Every one has a story to tell, experiences and memories to share. Even the life that seems most simple on the outside can be extraordinary from the perspective of the one living it. You don’t need dramatic or poignant events to make your life memoir interesting. As long as you have a unique outlook towards your life, you can articulate it into words that can rejoice and even inspire others. Not to mention the therapeutic impact that memoir writing can have on the person writing it, helping them process the issue or event in a better way.
Here is a short guide to get you started on writing a memoir for yourself.
- Decide What You Want to Write About
- Plan an Outline to Guide the Writing
- Get Down to the Actual Deed
- Evoke Imagination Through Your Writing
- Think About the Reader Too
- Edit and Refine Your Work
Your memoir is not your autobiography, it’s not supposed to chronicle your life from your birth up till now. Memoirs usually focus on a specific life event, occasion, or memory. If your life is a collection of various inter-woven threads, then your memoir is going to be about only some of those threads. Look into your life to pull out the threads that you’d like to share via memoir. Keep these threads as the memoir’s focal point and avoid deviations from them.
Once you’ve decided exactly what you want to write about in the memoir, do a little digging into your life to extract the memories and specific events that are directly relevant to it. Better make a list of all these memories and events so that when you sit down to write the memoir you don’t go off-track when talking about the nitty-gritty.
The memoir should be emotionally stirring, and you being the creator of the memoir, gets to decide the emotion it stirs. Prior to starting with the actual writing, do settle on the overall theme and emotion of the memoir.
It’s very important to have a well-planned outline ready that guides the complete memoir writing process. Your outline would include things like the total number of chapters or sections you’d like to keep in your memoir, what will each of the chapters be talking about, the length of each chapter, how will all the chapters be structured with respect to each other, and so on.
Having a memoir template can be super handy in this regard, especially if it is your first time with memoir writing.
Now that you have an overarching theme and basic outline ready, you are ready to initiate the memoir writing process. This is when you want to put all the prior planning into action. It can take you from a couple of weeks to several months to type out or write down all the words. Since this is obviously a time-intensive process, you’ll be tempted along the way to procrastinate, self-doubt, or even give up altogether. Don’t let these transitory thoughts make you lose your focus and determination.
Work out a writing schedule that works for you and that you know you can keep up with over a long period. Don’t obsess over things like grammatical accuracy. Remember that this is only your initial draft, you will need to come back to it for fine-tuning. Leave the fine-tuning for the later stages.
Think about it, you love reading the books with evocative writing, the ones that allow you to traverse right into the moment that the writer is talking about. Not only can you picture everything in the scene, but you can also act as a mute spectator in the scene’s backdrop. Bring this quality to your memoir writing too. Though you are to share your story in your memoir, avoid falling into the tendency of using only “telling” type of narrative. This can get a little monotonous for the reader to read.
Keep the language vivid by recalling and creatively using the little details from the event or the memory. Instead of making the memoir sound like a monologue, add a 2 or more person dialog in some places. Resist from adding unnecessary minutiae that don’t contribute much to the whole picture.
Memoir writing needs to be a selfless process; you can’t only think about what the writing does for you, you also need to consider what can your reader take away after the reading. As you share your closely guarded memories and incidents from life with the rest of the world, do it in a way that leaves an impact on the mind and heart of the reader. Provoke a thought, a lesson, a revelation, or a feeling through your memoir. Don’t let the reader leave empty-handed with nothing to show for after they’ve read your memoir. Give them something to ponder over or talk about with others over a cup of coffee.
This is the final step before you get to publish your memoir for the world to see. This is when you’re going to keep working on enhancing and polishing the first draft of your memoir till it reaches its best form. Ideally, you should take some time break between the writing and the editing of the memoir. The editing work requires you to look at the material with a fresh set of eyes. After your first draft is complete, leave it alone for some time.
When you’re ready, go ahead with the first round of proofreading and revising the memoir draft. See where you can condense the writing or where you can expound some more. Needless to say, there should be no room for any spelling or grammatical errors in the final version of the memoir. If you want, you can even ask a friend or a family member to have a look at your memoir and give suggestions for improvement. When you’re satisfied with the way your memoir looks, feels, and reads, go ahead with its publishing phase.
Believe in yourself that you have a story to tell and that there are people in the world who would be interested in reading your story. Let this belief fuel your memoir writing efforts. Have fun becoming the author of your life! And remember that this is only a start!
This article was in part inspired by following article by WriteWell:
