What would your readers have been seeing you do if they were to follow you with a video camera around during that time of your life?
