Writing a Memoir-What Matters Most

Here is what I've been working on, and what I've learned.

Photo by Karla Hernandez on Unsplash

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So, here’s what’s been going on. I’ve been working on a memoir. It feels like I’ve been working on it for a decade, because it’s been mostly in my head, with various bits and pieces strewn across my computer. What has stopped me? Quite frankly, the structure. I wasn’t sure how to structure it. It’s like a giant puzzle or Rubik’s Cube. But, I’ve finally, finally figured it out, and now I plan to get cracking on it this Spring and Summer, plus also write a proposal. Somebody please hold me accountable to this plan:)

What will it be about? A combination of my days working in publishing in the 90s and early aughts, my search for love (remember, I was the Dating Diva), and that indefinable underlying story behind the situation. That’s the other part I was having issues with.

I have to say speaking to all the memoirists I have spoken to for Freelance Writing Direct, such as Episode #81 with Maggie Smith, Episode #83 with Abigail Thomas, Episode #52 with Claire Dederer, Episode #39 with Kelly McMasters. Episode #38 with Cheryl Strayed, Episode #35 with Ann Hood, really put me on the right path, and I don’t think I would have found that path without speaking with these fabulous writers.

Also, my latest episode of Freelance Writing Direct Episode #87 with Joanna Rakoff, author of My Salinger Year (which was made into a movie starring Sigourney Weaver), covers Writing Memoir That Reads Like a Novel and Captivates on Every Page, which is another way I intend to approach it.

Speaking of memoir, I taught a micro memoir workshop for Writer’s Digest, and it was a fabulous experience with 133 attendees. Sign up for my newsletter to get notice of other events. And don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel, chock-full of advice from the episodes.

Many of my students have had success with essays, articles and micro memoir. Check out the news from with my latest student in The New York Times. Also, this is something I say often, and it bears repeating.

“My greatest compliment comes when students tell me it’s their voice on the page, but my voice in their heads.”

That’s always my goal as a writing teacher.

So, when it comes to memoir, here is some of the advice I’ve gleaned over the years. What works for memoir also works for writing compelling personal essays.

So, Back to Memoir

It seems everyone is writing their memoirs today. Whether you sell yours to a publisher or self-publish it, you might wonder what the difference is between writing your memoir or just your story? It’s in the focus. 

A memoir narrows down the focus to a particular span of time in a person’s life. An autobiography covers the whole life, often in chronological order. Writing life events in order would make a memoir boring. You might cover stories that happened earlier than the time frame you are focused on, but that is just to add context, it isn’t the crux of the story.

William Zinsser, author of On Writing Well, said,

“Memoir isn’t the summary of a life; it’s a window into a life, very much like a photograph in its selective composition. It may look like a casual and even random calling up of bygone events. It’s not; it’s a deliberate construction.”  

If you are ready to put your story down, you might want to know how to begin. 

A great way to start is to ask yourself what in your life has had the biggest transformative effect on you? 

Write that down. 

Then ask yourself why?

You might end up with a paragraph saying something like 

When I was twelve years old, my parents had to move us away from my childhood home, because my dad lost his job, and we were unable to make our mortgage payments. While both my parents went to work, the elderly neighbor down the street had me stay with her, and became my most trusted confidant. She was a Holocaust survivor and through her stories of survival, taught me about the value of family, empathy, and the importance of kindness in an often ugly world. Those lessons changed the way I approached my life, friendships and made me decide to become an educator.

Next, start figuring out the catalyzing events, the challenging moments you rose to, or fell down on. Keep writing those scenes, until you have an arc to your memoir. 

If you feel that your memory is failing you when writing down key events, try listing the items and events and dialogue and smells that you remember to anchor the story. 

For example, you can write: Trip to Paris in 2009: Walking down the Champs-Élysées, the smell of baguettes, kissing Jake by the Eiffel Tower, attaching “love locks” to the Pont des Arts bridge, our first fight after eating mussels, watching the perfect moonlit night reflected on the Seine River when Jake proposes to me with the same “love lock” we’d attached a few days earlier, plus a matching “key to his heart” just for me. 

You can also focus on a specific experience, time in your life or place when you write.  Sometimes, looking at photos can help elicit those lost memories, too.

Keep going with that list until you have enough material that you can write the scenarios. 

Now, once you start writing those scenarios (and I am trying for around 50 solid scenes to start — I may go up to 70 and definitely won’t be using all of them), something to remember, is to use specific details and description to paint a story for the reader.

G-d Is In The Details

Take a highlighter and go through your writing, after you write those scenes. Anything that seems to broad, highlight it. For example, if you say your partner was interesting, what does that mean? Does it mean he knew all the details of the Star Trek movies? Does it mean that he was an expert in psychology, which you’d always wanted to study yourself?See what I mean?

Don’t describe a brunch with friends as “bad”. Say that it didn’t work because it became a gossip fest, where you learned more than you ever wanted to know about your colleague’s preferred sexual positions. Now, that’s an interesting sentence, and it isn’t vague.

Doing this, and imagining as you write that you are not only offering specifics but also panning down on a movie, with a camera, noting not only the physical details that make the scene, as in “the white lace tablecloth was plunked down on the hand-carved oak wood table, giving a deceptive air of fragility to a honed and resilient surface, much like the way I liked to appear to men at first.”

Using sensory language can help bring your scenes to life. Without these bits of detail and description, the scenes are not as riveting, and don’t make the reader want to know more.

For example, I analyze the essay by Vishavjit Singh called “Captain America in a Turban” that appeared in Salon in my book Writing That Gets Noticed, along with several other essays.

Vishavjit writes:

“As I walked down the street, it was like dominoes. People slowed down to get my attention. Fans clustered around me. Parents edged their children next to me for a shot. I urged the kids to strike a super-hero pose. In front of the Metropolitan Museum, four well-built African American men surrounded me with big smiles, hands stretched out, fingers twirled with attitude and me sandwiched between them, striking a pose with my shield and a fist.”

As I said in Writing That Gets Noticed:

The detailed, vivid, metaphorical language paints a picture for the reader, bringing to life the mundane action of people posing for photos. I wrote more about the essay and this passage in the book.

But, imagine if he didn’t include specific details, like equating the crowd to dominoes, and parents edging their children next to him for a shot. Even specifying the Metropolitan Museum and showing how the men surrounded him using their outstretched hands to convey attitude, while he struck a particular post. That is what brings his sentences to life, and gets the reader wanting to know more.

Memoirist, Susan Cheever Home Before Dark perhaps said it best:

“I believe that the memoir is the novel of the 21st century; it’s an amazing form that we haven’t even begun to tap…we’re just getting started figuring out what the rules are.”

Whatever you want to write about, the most important thing to remember is to get your butt in the chair and start your writing journey. I’m going to try to take my own advice.

More News You Can Use

I recently attended the US Book Show, and will be doing an episode of the podcast on what I learned there. I like to help writers at all levels elevate their careers, like I did with my advice episode for a mid-level writer, here Episode #84 Live Coaching to Get Your Writing Noticed.

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