what does a memoir essay look like

How to Write a Memoir: Examples and a Step-by-Step Guide

Zining Mok  |  January 29, 2024  |  25 Comments

If you’ve thought about putting your life to the page, you may have wondered how to write a memoir. We start the road to writing a memoir when we realize that a story in our lives demands to be told. As Maya Angelou once wrote, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

How to write a memoir? At first glance, it looks easy enough—easier, in any case, than writing fiction. After all, there is no need to make up a story or characters, and the protagonist is none other than you.

Still, memoir writing carries its own unique challenges, as well as unique possibilities that only come from telling your own true story. Let’s dive into how to write a memoir by looking closely at the craft of memoir writing, starting with a key question: exactly what is a memoir?

How to Write a Memoir: Contents

What is a Memoir?

• Memoir vs Autobiography

Memoir Examples

Short memoir examples.

• How to Write a Memoir: A Step-by-Step Guide

A memoir is a branch of creative nonfiction , a genre defined by the writer Lee Gutkind as “true stories, well told.” The etymology of the word “memoir,” which comes to us from the French, tells us of the human urge to put experience to paper, to remember. Indeed, a memoir is “ something written to be kept in mind .”

A memoir is defined by Lee Gutkind as “true stories, well told.”

For a piece of writing to be called a memoir, it has to be:

• Nonfictional
• Based on the raw material of your life and your memories
• Written from your personal perspective

At this point, memoirs are beginning to sound an awful lot like autobiographies. However, a quick comparison of Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love , and The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin , for example, tells us that memoirs and autobiographies could not be more distinct.

Next, let’s look at the characteristics of a memoir and what sets memoirs and autobiographies apart. Discussing memoir vs. autobiography will not only reveal crucial insights into the process of writing a memoir, but also help us to refine our answer to the question, “What is a memoir?”

Memoir vs. Autobiography

While both use personal life as writing material, there are five key differences between memoir and autobiography:

1. Structure

Since autobiographies tell the comprehensive story of one’s life, they are more or less chronological. writing a memoir, however, involves carefully curating a list of personal experiences to serve a larger idea or story, such as grief, coming-of-age, and self-discovery. As such, memoirs do not have to unfold in chronological order.

While autobiographies attempt to provide a comprehensive account, memoirs focus only on specific periods in the writer’s life. The difference between autobiographies and memoirs can be likened to that between a CV and a one-page resume, which includes only select experiences.

The difference between autobiographies and memoirs can be likened to that between a CV and a one-page resume, which includes only select experiences.

Autobiographies prioritize events; memoirs prioritize the writer’s personal experience of those events. Experience includes not just the event you might have undergone, but also your feelings, thoughts, and reflections. Memoir’s insistence on experience allows the writer to go beyond the expectations of formal writing. This means that memoirists can also use fiction-writing techniques , such as scene-setting and dialogue , to capture their stories with flair.

4. Philosophy

Another key difference between the two genres stems from the autobiography’s emphasis on facts and the memoir’s reliance on memory. Due to memory’s unreliability, memoirs ask the reader to focus less on facts and more on emotional truth. In addition, memoir writers often work the fallibility of memory into the narrative itself by directly questioning the accuracy of their own memories.

Memoirs ask the reader to focus less on facts and more on emotional truth.

5. Audience

While readers pick up autobiographies to learn about prominent individuals, they read memoirs to experience a story built around specific themes . Memoirs, as such, tend to be more relatable, personal, and intimate. Really, what this means is that memoirs can be written by anybody!

Ready to be inspired yet? Let’s now turn to some memoir examples that have received widespread recognition and captured our imaginations!

If you’re looking to lose yourself in a book, the following memoir examples are great places to begin:

• The Year of Magical Thinking , which chronicles Joan Didion’s year of mourning her husband’s death, is certainly one of the most powerful books on grief. Written in two short months, Didion’s prose is urgent yet lucid, compelling from the first page to the last. A few years later, the writer would publish Blue Nights , another devastating account of grief, only this time she would be mourning her daughter.
• Patti Smith’s Just Kids is a classic coming-of-age memoir that follows the author’s move to New York and her romance and friendship with the artist Robert Maplethorpe. In its pages, Smith captures the energy of downtown New York in the late sixties and seventies effortlessly.
• When Breath Becomes Air begins when Paul Kalanithi, a young neurosurgeon, is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Exquisite and poignant, this memoir grapples with some of the most difficult human experiences, including fatherhood, mortality, and the search for meaning.
• A memoir of relationship abuse, Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House is candid and innovative in form. Machado writes about thorny and turbulent subjects with clarity, even wit. While intensely personal, In the Dream House is also one of most insightful pieces of cultural criticism.
• Twenty-five years after leaving for Canada, Michael Ondaatje returns to his native Sri Lanka to sort out his family’s past. The result is Running in the Family , the writer’s dazzling attempt to reconstruct fragments of experiences and family legends into a portrait of his parents’ and grandparents’ lives. (Importantly, Running in the Family was sold to readers as a fictional memoir; its explicit acknowledgement of fictionalization prevented it from encountering the kind of backlash that James Frey would receive for fabricating key facts in A Million Little Pieces , which he had sold as a memoir . )
• Of the many memoirs published in recent years, Tara Westover’s Educated is perhaps one of the most internationally-recognized. A story about the struggle for self-determination, Educated recounts the writer’s childhood in a survivalist family and her subsequent attempts to make a life for herself. All in all, powerful, thought-provoking, and near impossible to put down.

While book-length memoirs are engaging reads, the prospect of writing a whole book can be intimidating. Fortunately, there are plenty of short, essay-length memoir examples that are just as compelling.

While memoirists often write book-length works, you might also consider writing a memoir that’s essay-length. Here are some short memoir examples that tell complete, lived stories, in far fewer words:

• “ The Book of My Life ” offers a portrait of a professor that the writer, Aleksandar Hemon, once had as a child in communist Sarajevo. This memoir was collected into Hemon’s The Book of My Lives , a collection of essays about the writer’s personal history in wartime Yugoslavia and subsequent move to the US.
• “The first time I cheated on my husband, my mother had been dead for exactly one week.” So begins Cheryl Strayed’s “ The Love of My Life ,” an essay that the writer eventually expanded into the best-selling memoir, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail .
• In “ What We Hunger For ,” Roxane Gay weaves personal experience and a discussion of The Hunger Games into a powerful meditation on strength, trauma, and hope. “What We Hunger For” can also be found in Gay’s essay collection, Bad Feminist .
• A humorous memoir structured around David Sedaris and his family’s memories of pets, “ The Youth in Asia ” is ultimately a story about grief, mortality and loss. This essay is excerpted from the memoir Me Talk Pretty One Day , and a recorded version can be found here .

So far, we’ve 1) answered the question “What is a memoir?” 2) discussed differences between memoirs vs. autobiographies, 3) taken a closer look at book- and essay-length memoir examples. Next, we’ll turn the question of how to write a memoir.

How to Write a Memoir: A-Step-by-Step Guide

1. how to write a memoir: generate memoir ideas.

how to start a memoir? As with anything, starting is the hardest. If you’ve yet to decide what to write about, check out the “ I Remember ” writing prompt. Inspired by Joe Brainard’s memoir I Remember , this prompt is a great way to generate a list of memories. From there, choose one memory that feels the most emotionally charged and begin writing your memoir. It’s that simple! If you’re in need of more prompts, our Facebook group is also a great resource.

2. How to Write a Memoir: Begin drafting

My most effective advice is to resist the urge to start from “the beginning.” Instead, begin with the event that you can’t stop thinking about, or with the detail that, for some reason, just sticks. The key to drafting is gaining momentum . Beginning with an emotionally charged event or detail gives us the drive we need to start writing.

3. How to Write a Memoir: Aim for a “ shitty first draft ”

Now that you have momentum, maintain it. Attempting to perfect your language as you draft makes it difficult to maintain our impulses to write. It can also create self-doubt and writers’ block. Remember that most, if not all, writers, no matter how famous, write shitty first drafts.

Attempting to perfect your language as you draft makes it difficult to maintain our impulses to write.

4. How to Write a Memoir: Set your draft aside

Once you have a first draft, set it aside and fight the urge to read it for at least a week. Stephen King recommends sticking first drafts in your drawer for at least six weeks. This period allows writers to develop the critical distance we need to revise and edit the draft that we’ve worked so hard to write.

5. How to Write a Memoir: Reread your draft

While reading your draft, note what works and what doesn’t, then make a revision plan. While rereading, ask yourself:

• What’s underdeveloped, and what’s superfluous.
• Does the structure work?
• What story are you telling?

6. How to Write a Memoir: Revise your memoir and repeat steps 4 & 5 until satisfied

Every piece of good writing is the product of a series of rigorous revisions. Depending on what kind of writer you are and how you define a draft,” you may need three, seven, or perhaps even ten drafts. There’s no “magic number” of drafts to aim for, so trust your intuition. Many writers say that a story is never, truly done; there only comes a point when they’re finished with it. If you find yourself stuck in the revision process, get a fresh pair of eyes to look at your writing.

7. How to Write a Memoir: Edit, edit, edit!

Once you’re satisfied with the story, begin to edit the finer things (e.g. language, metaphor , and details). Clean up your word choice and omit needless words , and check to make sure you haven’t made any of these common writing mistakes . Be sure to also know the difference between revising and editing —you’ll be doing both. Then, once your memoir is ready, send it out !

Learn How to Write a Memoir at Writers.com

Writing a memoir for the first time can be intimidating. But, keep in mind that anyone can learn how to write a memoir. Trust the value of your own experiences: it’s not about the stories you tell, but how you tell them. Most importantly, don’t give up!

Anyone can learn how to write a memoir.

If you’re looking for additional feedback, as well as additional instruction on how to write a memoir, check out our schedule of nonfiction classes . Now, get started writing your memoir!

25 Comments

Thank you for this website. It’s very engaging. I have been writing a memoir for over three years, somewhat haphazardly, based on the first half of my life and its encounters with ignorance (religious restrictions, alcohol, and inability to reach out for help). Three cities were involved: Boston as a youngster growing up and going to college, then Washington DC and Chicago North Shore as a married woman with four children. I am satisfied with some chapters and not with others. Editing exposes repetition and hopefully discards boring excess. Reaching for something better is always worth the struggle. I am 90, continue to be a recital pianist, a portrait painter, and a writer. Hubby has been dead for nine years. Together we lept a few of life’s chasms and I still miss him. But so far, my occupations keep my brain working fairly well, especially since I don’t smoke or drink (for the past 50 years).

Hi Mary Ellen,

It sounds like a fantastic life for a memoir! Thank you for sharing, and best of luck finishing your book. Let us know when it’s published!

Best, The writers.com Team

Hello Mary Ellen,

I am contacting you because your last name (Lavelle) is my middle name!

Being interested in genealogy I have learned that this was my great grandfathers wife’s name (Mary Lavelle), and that her family emigrated here about 1850 from County Mayo, Ireland. That is also where my fathers family came from.

Is your family background similar?

Hope to hear back from you.

Richard Lavelle Bourke

Hi Mary Ellen: Have you finished your memoir yet? I just came across your post and am seriously impressed that you are still writing. I discovered it again at age 77 and don’t know what I would do with myself if I couldn’t write. All the best to you!! Sharon [email protected]

I am up to my eyeballs with a research project and report for a non-profit. And some paid research for an international organization. But as today is my 90th birthday, it is time to retire and write a memoir.

So I would like to join a list to keep track of future courses related to memoir / creative non-fiction writing.

Hi Frederick,

Happy birthday! And happy retirement as well. I’ve added your name and email to our reminder list for memoir courses–when we post one on our calendar, we’ll send you an email.

We’ll be posting more memoir courses in the near future, likely for the months of January and February 2022. We hope to see you in one!

Very interesting and informative, I am writing memoirs from my long often adventurous and well travelled life, have had one very short story published. Your advice on several topics will be extremely helpful. I write under my schoolboy nickname Barnaby Rudge.

[…] How to Write a Memoir: Examples and a Step-by-Step Guide […]

I am writing my memoir from my memory when I was 5 years old and now having left my birthplace I left after graduation as a doctor I moved to UK where I have been living. In between I have spent 1 year in Canada during my training year as paediatrician. I also spent nearly 2 years with British Army in the hospital as paediatrician in Germany. I moved back to UK to work as specialist paediatrician in a very busy general hospital outside London for the next 22 years. Then I retired from NHS in 2012. I worked another 5 years in Canada until 2018. I am fully retired now

I have the whole convoluted story of my loss and horrid aftermath in my head (and heart) but have no clue WHERE, in my story to begin. In the middle of the tragedy? What led up to it? Where my life is now, post-loss, and then write back and forth? Any suggestions?

My friend Laura who referred me to this site said “Start”! I say to you “Start”!

Hi Dee, that has been a challenge for me.i dont know where to start?

What was the most painful? Embarrassing? Delicious? Unexpected? Who helped you? Who hurt you? Pick one story and let that lead you to others.

I really enjoyed this writing about memoir. I ve just finished my own about my journey out of my city then out of my country to Egypt to study, Never Say Can’t, God Can Do It. Infact memoir writing helps to live the life you are writing about again and to appreciate good people you came across during the journey. Many thanks for sharing what memoir is about.

I am a survivor of gun violence, having witnessed my adult son being shot 13 times by police in 2014. I have struggled with writing my memoir because I have a grandson who was 18-months old at the time of the tragedy and was also present, as was his biological mother and other family members. We all struggle with PTSD because of this atrocity. My grandson’s biological mother was instrumental in what happened and I am struggling to write the story in such a way as to not cast blame – thus my dilemma in writing the memoir. My grandson was later adopted by a local family in an open adoption and is still a big part of my life. I have considered just writing it and waiting until my grandson is old enough to understand all the family dynamics that were involved. Any advice on how I might handle this challenge in writing would be much appreciated.

I decided to use a ghost writer, and I’m only part way in the process and it’s worth every penny!

Hi. I am 44 years old and have had a roller coaster life .. right as a young kid seeing his father struggle to financial hassles, facing legal battles at a young age and then health issues leading to a recent kidney transplant. I have been working on writing a memoir sharing my life story and titled it “A memoir of growth and gratitude” Is it a good idea to write a memoir and share my story with the world?

Thank you… this was very helpful. I’m writing about the troubling issues of my mental health, and how my life was seriously impacted by that. I am 68 years old.

[…] Writers.com: How to Write a Memoir […]

[…] Writers.com: “How to Write a Memoir” […]

I am so grateful that I found this site! I am inspired and encouraged to start my memoir because of the site’s content and the brave people that have posted in the comments.

Finding this site is going into my gratitude journey 🙂

We’re grateful you found us too, Nichol! 🙂

Firstly, I would like to thank you for all the info pertaining to memoirs. I believe am on the right track, am at the editing stage and really have to use an extra pair of eyes. I’m more motivated now to push it out and complete it. Thanks for the tips it was very helpful, I have a little more confidence it seeing the completion.

Well, I’m super excited to begin my memoir. It’s hard trying to rely on memories alone, but I’m going to give it a shot!

Thanks to everyone who posted comments, all of which have inspired me to get on it.

Best of luck to everyone! Jody V.

I was thrilled to find this material on How to Write A Memoir. When I briefly told someone about some of my past experiences and how I came to the United States in the company of my younger brother in a program with a curious name, I was encouraged by that person and others to write my life history.

Based on the name of that curious program through which our parents sent us to the United States so we could leave the place of our birth, and be away from potentially difficult situations in our country.

As I began to write my history I took as much time as possible to describe all the different steps that were taken. At this time – I have been working on this project for 5 years and am still moving ahead. The information I received through your material has further encouraged me to move along. I am very pleased to have found this important material. Thank you!

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Write a Great Memoir: How to Start (and Actually Finish) Your First Draft

by Joe Bunting | 1 comment

Free Book Planning Course!  Sign up for our 3-part book planning course and make your book writing easy . It expires soon, though, so don’t wait.  Sign up here before the deadline!

When I first started writing my memoir, Crowdsourcing Paris , about a real-life adventure I experienced with my wife and ten-month-old son, I thought it was going to be easy.

After all, by that point in my career, I had already written four books, two of which became bestsellers. I’ve got this, I thought. Simple.

It wasn’t. By the time Crowdsourcing Paris was published and became a #1 New Release on Amazon, it was more than five years later. During that time, I made just about every mistake, but I also learned a process that will reliably help anyone to start and finish writing a great memoir.

My memoir, Crowdsourcing Paris , as a #1 New Release on Amazon!

In this guide, I want to talk about how you can start writing your memoir, how you can actually finish it, and how you can make sure it’s good .

If you read this article from start to finish, it will save you hundreds of hours and result in a much better finished memoir.

Hot tip : Throughout this guide, I will be referencing my memoir Crowdsourcing Paris as an example. To get the most out of this guide and the memoir writing process in general, get a copy of the book to use as an example. Order your copy here »

But Wait! What Is a Memoir? (Memoir Definition)

How do you know if you're writing a memoir? Here's a quick memoir definition:

A memoir is a book length account or autobiography about a real life situation or event. It usually includes a pivotal experience in your life journey.

A key point to make is that memoir is a  true story . You don't have to get every piece of dialogue perfect, but you do have to try to tell the personal story or experience as best as you remember.

If you're looking to fictionalize your real life account you're writing a novel, not a memoir (and specifically a roman à clef novel ).

For more on the difference between a novel and a memoir, check out this coaching video:

How to Get Started With Your Memoir: 10 Steps Before You Start Writing

This guide is broken into sections: what to do before you start writing and how to write your first draft.

When most people decide to write a memoir, they just start writing. They write about the first life experience they can think of.

That’s sort of what I did too. I just started writing about my trip to Paris, beginning with how I first decided to go as a way to become a “real writer.” It turned out to be the biggest mistake I made.

If you want to finish your memoir, and even more, write a good memoir, just starting with the first memory you can think of will make things much harder for you.

Instead, get started with a memoir plan.

What’s a memoir plan? There are ten elements. Let’s break it down.

Get the memoir plan in a downloadable worksheet. Click to download your memoir plan »

1. Write Your Memoir Premise in One Sentence

The first part of a memoir plan is your premise. A premise is a one-sentence summary of your book idea.

You might be wondering, how can I summarize my entire life in a single sentence?

The answer is, you can’t. Memoir isn’t a full autobiography. It’s not meant to be a historical account of your entire life story. Instead, it should share one specific situation and what you learned from that situation.

Every memoir premise should contain three things:

• A Character. For your memoir, that character will always be you . For the purposes of your premise, though, it’s a good idea to practice thinking of yourself as the main character of your story. So describe yourself in third person and use one descriptive adjective, e.g. a cautious writer.
• A Situation. Memoirs are about a specific event, situation, or experience. For example, Marion Roach Smith’s bestselling memoir was about the discovery that her mother had Alzheimer’s, which at the time was a fairly unknown illness. My memoir, Crowdsourcing Paris , begins on the first day of my trip to Paris and ends on the day I left. You can’t write about everything, at least in this book. But you can write about one thing well, and save all the other ideas for the next book.
• A Lesson. What life lesson did you learn from this situation? How did your life change inexorably after going through this situation? Again, here you can’t write about everything you’ve ever learned. Choose ONE life lesson or emotional truth and focus on it.

Want to see how a premise actually looks? Here’s an example from my memoir Crowdsourcing Paris :

When a Cautious Writer is forced by his audience to do uncomfortable adventures in Paris he learns the best stories come when you get out of your comfort zone.

One thing to note: a premise is not a book description. My book description, which you can see here , is totally different from the premise. It’s more suspenseful and also less detailed in some ways. That’s because the purpose of a premise isn’t to sell books.

What is the premise of your memoir? Share it in the comments below!

2. Set a Deadline to Finish Your First Draft

Or if you’ve already finished a draft, set a deadline to finish your next draft.

This is crucial to do now , before you do anything else. Why? Because there are parts of the memoir plan that you can spend months, even years on. But while planning is helpful, it can easily become a distraction if you don’t get to the writing part of the process.

That’s why you want to put a time limit on your planning by setting a deadline.

How long should the deadline be?

Stephen King says you should write a first draft in no longer than a season. So ninety days.

In my 100 Day Book program, we’ve helped hundreds of memoir writers finish their book in just 100 days. To me, that’s a good amount of time to finish a first draft.

However, I wouldn’t take any longer than 100 days. Writing a book requires a level of focus that’s difficult to achieve over a long period of time. If you set your deadline for longer than 100 days, you might never finish.

Also set weekly milestones.

In addition to your final deadline, I recommend breaking up the writing process into weekly milestones.

If you’re going to write a 65,000-word memoir over 100 days, let’s say, then divide 65,000 by the number of weeks (about 14) to get your weekly word count goal: about 4,600 words per week.

That will give you a sense of how much progress you’re making each week, so you won’t be in a huge rush to finish right at the end of your deadline. After all, no one can pull an all-nighter and finish a book! Create a writing habit that will enable you to actually finish your book.

Keep track of your word count deadlines.

By the way, this is one reason I love Scrivener , my favorite book writing software , because it allows you to set a target deadline and word count. Then Scrivener automatically calculates how much you need to write every day to reach your deadline.

It’s a great way to keep track of your deadline and how much more you have to write. Check out my review of Scrivener to learn more.

3. Create Consequences to Make Quitting Hard

I’ve learned from experience that a deadline alone isn’t enough. You also have to give your deadline teeth .

Writing a book is hard. To make sure that you show up to the page and do the work you need to finish, you need to make it harder to not write.

How? By creating consequences.

I learned this from a friend of mine, writer and book marketing expert Tim Grahl .

“If you really want to finish your book,” he told me, “write a check for $1,000 to a charity you hate. Then give that check to a friend with instructions to send it if you don’t hit your deadline.”

“I don’t need to do that,” I told him. “I’m a pro. I have discipline.” But a month later, after I still hadn’t made any progress on my memoir, I finally decided to take his advice.

This was during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. So I wrote a $1,000 check to the presidential candidate that I most disliked (who shall remain nameless!), and gave it to a friend with instructions to send the check if I didn’t hit my final deadline.

I also created smaller consequences for the weekly deadlines, which I highly recommend. Here’s how it works:

Consequence #1 : Small consequence, preferably related to a guilty pleasure that might keep you from writing. For example, giving up a game on your phone or watching TV until you finish your book.

Consequence #2 : Giving up a guilty pleasure. For example, giving up ice cream, soda, or alcohol until you finish your book.

Consequence #3 : Send the $1,000 check to the charity you hate.

Each of these would happen if I missed three weekly deadlines. If I missed the final deadline, then just the $1,000 check would get sent.

After I put in each of these consequences, I was the most focused and productive I’ve ever been in my life. I finished my book in just nine weeks and never missed a deadline.

If you actually want to finish your memoir, give this process a try. I think you’ll be surprised by how well it works for you.

4. Decide What Kind of Story You’re Telling

Now that you’ve set your deadline, start thinking about what kind of book you’re writing. What is your story really about?

“Memoir is about something you know after something you’ve been through,” says Marion Roach Smith, author of The Memoir Project .

I think there are seven types of stories that most memoirs are about.

• Coming of Age. A story about a young person finding their place in the world. A great example is 7 Story Mountain  by Thomas Merton.
• Education. An education story , according to Kim Kessler and Story Grid, is about a naive character who, through the course of the story, comes to a bigger understanding of the world that gives meaning to their existing life. My memoir, Crowdsourcing Paris , is a great example of an education memoir.
• Love. A love story is about a romantic relationship, either the story of a breakup or of two characters coming together. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert is a great example of a love story memoir, as it tells the story of her divorce and then re-discovering herself and love as she travels the world.
• Adventure/Action. All adventure stories are about life and death situations. Also, most travel memoirs are adventure stories. Wild by Cheryl Strayed is a great example, and Crowdsourcing Paris is also an adventure story. (You can apply the principles from our How to Write Adventure guide here , too!)
• Performance. Performance memoirs are about a big competition or a competitive pursuit. Julie and Julia , Julie Powell’s memoir about cooking her way through Julia Child’s recipes, is a good example of a performance memoir. Outlaw Platoon , about the longest-serving Ranger platoon in Afghanistan, is another great performance story.
• Thriller. Memoirs about abuse or even an illness could fall into the crime, horror, or thriller arena. (Our full guide on How to Write a Thriller is here .)
• Society. What is wrong with society? And how can you rebel against the status quo? Society stories are very common as memoirs. I would also argue that most humor memoirs are society stories, since they talk about one person’s funny, transgressive view on society. Anything by David Sedaris, for example, is a society memoir.

For more on all of these genres, check out Story Grid’s article How to Use Story Grid to Write a Memoir .

Three Stories

Note that I included my memoir in two categories. That’s because most books, including memoirs, are actually a combination of three stories. You have:

• An external story. For example, Crowdsourcing Paris is an adventure story.
• An internal story . As I said, Crowdsourcing Paris is an education story.
• A subplot . Usually the subplot is another external story, in my case, a love story.

What three stories are you telling in your memoir?

5. Visualize Your Intention

One of the things that I’ve learned as I’ve coached hundreds of writers to finish their books is that if you visualize the following you are much more likely to follow through and accomplish your writing goals:

• Where you're going to write
• When you're going to write
• How much you're going to write

Here I want you to actively visualize yourself at your favorite writing spot accomplishing the word count goal that you set in step two.

For example, when I was writing Crowdsourcing Paris , I would imagine myself sitting at this one café that was eight doors down from my office. I liked it because it had a little bit of a French feel. Then I would imagine myself there from eight in the morning until about ten.

Finally, I would actively visualize myself watching the word count tracker go from 999 to 1,000 words, which was my goal every day. Just that process of imagining my intention was so helpful.

What is your intention? Where, when, and how much will you write? Imagine yourself actually sitting there in the place you’re going to write your memoir.

6. Who Will Be On Your Team?

No one can write a book alone. I learned this the hard way, and the result was that it took me five years to finish my memoir.

For every other book that I had written, I had other people holding me accountable. Without my team, I know that I would never have written those books. But when I tried to write my memoir, I thought, I can do this on my own. I don’t need accountability, encouragement, and support. I’ve got this.

To figure out who you need to help you finish your memoir, create three different lists of people:

• Other writers. These are people who you can process, with who know the process of writing a book. Some will be a little bit ahead of you, so that when you get stuck, they can encourage you and say, “I’ve been there. You’re going to get through it. Keep working.”
• Readers. Or if you don’t have readers, friends and family. These will be the people who give you feedback on your finished book before it’s published, e.g. beta readers.
• Professional editors. But you also need professional feedback. I recommend listing two different editors here, a content editor to give feedback on the book as a whole (for example, I recommend a Write Practice Certified Coach), and a proofreader or line editor to help polish the final draft. (Having professional editing software is smart too. We like ProWritingAid. Check out our ProWritingAid review .)

Just remember: it takes a team to finish a book. Don’t try to do it on your own.

And if you don’t have relationships with other writers who can be on your team, check out The Write Practice Pro. This is the community I post my writing in to get feedback. Many of my best writing friends came directly from this community. You can learn more about The Write Practice Pro here .

7. What Other Books Will Inspire You?

“Books are made from books,” said Cormac McCarthy. Great writers learn how to write great books by reading other great books, and so should you.

I recommend finding three to five other memoirs that can inspire you during the writing process.

I recommend two criteria for the books you choose:

• Commercially successful. If you want your book to be commercially successful, choose other books that have done well in the marketplace.
• Similar story type. Try to find books that are the same story type that you learned in step four.

For my memoir, I had four main sources of inspiration.

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert; The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain; A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway; and Midnight in Paris , the film by Woody Allen.

I referred back to these sources all the time. For example, when I was stuck on the climactic scene in the memoir, I watched one scene in A Midnight in Paris twenty times until I could quote the dialogue. I still didn’t come up with the solution until the next day, but understanding how other writers solved the problems I was facing helped me figure out my own solutions for my story.

8. Who Is Your Reader Avatar?

Who is your book going to be for? Or who is the one person you’ll think of when you write your book? When the writing gets hard and you want to quit, who will be most disappointed if you never finish your book?

I learned this idea from J.R.R. Tolkien, who wrote his novel The Hobbit for his three boys as a bedtime story. Every day he would work on his pages, and every night he would go home and read them to his sons. And this gave him an amazing way to get feedback. He knew whether they laughed at one part or got bored at another.

This helped him make his story better, but I also imagine it gave him a tremendous amount of motivation.

This Can Be You, Sort Of

I don’t think your reader avatar should be you. When it comes to your own writing, you are the least objective person.

There’s one caveat: you can be your own reader avatar IF you’re writing to a version of yourself at a different time. For example, I have friends who have imagined they were writing to a younger version of themselves.

Who will you write your memoir for?

9. Publishing and Marketing

How will you publish your book? Will you go the traditional route or will you self-publish? Who is your target market (check your reader avatar for help)? What will you do to promote and market your book? Do you have an author website ?

It might be strange to start planning for the publishing and marketing of your book before you ever start writing it, but what I’ve discovered is that when you think through the entire writing process, from the initial idea all the way through the publishing and marketing process, you are much more likely to finish your book.

In fact, in my 100 Day Book program, I found that people who finished this planning process were 52 percent more likely to finish their book.

Spend some time thinking about your publishing and marketing plans. Just thinking about it will help you when you start writing.

Start Building Your Audience Before You Need It

In the current publishing climate, most memoir agents and publishers want you to have some kind of relationship with an audience before they will consider your book.

Start building an audience before you need it. The first step to building an audience, and the first step to publishing in general, is building an author website. If you don’t have a website yet, you can find our full author website guide here .

(Building a website doesn’t have to be intimidating or time-consuming if you have the right guide.)

10. Outline Your Memoir

The final step of the planning process is your memoir outline . This could be the subject of a whole article itself. Here, I’ve learned so much from Story Grid, but if you don’t have time to read the book and listen to over 100 podcast episodes, here’s a quick and dirty process for you.

But First, for the Pantsers

There are two types of writers: the plotters and the pansters . Plotters like to outline. Pantsers think outlining crushes their creative freedom and hate it.

If you identify with the pantsers, that’s okay. Don’t worry too much about this step. I would still recommend writing something in this section of your memoir plan, even if you only know a few moments that will happen in the book, even recording a series of events might help as you plan.

And for you plotters, outline to your heart’s content, as long as you’ve already set your deadline!

Outlining Tips

When you’re ready to start outlining, here are a few tips:

• Begin by writing down all the big moments in your life that line up with your premise. Your premise is the foundation of your story. Anything outside of that premise should be cut.
• S eparate your life events into three acts. One of the most common story structures in writing is the three-act story structure. Act 1 should contain about 25 percent of your story, Act 2 about 50 percent of your story, and Act 3 about 25 percent.
• Act 1 should begin as late into the story as possible. In Crowdsourcing Paris , like most travel memoirs, I began the story the day I arrived in Paris.
• Use flashbacks, but carefully. Since I began Crowdsourcing Paris so late into the action, I used flashbacks to provide some details about what happened to lead up to the trip. Flashbacks can be overused, though, so only include full scenes and don’t info dump with flashbacks.
• Start big. The first scene in your book should be a good representation of what your book is about. So if you’re writing an adventure story (see Step 4), then you should have a life or death moment as the first scene. If you’re writing a love story, you should have a moment of love or love lost.
• End Act 1 with a decision. It is you, and specifically your decisions , that drive the action of your memoir. So what important decision did you make that will drive us into Act 2?
• Start Act 2 with your subplot. In Step 4, I said most books are made up of three stories. Your subplot is an important part of your book, and in most great stories, your subplot begins in Act 2.
• Act 2 begins with a period of “fun and games.” Save the Cat , one of my favorite books for writers, says that after the tension you built with the big decision in Act 1, the first few scenes in Act 2 should be fun and feel good, with things going relatively well for the protagonist.
• Center your second act on the “all is lost” moment. Great stories are about a character who comes to the end of him or herself. The all is lost moment is my favorite to write, because it’s where the character (in this case you ) has the most opportunity to grow. What is YOUR “all is lost” moment?
• Act 3 contains your final climactic moment. For Crowdsourcing Paris , this was the moment when I thought I was going to die. In a love story memoir, it might be when you finally work things out and commit to your partner.
• Act 3 is also where you show the big lesson of the memoir. Emphasis on show. Back in Step 1, you identified the lesson of your memoir. Act 3 is when you finally demonstrate what you’ve learned throughout the memoir in one major event.
• A tip for the final scene: end your memoir with the subplot. This gives a sense of completion to your story and works as a great final moment.

Use the tips above to create a rough outline of your memoir. Keep in mind, when you start writing, things might completely change. That’s okay! The point with your plan isn’t to be perfect. It’s to think through your story from beginning to end so that you’ll be prepared when you get to that point in the writing process.

Want to make this process as easy as possible? Get the memoir plan in a downloadable worksheet. Click to download your memoir plan »

That’s the end of the planning stage of this guide. Now let’s talk about how to write your first draft.

How to Write the First Draft of Your Memoir

If you’ve followed the steps above to create a memoir plan, you’ve done the important work. Writing a memoir, like writing any book, is hard. But it will actually be harder to not be successful if you’ve followed all the steps in the memoir plan.

But once you’ve created the “perfect” plan, it’s time to do the dirty work of writing a first draft.

In part two of our guide, you’ll learn how to write and finish a first draft.

1. Forget Perfection and Write Badly.

First drafts are messy. In fact, Anne Lamott calls them “shitty first drafts” because they are almost always terrible.

Even though I know that, though, any time I’m working on a new writing project, I still get it into my head that my first draft should be a masterpiece.

It usually takes me staring at a blank screen for a few hours before I admit defeat and just start writing.

If you’re reading this, don’t do that! Instead, start by writing badly.

Besides, when you’ve done the hard planning work, what you write will probably be a lot better than you think.

2. Willpower Doesn’t Work. Neither Does Inspiration. Instead, Use the “3 Minute Timer Trick.”

My biggest mistake when I began Crowdsourcing Paris was to think I had the willpower I needed as a professional writer and author of four books to finish the book on my own. Even worse, I thought I would be so inspired that the book would basically write itself.

I didn’t. It took not making much progress on my book for more than a year to realize I needed help.

The best thing you can do to help you focus on the writing process for your second draft is what we talked about in Step 4: Creating a Consequence.

But if you still need help, try my “3 Minute Timer Trick.” Here’s how it works:

• Set a timer for three minutes. Why three minutes? Because for me, I’m so distractible I can’t focus for more than three minutes. I think anyone can focus for three minutes though, even me.
• Write as fast as you can. Don’t think, just write!
• When the timer ends, write down your total word count in a separate document (see image below). Then subtract from the previous word count to calculate how many words you wrote during that session.
• Also write down any distractions during those three minutes. Did the phone ring? Did you have a tough urge to scroll through Facebook or play a game on your phone? Write it down.
• Then, repeat the process by starting the timer again. Can you beat your word count?

This process is surprisingly helpful, especially when you don’t feel like writing. After all, you might not have it in you to write for an hour, but anyone can write for three minutes.

And the amazing thing is that once you’ve started, you might find it much easier to keep going.

Other Tools for Writers

By the way, if you’re looking for the tools I use and other pro writers I know use, check out our Best Tools for Creative Writers guide here .

3. Make Your Weekly Deadlines.

You can’t finish your book in an all-nighter. That being said, you can finish a chapter of your book in an all-nighter.

That’s why it’s so important to have the weekly deadlines we talked about in Part 1, Step 2 of this guide.

By breaking up the writing process into a series of weekly deadlines, you give yourself an achievable framework to finish your book. And with the consequences you set in Step 3 of your memoir plan, you give your deadlines the teeth they need to hold you accountable.

And as I mentioned above, Scrivener is especially helpful for keeping track of deadlines (among other things). If you haven’t yet, check out my review of Scrivener here .

4. Keep Your Team Updated.

Having a hard time? It’s normal. Talk to your team about it.

It seems like when you’re writing a book, everything in the universe conspires against you. You get into a car accident, you get sick, you get into a massive fight with your spouse or family member, you get assigned a new project at your day job.

Writing a book would be hard enough on its own, but when you have the rest of your life to deal with, it can become almost impossible.

Without your team, which we talked about in Step 6 of your book plan, it would be.

For me, I would never have been able to finish one book, let alone the twelve that I’ve now finished, without the support, encouragement, and accountability of the other writers whom I call friends, the readers who believe in me, and most of all, my wife.

Remember: No book is finished alone. When things get hard, talk about it with your team.

And if you need a team, consider joining mine. The Write Practice Pro is a supportive encouraging community of writers and editors. It’s where I get feedback on my writing, and you can get it here too. Learn more about the community here.

5. Finally, Trust the Process.

When I walk writers through the first draft writing process, inevitably, around day sixty, they start to lose faith.

• They think their book is the all-time worst book ever written.
• They get a new idea they want to work on instead.
• They decide the dream to write a book and become a writer was foolish.
• They want to quit.

A few do quit at this point.

But the ones who keep going discover that in just a few weeks they’ve figured out most of the problems in their book, they’re on their last pages, and they’re almost finished.

It happens every time, even to me.

If you take nothing else from this post, please hear this: keep going. Never quit. If you follow this process from start to finish, you’re going to make it, and it’s going to be awesome.

I’m so excited for you.

How to Finish Your Memoir

More than half of this guide is about the planning process. That’s because if you start well, you’ll finish well.

If you create the right plan, then all that’s left is doing the hard, messy work of writing.

Without the right plan, it’s SO easy to get lost along the way.

That’s why I hope you’ll download my Memoir Plan Worksheet. Getting lost in the writing process is inevitable. This plan will become your map when it happens. Click to download the Memoir Plan Worksheet.

More than anything, though, I hope you’ll never quit. It took me five years to write Crowdsourcing Paris , but during that time I matured and grew so much as a writer and a person, all because I didn’t quit.

Even if it takes you five years, the life lessons you’ll learn as you write your book will be worth it.

And if you’re interested in a real-life adventure story set in Paris, I’d be honored if you’d read Crowdsourcing Paris . I think you’ll love it.

Good luck and happy writing.

More Writing Resources:

• How to Write a Memoir Outline: 7 Essential Steps For Your Memoir Outline
• 7 Steps to a Powerful Memoir
• The Memoir Project by Marion Roach Smith
• Crowdsourcing Paris by J.H. Bunting

Are you going to commit to writing a memoir (and never quitting, no matter what)? Let me know in the comments .

Summarize your memoir idea in the form of a one-sentence premise. Make sure it contains all three elements:

• A character
• A situation

Take fifteen minutes to craft your premise. When you’re finished, share your memoir premise in the Pro Practice Workshop for feedback. And if you share, please be sure to give feedback to three other writers. Not a member? Join us .

Joe Bunting

Joe Bunting is an author and the leader of The Write Practice community. He is also the author of the new book Crowdsourcing Paris , a real life adventure story set in France. It was a #1 New Release on Amazon. Follow him on Instagram (@jhbunting).

Want best-seller coaching? Book Joe here.

Work with Joe Bunting?

WSJ Bestselling author, founder of The Write Practice, and book coach with 14+ years experience. Joe Bunting specializes in working with Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, How To, Literary Fiction, Memoir, Mystery, Nonfiction, Science Fiction, and Self Help books. Sound like a good fit for you?

One of my book chapters has been accepted for publication, but I lack confidence in the accuracy of what I have written. I have completed the chapter, but I would appreciate your assistance in improving its quality.

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

• 3 Rules to Write World-Changing Memoir - The Write Practice - […] Here are my three “rules” about how to write a memoir: […]
• 4 Essentials for Writing Memoir That Resonates With Readers - The Write Practice - […] How do you write memoir and tell a story that is compelling to you, but might not be to…
• 19 Tips on Writing Memoir from The Memoir Project by Marion Roach Smith - The Write Practice - […] Marion Roach Smith has solid advice on how to write your own stories. Let me share nineteen tips on…
• The One Secret to a Deeper Memoir - The Write Practice - […] if you’re wondering how to write a memoir, what if you interviewed people–friends, family, community members–about the events on…
• How to Unlock the Power of the Present Tense in Memoir - The Write Practice - […] Writing memoir in the present tense suits grief in ways that the past tense simply cannot provide. […]
• Read Memoirs to Understand Character Motivation - […] about you? Do you want to know how to write a memoir? Check out our complete guide, Write a…
• How to Satisfy Your Reader With a Great Ending - The Write Practice - […] you’re figuring out how to write a memoir or a novel, creating an ending that is satisfying for the…
• How to Write About Your Family… Without Getting Disowned - […] this it true, through writing my own memoir, I have come to find that we can handle these situations…
• Write a Great Memoir: How to Start (and Actually Finish) Your First Draft – Books, Literature & Writing - […] “When you’re getting started writing a memoir, don’t just start writing about the first thing you remember.Tweet thisTweet […]
• 10 Memoir Writing Prompts to Get You Started - […] to take the next step and learn how to write a memoir? Check out my complete guide, Write a…
• How to Write a Short Memoir Story : The Write Practice - […] Then, when you’re ready to write a full memoir, check out our complete guide, Write a Great Memoir: How…

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How to Write a Memoir Essay

October 12, 2023

What is a Memoir Essay?

A memoir essay is a form of autobiographical writing that focuses on a specific aspect of the author’s life. Unlike a traditional autobiography, which typically covers the author’s entire life, a memoir essay hones in on a particular event, time period, or theme. It is a deeply personal and reflective piece that allows the writer to delve into their memories, thoughts, and emotions surrounding their chosen subject.

In a memoir essay, the author aims to not only recount the events that took place but also provide insight into the impact and meaning of those experiences. It is a unique opportunity for self-discovery and exploration, while also offering readers a glimpse into the author’s world. The beauty of a memoir essay lies in its ability to weave together personal anecdotes, vivid descriptions, and introspective reflections to create a compelling narrative.

Writing a memoir essay can be both challenging and rewarding. It requires careful selection of memories, thoughtful introspection, and skillful storytelling. The process allows the writer to make sense of their past, gain a deeper understanding of themselves, and share their unique story with others.

Choosing a Topic for Your Memoir Essay

Selecting the right topic is crucial to write a good memoir essay. It sets the foundation for what you will explore and reveal in your personal narrative. When choosing a topic, it’s essential to reflect on your significant life experiences and consider what stories or themes hold the most meaning for you.

One approach is to think about moments or events that have had a profound impact on your life. Consider times of triumph or adversity, moments of exploration or self-discovery, relationships that have shaped you, or challenges you have overcome. These experiences can provide a rich foundation for your memoir essay.

Another option is to focus on a specific theme or aspect of your life. You might explore topics such as identity, family dynamics, cultural heritage, career milestones, or personal beliefs. By centering your essay around a theme, you can weave together various memories and reflections to create a cohesive narrative.

It’s also important to consider your target audience. Who do you want to connect with through your memoir essay? Understanding your audience’s interests and experiences can help you choose a topic that will resonate with them.

Ultimately, the topic should be one that excites you and allows for introspection and self-discovery. Choose a topic that ignites your passion and offers a story worth sharing.

Possible Memoir Essay Topics

• Childhood Memories
• Family Dynamics
• Life-altering Events
• Overcoming Societal Expectations
• Love and Loss
• Self-discovery and Transformation
• Lessons from Nature
• Journey from Darkness to Light
• Triumphing Over Adversities
• Life’s Defining Moments

Outlining the Structure of Your Memoir Essay

Writing a memoir essay allows you to share your personal experiences, reflections, and insights with others. However, before you start pouring your thoughts onto the page, it’s essential to outline the structure of your essay. This not only provides a clear roadmap for your writing but also helps you maintain a cohesive and engaging narrative.

First, consider the opening. Begin with a captivating introduction that hooks the reader and establishes the theme or central message of your memoir. This is your chance to grab their attention and set the tone for the rest of the essay.

Next, move on to the body paragraphs. Divide your essay into sections that chronologically or thematically explore different aspects of your life or experiences. Use vivid descriptions, anecdotes, and dialogue to bring your memories to life. It’s crucial to maintain a logical flow and transition smoothly between different ideas or events.

As you approach the conclusion, summarize the key points you’ve discussed and reflect on the significance of your experiences. What lessons have you learned? How have you grown or changed as a result? Wrap up your memoir essay by leaving the reader with a memorable takeaway or a thought-provoking question.

Remember, the structure of your memoir essay should support your storytelling and allow for a genuine and authentic exploration of your experiences. By outlining your essay’s structure, you’ll have a solid foundation to create a compelling and impactful memoir that resonates with your readers.

How to Write an Introduction for Your Memoir Essay

The introduction of your memoir essay sets the stage for your story and captivates your readers from the very beginning. It is your opportunity to grab their attention, establish the tone, and introduce the central theme of your memoir.

To create a compelling introduction, consider starting with a hook that intrigues your readers. This can be a surprising fact, a thought-provoking question, or a vivid description that immediately draws them in. Your goal is to make them curious and interested in what you have to say.

Next, provide a brief overview of what your memoir essay will explore. Give your readers a glimpse into the key experiences or aspects of your life that you will be sharing. However, avoid giving away too much detail. Leave room for anticipation and curiosity to keep them engaged.

Additionally, consider how you want to establish the tone of your memoir. Will it be reflective, humorous, or nostalgic? Choose your words and phrasing carefully to convey the right emotions and set the right atmosphere for your story.

Finally, end your introduction with a clear and concise thesis statement. This statement should express the central theme or message that your memoir will convey. It serves as a roadmap for your essay and guides your readers in understanding the purpose and significance of your memoir.

By crafting a strong and captivating introduction for your memoir essay, you will draw readers in and make them eager to dive into the rich and personal journey that awaits them.

Write the Main Body of Your Memoir Essay

When developing the main body of your memoir essay, it’s essential to structure your thoughts and experiences in a clear and engaging manner. Here are some tips to help you effectively organize and develop the main body of your essay:

• Chronological Structure: Consider organizing your memoir essay in chronological order, following the sequence of events as they occurred in your life. This allows for a natural flow and a clear timeline that helps readers understand your personal journey.
• Thematic Structure: Alternatively, you can focus on specific themes or lessons that emerged from your experiences. This approach allows for a more focused exploration of different aspects of your life, even if they did not occur in a linear order.
• Use Vivid Details: Use sensory details, descriptive language, and engaging storytelling techniques to bring your memories to life. Transport your readers to the settings, evoke emotions, and create a vivid picture of the events and people in your life.
• Show, Don’t Tell: Instead of simply stating facts, show your readers the experiences through engaging storytelling. Use dialogue, scenes, and anecdotes to make your memoir more dynamic and immersive.
• Reflections and Insights: Share your reflections on the events and experiences in your memoir. Offer deeper insights, lessons learned, and personal growth that came from these moments. Invite readers to reflect on their own lives and connect with your journey.

By organizing your main body in a logical and engaging manner, using vivid details, and offering thoughtful reflections, you can write a compelling memoir essay that captivates your readers and leaves a lasting impact.

Reflecting on Lessons Learned in Your Memoir Essay

One of the powerful aspects of a memoir essay is the opportunity to reflect on the lessons learned from your personal experiences. These reflections provide deeper insights and meaning to your story, leaving a lasting impact on your readers. Here are some tips for effectively reflecting on lessons learned in your memoir essay:

• Summarize Key Points: In the conclusion of your essay, summarize the key events and experiences you have shared throughout your memoir. Briefly remind readers of the significant moments that shaped your journey.
• Identify Core Themes: Reflect on the core themes and messages that emerged from your experiences. What did you learn about resilience, love, identity, or perseverance? Identify the overarching lessons that you want to convey.
• Offer Personal Insights: Share your personal insights and reflections on how these lessons have influenced your life. Were there specific turning points or moments of epiphany? How have these experiences shaped your beliefs, values, or actions?
• Connect to the Reader: Make your reflections relatable to your readers. Explore how the lessons you learned can resonate with their own lives and experiences. This allows them to connect with your story on a deeper level.
• Offer a Call to Action: Encourage readers to reflect on their own lives and consider how the lessons from your memoir can apply to their own journeys. Pose thought-provoking questions or suggest actions they can take to apply these insights.

By reflecting on the lessons learned in your memoir essay, you give your readers a chance to contemplate their own lives and find inspiration in your personal growth. These reflections add depth and impact to your storytelling, making your memoir essay truly memorable.

Crafting a Strong Conclusion for Your Memoir Essay

The conclusion of your memoir essay is your final opportunity to leave a lasting impression on your readers. It is where you tie together the threads of your story and offer a sense of closure and reflection. Here are some tips to help you craft a strong conclusion for your memoir essay:

• Summarize the Journey: Remind your readers of the key moments and experiences you shared throughout your essay. Briefly summarize the significant events and emotions that shaped your personal journey.
• Revisit the Central Theme: Reiterate the central theme or message of your memoir. Emphasize the lessons learned, personal growth, or insights gained from your experiences. This helps reinforce the purpose and impact of your story.
• Reflect on Transformation: Reflect on how you have transformed as a result of the events and experiences you shared. Share the growth, self-discovery, or newfound perspectives that have shaped your life.
• Leave a Lasting Impression: Use powerful and evocative language to leave a lasting impact on your readers. Craft a memorable phrase or thought that lingers in their minds even after they finish reading your essay.
• Offer a Call to Action or Reflection: Encourage your readers to take action or reflect on their own lives. Pose thought-provoking questions, suggest further exploration, or challenge them to apply the lessons from your memoir to their own experiences.

By crafting a strong conclusion, you ensure that your memoir essay resonates with your readers long after they have finished reading it. It leaves them with a sense of closure, inspiration, and a deeper understanding of the transformative power of personal storytelling.

Editing and Proofreading Your Memoir Essay

Editing and proofreading are crucial steps in the writing process that can greatly enhance the quality and impact of your memoir essay. Here are some tips to help you effectively edit and proofread your work:

• Take a Break: After completing your initial draft, take a break before starting the editing process. This allows you to approach your essay with fresh eyes and a clear mind.
• Review for Structure and Flow: Read through your essay to ensure it has a logical structure and flows smoothly. Check that your paragraphs and sections transition seamlessly, guiding readers through your story.
• Trim and Refine: Eliminate any unnecessary or repetitive information. Trim down long sentences and paragraphs to make your writing concise and impactful. Consider the pacing and ensure that each word contributes to the overall story.
• Check for Clarity and Consistency: Ensure that your ideas and thoughts are expressed clearly. Identify any confusing or vague passages and revise them to improve clarity. Check for consistency in tense, tone, and voice throughout your essay.
• Proofread for Errors: Carefully proofread your essay for spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. Pay attention to common mistakes such as subject-verb agreement, verb tenses, and punctuation marks. Consider using spell-checking tools or having someone else review your work for an objective perspective.
• Seek Feedback: Share your memoir essay with a trusted friend, family member, or writing partner. Their feedback can provide valuable insights and help you identify areas for improvement.

By dedicating time to edit and proofread your memoir essay, you ensure that it is polished, coherent, and error-free. These final touches enhance the reader’s experience and allow your story to shine.

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Everything You Need to Know About Writing a Memoir

Table of contents, introduction, what types of memoirs are there, preparing to write a memoir, how to choose a theme for your memoir, how to create a memoir outline, publishing your memoir.

Today I’m talking about a captivating, life-changing, beautiful story. Yours . 

It’s a story about the most meaningful parts of your life. The people you’ve met along the way, who each gave you something extraordinary. The life lessons you could only learn through experience. A tale of love and loss, time and place, luck and opportunity. 

It’s a story only you can tell. And yes, you  should tell it.

A well-written memoir can have blockbuster-worthy plot lines, yet it’s so much more than a paperback by the pool. Real-life experience—life, family, trauma, loss, love—are powerful and profound when shared firsthand with others. 

The art of storytelling has been a proven tool throughout human history, one that can be just as powerful for the storyteller as it is for all who listen. It’s practically hard-coded in our DNA.

You’re reading this article, which means there is a fairly good chance you have a personal story that aches to be released. Your first step in writing a memoir is to understand and own your motivations for doing so. If financial gain is at the top of your list, I’d encourage you to discover a stronger driving force. Money is a mercurial muse. Even if you don’t make a dime, writing your memoir could be a deeply rewarding experience—one that may rival the actual story itself. (More on this in a bit.)

Writing your memoir will also be a process, and—if I’m honest—a sometimes painful one. After over 20 years of working with authors, I’ve walked through memoir-writing with the most well-intentioned writers. I’ve witnessed them flying through a manuscript, alight with memory. I’ve watched them take themselves by surprise as writing their story reveals new insight into who they really are and who they’ve become.

I’ve also seen them run headlong into writer’s block as they struggle with too many words, feelings, and outside opinions. I’ve seen them come up empty at the end of their stories because they’ve chased the wrong plotline. I’ve seen them get in their own way, rush the process, and make unfortunate technical mistakes that erase their life’s work with a press of a button or a crash of a server.

And that’s why I’m writing this article. To walk you through the most critical steps of bringing your story to life, from figuring out where to start to finding someone to help you publish (those of you who are further along in this process are welcome to jump ahead). 

After you settle into your true motivations, the next step is to get absolutely clear about what you want to achieve with your story. 

Will it be a personal processing tool for you? Are you hoping to translate your experiences into words of wisdom for others? Are you looking to account for every single detail of your life? (That’s a whole other story—more on that below.)

The Teaching Memoir

Some life lessons leave a legacy. Whether it’s a cautionary tale or an invitation to live life to the fullest, a teaching memoir story weaves in wisdom while challenging and equipping readers to overcome their own obstacles. These books are a type of “ practical nonfiction ” and are some of my favorites. There is something special about empowering your readers to find answers, healing, and even peace—and knowing your life experiences will help them. It’s like you were born to do it.

The Personal Memoir

While some may argue that every story is a teaching experience, if your deepest desire is to focus on retelling your journey during a specific period, a sequence of events, or an overarching theme of your life, you’re writing a personal memoir. Personal memoirs are a powerful invitation to readers to join you on your adventure and experience your unique perspective. You’re simply (read: not always easily!) recounting your experiences as vibrantly as you lived them—to entertain your readers, to move and inspire them, and to honor the life you’ve had.

They may still learn something—but that lesson is theirs, not yours.

The Difference Between a Memoir and an Autobiography

Capturing every detail of your life from birth through the present might be your passion project—but that makes it an autobiography, not a memoir. An autobiography is a biographical summary of your entire life written by the only person with all the intimate details (psst…that’s you). While occasionally anecdotal, this long-spanning story is more fact and detail-driven, preserving your legacy for generations to come.  

On the other hand, a memoir gives a snapshot in time and describes the transformative, meaningful, sometimes amusing experiences of your life—or a larger life theme that was supported by specific, aligned events. 

Knowing the difference between an autobiography and a memoir is important at this stage—and can save you tons of time in the writing and editing process. 

What Do the Best Memoirs Have in Common?

I believe all memoirs give us a gift in their own way—which is why I always recommend that aspiring memoir writers read a ton of them! The more you expose yourself to the nuances of personal narrative, the more you can sharpen your storytelling skills and bring your memoir to life.

You’ll find, as I say in the video below, that all great memoirs have a few important things in common—from the techniques used in the writing process to the writing “tricks”  harnessed to engage the reader.

Are you ready to write your transformational story? Find out here.

With your motivations and memoir type solidified, it’s time to get your writing tools together. More than just a notebook or a laptop, real writers (and yes, that’s you!) know there’s hard work ahead. 

The better you prepare and train yourself for this process, the easier—and more satisfying!—it will be. In this section, I’ll show you how to remove common obstacles and build confidence in your writing.

Your Emotional Toolbox

• Make sure you are ready. Of course, “ready” can mean different things to different writers, but the process to get there is often the same. Ask yourself several questions ( these three are my favorite ) to make sure you’ve equipped yourself for what will happen as you translate the story in your mind into an experience the world can read. Are you ready to be honest? Exposed? Criticized? Recognized? Knowing where you stand is one thing. Keeping your feet on solid ground is another. Memoir writing is a story of its own. It often can’t be rushed, but it can be coaxed along.
• Deepen your “Why” If you skipped the intro to this article, you missed one of the most important parts of the memoir-writing experience—your motivations. Your “why” is what gives you a voice to all that you’ve experienced. It’s the driving force that breaks through writer’s block and the energy that keeps you at your laptop into the wee morning hours. Perhaps you are journeying toward your own healing , and your memoir is a part of that process. Understanding how writing can help you heal —and help others find healing through your words—will give you firm footing as you put pen to paper. Maybe you are writing your memoir to become a famous author. Perhaps you are a local celebrity looking to expand your reach. You’ll learn as my clients have that going from local to national sensation requires certain qualities that go beyond your story. Is your story born to be a bestseller? Are you ready to be known for it?
• Move past common road bumps As with anything worth doing, writing a memoir will come with challenges . From fears that go beyond the opinions and feelings of others to failing memories of exactly how it happened, every memoir writer experiences some of the same hurdles. The good news? There are ways around them. Here are 3 road bumps you’ll most likely encounter—and what to do when you hit them .  
• What will your mother think? “Fear of mom” is a real thing. Hurting those we love by telling how they shaped (and even hurt) us is a reality—and often a (permanent) setback for many authors. You can work through this. If your motivations, heart, and goals are in the right place, your hesitation doesn’t have to halt your memoir momentum. Learn how to tell your story (even if your mom won’t like it ) .

Your Technical Toolbox

• Make a back-up Nothing sucks the air out of a room like the desperate gasp of an author who lost a manuscript. The time spent pouring out your best deserves a failsafe—even (and especially) if you use a cloud service. This video will walk you through how to back up your manuscript with confidence. For my skimmers and “step-skippers” out there, don’t gloss over this one. Get your backup in place at the very beginning. This goes for all of your research, pictures, videos, and prompts, too.
• Scrivener Scrivener is the go-to app for writers that takes you from rough draft to final copy. From cork boards and organization tools to the ability to work a section at a time or to view your entire masterpiece, Scrivener provides everything you need for a strong start and even stronger finish. (Find out what I love about Scrivener here .)
• Recommended books For those of you fact-finders who really like to research a project before you dive in, I get it. It’s overwhelming to write your life’s story, especially if you don’t feel like you understand all the moving parts. I’ve pulled together a list of five books to get you started . You don’t have to read all of them, but if you want more information on how to begin, I encourage you to pick one and crack it open as soon as possible.

30-Minute Writing Exercises

• Journaling If you want to be really good at something, you have to work at it—and writing is an art that benefits from repeated attempts, prompts, and practice. These powerful journaling ideas will help you become more comfortable—and more effective—at bringing the deepest, darkest, or most meaningful parts of your story to light. If you want to write a compelling memoir, you have to give yourself the gift and space of vulnerability. It’s in this precious space where honest “aha” moments happen and your inner narrative can open up. Journaling provides you a safe place to practice the words that best describe what you are truly trying to say.
• 100 Moments Exercise One of my favorite writing prompts, the 100 Moments Exercise, is a powerful way to gain insight into your life’s moments and plot twists. Download it here and get started—not just with the prompt, but with your entire memoir. (It’s that motivating!).
• Writing Your Life Story Exercise In the video below, I walk you through one exercise I recommend to everyone thinking about writing their memoir. Note: This video is about 12 minutes long, but the exercise should take you about a half hour. I promise you won’t regret it. Selecting the scenes for your memoir is one of the most important elements of writing an effective story. 

A theme is a transformative thread that weaves your story together and what allows your readers to connect more deeply with your words and themselves. The stronger and clearer the theme, the more satisfying your memoir will be to write—and read.

As frustrating as it can be for the writer, these transformative themes don’t always make themselves known from the beginning. Sometimes we’re just too close to the details to see the big picture taking shape. 

Get step-by-step tips on finding and choosing a theme.

Taking a step back—and a few steps above—the narrative process is a great way to catch a glimpse of your meaningful moments from a different perspective. You’ve already done this naturally as a part of your evolution and growth as a human—haven’t you seen commonalities, trends, and answers that are so much clearer in hindsight? 

Your goal in uncovering or weaving a  theme is to help your readers make those connections without working so hard to find them. 

Download this FREE 30-minute theme exercise to give your memoir greater purpose, strength, and meaning.  I recommend taking the time to do this work before you sit down to write your story. It will ensure that your memoir is not “just a story”, but an inspirational window into a better life lived.

In addition, here’s an exercise I often recommend to my authors who are struggling to rally their words around a universal theme.

• List your best life stories. I find it’s best if you write each down on a 3×5 card.
• Add what you think is the theme (or themes) for each story. How did you arrive from Point A to Point B?
• Identify how each story relates to the others. Do they share a common character? Feeling? Lesson?
• Look for repeating themes. Often the theme is the path our life journey has taken. How have the stories you’ve chosen moved you along that path?

You’ve got your “why”, your tools, and your theme—now it’s time to get organized. I always advise my authors to begin with a memoir outline. While it can be tempting for many authors to just “jump in,” this is a recipe for disappointment. Your story deserves a structure.

Many aspiring authors writing a memoir tend to jump right from journaling to storytelling, only to find that a bulk of their words ends up on the editing room floor. Do yourself, your readers, and your editor a favor and start with a plan. You may find, as so many successful writers have, that building an outline is almost as rewarding as writing itself—it’s where your theme takes shape, and it can allow you to deepen the impact with a thoughtful, purposeful approach.  

When it comes to writing a memoir, all details are not equal. Take off your sandals and walk your story in someone else’s shoes. What’s it like from your reader’s perspective? What details do they care most about? What elements and events keep the pages turning?

Basics of an outline

In my experience, if an author doesn’t start with a developed outline, the story will include too many details that slow it down. Keep readers engaged by setting the scenes and building the groundwork for your story’s most pivotal moments. 

Use these secrets of building a memoir outline , and you’ll get the big picture view at the beginning of the writing process. This will allow you to make the hard story cuts before you fall in love with words you used to write them. It will also save you time, energy, and that tell-tale heartache that comes from letting those loose ends go.

Never-fail book outline templates

Writing a best-selling memoir—or even just a gratifying personal story—requires a strong narrative arc and story structure. It cannot be “wung.”  Download three classic book outlines here.

So how do you go about writing a  good outline ? The best advice I can give you is this.

• Write your memoir in “scenes.” Let us as readers into the narrative by giving us an important visual context.
• Invite us in. Bring your readers into the experience by making it easy for them to imagine themselves as you.
• Don’t get tied to time. You don’t have to stick to chronological order. Flashbacks happen—even in real life. An outline can help you determine what order is the most meaningful—how your story unfolds can be different from the order in which it occurred. Learn more secrets here .

Another quick tip I recommend to my clients is using screenwriting techniques, as they are easy to learn (there are a TON out there), and they’ve really honed the craft. Books I like that will help you with this are Story by Robert McKee, The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler, and Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder.

The last consideration as you write your memoir is the question of whether you want to self-publish or seek traditional publishing. There are benefits and drawbacks to both routes—and one may be more available to you than others, depending on your story, your motivations, and your investment comfort in the process.  

What Types of Memoirs Do Traditional Publishers Want?

Three types of memoirs are particularly desirable for bigger publishing houses.

The Celebrity Memoir

Traditional publishers love a celebrity memoir. Why? Because readers love a celebrity memoir. Celebrity sells. When Gabrielle Union sold We’re Going to Need More Wine , people bought it up. 

If you’re a celebrity, the first thing I want to say is thank you for reading this blog! If you’re not (and that’s more likely the case—at least for now!), it’s probably best to explore another category.

The Train Crash Memoir

The triumph or “train crash” memoir tells an almost unbelievable story. Authors of these stories have lived through tragic, devastating, or fantastic circumstances. They transport a reader into experiences they will most likely never know firsthand, all the while relating the narrative to the more universal needs, desires, and challenges most of us face. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah is my favorite example of this type. 

Novel Memoir

Big house publishing firms are also interested in picking up novel memoirs, stories that read like fiction but are grounded and vetted in real-life stories. These memoirs are exceptionally well-written and are often the products of writers who have taken decades to hone the craft of captivating and almost carnal storytelling. A personal favorite of mine is Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott.

Self-Publishing Your Memoir

If your story doesn’t fall into one of those clear categories for traditional publishing, you still have several ways to share your story with the public. Self-publishing is a fantastic option that offers new and established authors benefits that are rarely offered as a part of a bigger book deal.

• You own your intellectual property.
• You keep all profit.
• You maintain control of all aspects and direction of your story.
• No rejection letters in the mail, deadline stress, or lengthy print process.

With the above said, self-publishing does have associated upfront investments. Professional editing, formatting, designing, proofreading, and marketing come at a cost (around $10k, on average). To pinch pennies here may cost you big—do it all on your own, and you may miss an opportunity (or a mistake) that could change the entire outcome of your efforts.

So, are you ready to write your transformational story ?

You don’t have to answer that with an exclamation point just yet. I’ll be excited if you are more ready—or more certain of your decision—than when you first started reading. Whether or not you use all of my suggested resources or make it to publishing, I want to encourage you to keep writing. Memoirs are one of the best gifts you can give yourself—if others benefit, all the better. Let your writing, your journals, and your ever-growing arsenal of experiences keep reminding you how much life, people, places and events have to offer, teach, and inspire us. 

Live it up. Feel it deep. And write it down.

13 thoughts on “Everything You Need to Know About Writing a Memoir”

Hi Kelly ! Thank you so much for your help and encouragement. I was not happy having to write my memoir following an outline but you were right : it is more readable and clear now.

Kind regards, T. Diane Nguyen

Diane, sometimes the things that are the hardest to do end up being the best to have done!

Wow, Kelly! This is the most comprehensive compilation of everything any aspiring author would want to know about writing a memoir. I love having a single source with so many links for additional information with more detailed aspects. I am writing my first narrative memoir and I am almost halfway through. I read your book before I started, which helped tremendously and yet, I learned even more helpful tips from exploring everything you included in this post. I am ordering the books you recommended next and I’ll be sure to leave a 5 star review on Amazon for your book while I’m there! Thanks again for sharing your wisdom!

Thank YOU for your kind words, and we are so glad to hear that it was helpful. Enjoy the books you ordered (I certainly will appreciate your review too!) and keep me posted on your progress.

Thank You for this information and very important subject How To. You are absolutely Brilliant.

I am so Blessed to receive your emails and your professional help, experience, and encouragement.

Carolyn, you are so welcome!

Thank you for sharing your detailed advice on how to start a Memoir!! I am 62 years old and have lived a life that some people may wonder and want to learn from!! I was born December 6, 1958 to an 18 year old girl and a 34 year old father……. my mother decided to break up with my father, Tom when I was 2 years young….. My sister, Carla was born a year before they broke up!! My mother found out my father was married. She only knew he was a soldier in the U.S. Navy…….

Julia, thanks for sharing, and I am glad you found this helpful. You might also want to check out the kn literary YouTube channel, as there is a lot of information about memoir-writing there as well.

Hi Georgiana!

So glad to hear that you enjoyed this week’s post. That’s a great idea! I will make sure to pass your idea along to the team.

Loved this very well-written <3. Self-help books need to be thought through, and you need to learn a couple of things to come up with a meaningful one. Let this article The Golden Rules of Writing a Self-Help Book help you know the golden rules for writing a self-help book that can change your readers’ lives for the better.

This post was truly worthwhile to read. I wanted to say thank you for the key points you have pointed out as they are enlightening. Check this out –> The Keys to Writing a Powerful Memoir

This post was truly worthwhile to read. I wanted to say thank you for the key points you have pointed out as they are enlightening.

Check this out Going … Going … Thank you so much

I completely agree with what you have written. I hope this post could reach more people as this was truly an interesting post.

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What Is a Memoir? Definition & 15+ Examples

Ever wondered how your life would read if it were a book? Welcome to the world of memoirs, the literary realm where life imitates art and personal tales echo universal truths.

Unraveling the threads of human experience, memoirs invite us into the intimate corners of a person’s world, offering a lens into their most transformative moments. They’re not just about recounting facts but about painting vibrant pictures of the human journey.

Buckle up for an exploration of memoirs and the remarkable ways they thread together the individual and the universal, the specific and the profound.

Table of Contents

Defining Memoir

A memoir is a form of creative nonfiction that enables an author to tell their personal story or share experiences in an artful and engaging manner. Generally derived from the French word “mémoire” (meaning memory or reminiscence), memoirs differ from autobiographies in that they focus on specific events or periods of the author’s life instead of presenting an extensive, chronological account.

Memoirs are highly subjective, allowing writers to examine their own lives through the lens of personal experiences and emotions. This leads to a more intimate portrayal of their stories, potentially resonating with readers on a deeper level.

Typically, memoirs tackle themes of identity , relationships , growth , and change , often borrowing stylistic elements from fiction.

Memoir vs. Autobiography vs. Biography

When you’re exploring the world of personal writing, it’s essential to understand the distinctions between memoir, autobiography, and biography. Each type of writing delves into a person’s life but with different approaches and intentions.

A memoir focuses on a specific aspect or time period in the author’s life, offering a personal and emotional glimpse into their experiences. As a memoir writer, you will share your unique perspective, allowing your readers to connect and empathize with your journey. Memoirs tend to be more emotional and reflective than autobiographies and biographies.

An autobiography is a comprehensive account of the author’s entire life, written by the subject themselves. As an autobiography writer, your task is to provide a factual and chronological account of your life, from birth to the present or at a specific point in time.

Unlike memoirs and biographies, autobiographies emphasize the personal perspective of the subject, offering a unique firsthand account of their life story.

A biography is a detailed account of another person’s life written by someone other than the subject. When writing a biography, your focus is on researching and presenting the facts of your subject’s life, often using sources like interviews, letters, and archives.

As a biographer, you aim to create an accurate, engaging, and informative representation of your subject’s life story. Biographies tend to be less personal and emotional than memoirs and autobiographies, focusing mainly on facts and events.

To summarize:

History of Memoir

Memoir, as a form of writing, has a long and varied history. It allows you to delve into the thoughts, experiences, and emotions of the writer, offering an intimate perspective on their life and the events that shaped them.

One of the earliest known memoirs is Julius Caesar’s “Commentaries on the Gallic War,” written in 50 BCE . As a politician and general, Caesar documented his military campaigns, giving insight into the strategies and decisions that led to his conquests. This work set a precedent for future memoirists, who would also detail their exploits in politics, war, and other arenas.

In the 19th century , the genre evolved to focus more on individual experiences and self-reflection. Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden” (1854) is a notable example, as it chronicles his two-year experiment in simple living in a cabin near Walden Pond. Thoreau’s exploration of his connection with nature and society is a testament to the power of memoir in revealing one’s innermost thoughts and motivations.

The 20th century brought even more diversity to the genre with the likes of Ernest Hemingway’s “A Moveable Feast” (1964), a posthumous collection of the author’s memories of his time among the expatriate community in 1920s Paris.

Tripping on the intersecting lives of fellow writers such as Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein , the memoir paints a vivid picture of the Jazz Age’s artistic milieu.

Another influential work from this period is George Orwell’s “Homage to Catalonia” (1938), which documents his experiences fighting on the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War. The combination of Orwell’s journalistic skills and personal involvement in the conflict results in a gripping account that highlights the complexities of a divided Spain and the ideological struggles that defined the 1930s.

As you can discern, memoirs offer unique insights into the lives of extraordinary individuals. By reading these diverse accounts, you gain a deeper understanding of the world’s rich tapestry of experiences, which has shaped the course of human history.

Functions of Memoir

Memoir is a reflection of personal history.

A memoir allows you to share your life experiences and memories. In doing so, you reflect on your personal history and the events that have shaped who you are today. This process of reflection can lead to a greater understanding and appreciation of your past and your role in it, as well as the lessons learned and wisdom gained.

Memoir Has Therapeutic Effects

Writing a memoir often has therapeutic effects on the author. It can serve as a means for processing painful or unresolved experiences, allowing you to gain new insights and perspectives on your life. Through this process, you may find a sense of healing and personal growth that you may not have achieved otherwise.

Memoir Educates

A memoir can educate readers about different times, cultures, and ways of life. By sharing your personal experiences and memories, you can provide a unique window into a world that others may not have had the opportunity to experience themselves. Your memoir can engage readers in a way that traditional education methods may not, making your story an invaluable learning resource.

Memoir Inspires

Your memoir can inspire others to persevere and overcome challenges in their own lives. By sharing your resilience, determination, and growth, you may help readers find the strength and motivation to face their struggles and pursue their dreams. Your life experiences may also inspire others to take action, change their perspectives, or pursue new opportunities.

Memoir Preserves Legacy

Writing a memoir is a way to preserve your legacy and ensure your story lives on for future generations. Through your memoir, you can pass down your experiences, values, and beliefs, allowing readers to learn from your life and appreciate the inheritance of wisdom and knowledge you have provided.

Memoir Encourages Dialogue

By sharing your memoir, you invite readers into an open dialogue about the shared human experience. This dialogue can foster understanding, stimulate discussion, and promote introspection among readers, encouraging them to engage in meaningful conversations about their own lives and experiences.

Memoir Cultivates Empathy

Reading a memoir exposes you to the thoughts, feelings, and emotions of the author. By delving into someone else’s life, you develop a better understanding of their experiences and an increased ability to empathize with others. This heightened empathy can lead you to connect more deeply with those around you, fostering a sense of compassion and humanity.

Memoir Reveals Truth

Memoir writing often reveals personal truths and realities that may have remained hidden or misunderstood. By sharing your story, you expose your vulnerabilities, triumphs, and fears, inviting readers to embrace your authentic self.

Through the process of writing and sharing your memoir, you allow others to gain insights into your life and discover the genuine experiences that lie beneath the surface.

Characteristics of Memoir

Memoir is personal.

A memoir is a personal account of your life experiences and memories. It allows you to delve into your own history, exploring the events, emotions, and characters that have shaped your journey. These memories can be vividly detailed, giving readers a sense of intimacy and connection with your story.

Memoir Is Reflective

In a memoir, you not only recount your memories but also reflect on their meaning. This involves examining your beliefs, emotions, and reactions and considering how your experiences have shaped your character and choices.

Reflective writing helps readers understand the significance of your memoir, providing depth and insight into your life.

Memoir Is Truthful

Honesty is an essential aspect of a memoir. Your goal is to convey the truth of your experiences, thoughts, and feelings, not to create a fictional story. While memories may be imperfect, strive to be as accurate and genuine as possible. This transparency lends credibility to your memoir and deepens the reader’s connection with your story.

Memoir Is Focused

A memoir should have a clear, focused theme or central idea. This could be a particular phase of your life, a significant relationship, or a life-changing event. By concentrating on a specific aspect of your life, you can create a cohesive narrative that engages and informs readers.

Memoir Has a Narrative Arc

While a memoir is based on your memories and experiences, it should still follow a narrative structure. A narrative arc includes a beginning , middle , and end , with a clear progression of events, conflicts, and resolutions. This helps to propel your story forward, keeping readers invested in your journey.

Memoir Is Detailed

To create a vivid and captivating memoir, include specific sensory details that evoke memories and emotions. Consider sights, smells, sounds, tastes, and textures when recounting your experiences. These details not only paint a rich, immersive picture but also make your story more relatable and memorable for readers.

Memoir Is Evocative

A successful memoir elicits reactions and emotions from the reader, creating a deep connection to your story. Use vivid language and authentic emotions to convey the essence of your experiences, allowing readers to feel what you felt and empathize with your journey.

Memoir Offers Insight

As you recount your experiences, consider the lessons you’ve learned and the insights you’ve gained. By sharing your unique perspective and personal revelations, you offer readers a valuable window into your world, encouraging them to reflect on their own lives and experiences.

Memoir Is Immersive

Your memoir should draw readers into your world, allowing them to experience your life as you lived it. Provide context for your memories, such as historical or cultural backdrop, so that readers better understand your experiences. By fully immersing your readers in your world, your memoir becomes a more enriching and engaging experience.

Memoir Is Transformative

A powerful memoir not only recounts your memories and emotions but also illustrates your growth and transformation. Address the impact of your experiences and the ways in which they have shaped your beliefs, values, or identity. This journey of personal growth resonates with readers, making your memoir a transformative reading experience.

Elements of Memoir

Personal perspective.

In a memoir, you share your personal experiences and perspectives. This form of writing allows you to delve into your memories and connect with your readers on a deeper level. You need to be open about your thoughts, feelings, and perceptions in order to create an engaging and authentic story.

Narrative Structure

Your memoir should have a clear narrative structure with a beginning , middle , and end . This will help your readers follow your story and understand the progression of your experiences. Use chronological order, or experiment with non-linear timelines, flashbacks, or parallel storylines to add depth to your narrative.

Reflection and Insight

Reflection is key in a memoir. You should examine the meaning behind your experiences and the lessons you learned from them. By exploring your memories, you can gain insight into your past and present self. This process of self-discovery can be enlightening for both you and your readers.

A memoir requires honesty and transparency. Be open about your feelings, thoughts, and actions, even if it makes you vulnerable. By being truthful, you will create a strong connection with your readers and allow them to empathize with your experiences.

Vivid Details

In your writing, include vivid details to capture the essence of your experiences. Use descriptive language to paint a clear picture of the events and settings of your story. By doing this, you will allow your readers to immerse themselves in your world fully.

Dialogue plays a crucial role in bringing your memoir to life. Use authentic conversations to enhance your narrative and reveal aspects of your relationships with other characters. Ensure that your dialogue sounds natural and reflects the emotions and personalities of the characters involved.

A strong theme can give your memoir a sense of purpose and direction. Identify the central theme or overarching message you want to convey through your story. This could be related to personal growth, relationships, overcoming adversity, or other aspects of your life.

Character Development

Your characters should be well-developed and multidimensional. Show the complexities of their personalities, emotions, and motivations. Focus on both their strengths and weaknesses, and demonstrate how they evolved over time. Remember to treat yourself as a character as well, and display your growth throughout the memoir.

Set the stage for your narrative by describing the settings in which your experiences took place. Provide clear, detailed descriptions that help your readers visualize the locations and understand their importance in your story.

Conflict drives any compelling narrative, and your memoir should be no exception. Address the conflicts you faced, whether they were internal or external. Show how you confronted these challenges, and illustrate the impact they had on your life.

Structure of Memoir

Introduction.

When writing a memoir, you should start with an engaging introduction that sets the stage for your narrative and draws readers in. Use descriptive language and vivid imagery to establish the setting, characters, and context.

In the exposition, provide background information about your life, including key moments and characters. This helps readers understand your story and connects them to your experiences. Organize your exposition around themes or milestones to maintain a consistent narrative.

Inciting Incident

Identify the inciting incident — the event or situation that prompts you to tell your story. This event should hook the reader’s interest and set your memoir in motion, revealing the purpose behind your narrative.

Rising Action

During the rising action, build tension and drama by recounting events that lead up to the climax. Develop your characters and their relationships, share memorable anecdotes, and explore the emotional impact of these experiences on your life.

Reach the climax, or turning point, in your memoir. This moment should be emotionally charged, presenting a conflict or challenge that you must overcome. The climax is a critical part of the narrative, as it demonstrates personal growth and transformation.

Falling Action

Detail the events that follow the climax in the falling action. Show the consequences of your choices and explore how you grapple with the aftermath of the climax. This section should begin to wrap up your narrative while illustrating the lessons learned.

In the resolution, wrap up the main storyline and resolve any lingering conflicts or questions. Reflect on the journey you’ve shared, and explain how your experiences have shaped the person you are today.

Take time to reflect on the impact of your memoir and the lessons you’ve learned. Delve into your feelings and thoughts, and share how your life has changed as a result of your experiences.

Epilogue (optional)

An optional epilogue can be included to provide an update on your life or the lives of the characters in your memoir. It offers a sense of closure and allows readers to see how your story continues to unfold.

Themes of Memoir

Coming of age.

In this memoir theme, you write about your transformation from childhood to adulthood, focusing on pivotal moments that shaped your character and beliefs. You can explore various experiences, friendships, and learnings that helped you grow into the person you are today.

The theme of identity allows you to delve deep into your personal history, exploring how your cultural, ethnic, or religious background has shaped your life. This theme often tackles your struggles and milestones, as well as your acceptance and pride regarding your unique identity.

Survival-themed memoirs explore stories of resilience, whether in the face of adversity, trauma, or challenges. You can share your experiences of overcoming obstacles and the lessons learned through perseverance and determination.

Healing and Recovery

Memoirs with a healing and recovery theme display a journey toward inner peace and overcoming struggles with physical or emotional challenges. You can delve into your experiences navigating the healing process with honesty and vulnerability.

Love and Relationships

This theme focuses on the different relationships that have played a significant role in your life. You can write about romantic encounters, friendships, and family bonds you’ve shared over the years, along with the triumphs and tribulations that come with forming connections.

Journey and Transformation

Journey and transformation memoirs chronicle significant life changes and experiences that contributed to your growth. You can explore personal discoveries, epiphanies, or impactful events that transformed your view of the world or yourself.

Struggle and Resilience

By writing about personal struggles and resilience, you can share honest and raw accounts of the challenges you’ve faced and how you’ve overcome them. You can reveal the resilience and inner strength that carried you through difficult times.

Search for Meaning or Purpose

In this theme, you can express your inner quest to find meaning or purpose in life. You can share your philosophical reflections, spiritual awakenings, or life-changing lessons learned through personal search or exploration.

Cultural or Social Commentary

Cultural or social commentary memoirs give you the opportunity to discuss your personal experiences in a broader societal context. You can address issues of cultural identity, social norms, or broader historical events that affected you and your community.

Loss and Grief

A memoir about loss and grief provides an opportunity to explore the emotions and struggles you’ve faced in times of sorrow. You can share your journey of grief, the memories of your loved ones, and the impact they had on your life.

Types of Memoir

Personal memoir.

In a personal memoir, you focus on your own life experiences and emotions. You dive into specific moments, relationships, and challenges that have shaped your identity. Personal memoirs often reveal intimate details about a person’s life and thoughts as they recount those events.

Portrait Memoir

A portrait memoir focuses on the life of someone else. You, as the writer, can observe and reflect on the person’s experiences and give an account of their life, allowing readers to have a better understanding of that individual. It can be about someone you know closely or an admired figure you studied.

Coming-Of-Age Memoir

A coming-of-age memoir revolves around your journey from childhood to adulthood. It usually deals with major life events and transformations you face during adolescence. These memoirs often provide insights into the societal and cultural aspects of the time that influenced your growth and development.

Spiritual Quest Memoir

A spiritual quest memoir details your journey exploring spirituality and seeking meaningful answers to life’s biggest questions. It usually entails experiences with religious practices, beliefs, or spiritual teachers and the lessons learned from those encounters.

Travel Memoir

Travel memoirs are all about your adventures in different places. They involve your experiences and reflections while exploring new locations, cultures, and ways of living. These memoirs often provide vivid descriptions of the places you’ve visited, allowing readers to feel like they’re experiencing those journeys alongside you.

Confessional Memoir

A confessional memoir is characterized by its raw honesty and openness about your inner thoughts and darkest secrets. You share your emotions and vulnerabilities, allowing readers to connect with your personal challenges and triumphs. It can be therapeutic for the writer and provide comfort for the reader who may relate to those experiences.

Political Memoir

A political memoir covers your life in connection to your political career or beliefs. It focuses on your role in shaping or observing pivotal political events and movements during your lifetime. These memoirs offer a unique behind-the-scenes perspective on historical events and the individuals involved.

Public or Celebrity Memoir

Public or celebrity memoirs are written by or about well-known figures, exploring their lives and the experiences that led to their rise to fame or prominence. These memoirs often reveal previously untold stories and personal insights that help paint a more complete picture of the public figure.

Examples of Memoirs in Different Formats

Memoirs in books, film and television, graphic memoirs, memoirs in music, importance of memoir, memoir is a gateway to empathy.

Reading memoirs allows you to walk in another person’s shoes and glimpse their life experiences. By delving into their stories, you can develop empathy and better understand the challenges and emotions they have faced.

Memoir Provides Insight

Memoirs offer insights into the author’s thought processes, choices, and motivations. As you read, you may gain valuable lessons and inspiration that can be applied to your own life or the lives of those around you.

Memoir Acts as A Historical Record

Memoirs serve as personal accounts of historical events, providing a unique perspective that may not be captured in textbooks or mainstream media. They help preserve a piece of history, enriching your understanding of the world and its past.

Memoir Demonstrates Resilience

Memoirs often detail an individual’s journey through adversity and the triumphs they achieved along the way. These stories can inspire you to face your own challenges with courage and determination.

A Memoir Has Therapeutic Value

Writing or reading a memoir can be a cathartic process, allowing you to examine your own emotions, relationships, and experiences. This can lead to personal growth and healing.

Memoir Contributes to Cultural Preservation

Memoirs help preserve and pass on cultural heritage by documenting customs, traditions, and folklore. By reading and sharing memoirs, you can contribute to keeping these cultural aspects alive for future generations.

Memoir Builds Connection

Reading about someone’s life experiences can create a bond between you and the author, fostering a sense of connection. This can lead to increased empathy and understanding, not only towards the author but towards others as well.

Memoir Spurs Social Change

Memoirs can raise awareness of important issues and injustices, prompting readers to reconsider their own beliefs and take action. By sharing your story, you may inspire others to make a difference in their own communities.

Memoir Is an Exploration of Self

Writing a memoir requires reflection and introspection, leading to a deeper understanding of who you are, your values, and your experiences. As a reader, you may also identify with aspects of the author’s life, prompting self-discovery and personal growth.

Writing Your Own Memoir

Choosing a theme and focus.

When you start your memoir, it’s essential to identify a central theme or focus. Consider your life experiences and the key moments that have shaped you. It might be a period of personal transformation, a specific relationship, or a significant event.

With this theme in mind, narrow down the scope of your memoir to include only the most relevant experiences that directly contribute to your narrative. This will give your memoir a clear direction and make it more engaging for the reader.

Developing Your Writing Style

As an author, you need to find the best writing style to convey your memoir. An effective way to develop your writing style is by reading other memoirs and analyzing their narrative techniques. You can then experiment with different approaches, such as writing in the present or past tense, using first or third-person perspectives, and incorporating descriptive language.

Pay attention to the rhythm and pacing of your story as well. Maintaining a balance between introspective reflection and vivid descriptions of your experiences is crucial in keeping your readers engaged and invested in your memoir.

Publishing and Sharing

Once you’ve completed your memoir, it’s time to consider how you want to share it with the world. You have a few options for publishing, such as traditional publishing, self-publishing, or even posting your work online through a blog or website.

If you choose traditional publishing , you might need to find a literary agent to represent your work and submit it to publishers on your behalf. Do some research on the publishing industry and the types of memoirs that are currently successful, as this will give you an idea of what publishers are looking for in new authors.

Self-publishing , on the other hand, allows you more control over the creative process and content of your memoir. Platforms like Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing make it easy to publish your work, set your own pricing, and retain full rights to your story. This option may involve additional effort with formatting and marketing, but it also allows you to reach a wide audience quickly.

Sharing your memoir through a personal blog or website is another great way to connect with readers while maintaining creative control. You can build an online presence and interact directly with your audience, gathering feedback and fostering a community around your work.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do memoirs have to be written in the first person.

Yes, memoirs are typically written in the first person. As a memoir is a personal account of your own experiences, using the first-person perspective (I, me, my) help you convey the story more intimately to your readers.

This approach allows the readers to see events from your perspective and understand your emotions and thoughts throughout the journey.

What is the difference between a memoir and a personal essay?

While both memoirs and personal essays offer a deep dive into the author’s personal perspectives, they differ considerably in terms of their scope and depth.

A memoir typically focuses on a specific period, event, or theme in an individual’s life, spanning a larger timeframe and delving deeply into the author’s personal experiences. It’s story-driven and emphasizes the growth or transformation the author has undergone through these experiences.

In contrast, a personal essay generally has a broader scope, covering an array of topics, ideas, or reflections. It tends to be shorter in length and may focus on exploring a single idea, thought, or concept.

Unlike a memoir, a personal essay may not necessarily share a personal narrative. It could lean more towards being opinion-based or analytical, offering a distinctive viewpoint or critical analysis on a particular subject.

How truthful does a memoir need to be?

The process of writing a memoir calls for a commitment to truth, although minor discrepancies or narrative adjustments are generally accepted. The crucial aspect is to preserve the essential truth of your experiences and emotions.

In striving for accuracy, it’s important to adhere to the facts as you remember them without amplifying events or experiences for dramatic effect.

Honesty plays a pivotal role, requiring you to delve into your feelings, thoughts, and motivations during the incidents you’re describing. This earnest portrayal of your emotions imparts authenticity to your memoir, making it more relatable.

The memoir’s perspective should reflect that it’s grounded in your personal recollections and interpretations of events. However, it’s critical to understand and respect that others might remember or perceive the same events differently.

As we conclude this exploration into the world of memoirs, it’s clear to see the unique and powerful role they play in literature. With their potent blend of personal experience and broader insights, memoirs not only offer readers an intimate look into someone else’s life but also provide a mirror for them to reflect on their own experiences.

Whether you’re an aspiring writer, an avid reader, or simply a lover of stories, understanding memoirs enriches our grasp of the human experience in all its complexity. They remind us that every life is a narrative worth telling, full of lessons, growth, and profound moments that shape us. From the personal to the universal, memoirs are an enduring testament to our shared journey through life.

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Guides • Perfecting your Craft

Last updated on Feb 17, 2023

What is a Memoir? An Inside Look at Life Stories

A memoir is a narrative written from the author's perspective about a particular facet of their own life. As a type of nonfiction , memoirs are generally understood to be factual accounts — though it is accepted that they needn't be objective, merely a version of events as the author remembers them.

The term comes from the French word “mémoire,” which means “memory,” or “reminiscence.” To give you a touchstone before we go any further, here are a couple of famous memoir examples , some of which you might recognize:

• Walden by Henry David Thoreau;
• Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt;
• Becoming by Michelle Obama;
• Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert; and
• Wild by Cheryl Strayed.

You’d be forgiven for mistaking any of these popular memoirs for a novel — since, just like novels, they have a plot, characters, themes, imagery, and dialogue . We like to think of memoirs as nonfiction by name and fiction by nature.  

A quick biography of the memoir

To trace the memoir back to its origins, we’ll need to don our best togas and hitch a chariot ride back to ancient Rome. That’s right, memoirs have been around since at least the first century BC when Julius Caesar’s Commentaries on the Gallic Wars offered not only a play-by-play of each battle but a peek into the mind of one of Rome’s most dynamic leaders. 

“I came, I saw, I conquered, my dudes!”

During the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, memoirs continued to be written by the ruling classes, who interpreted historical events they played a role in or closely observed. The gentry — who had the luxuries of free time, literacy, and spare funds — would document the events and machinations of court, as well as the many military crusades. It was the French who particularly excelled, with diplomats, knights, and historians, such as Philippe de Comminnes and Blaise de Montluc, seizing the opportunity to cement their legacy. 

From the 17th century, memoirs began to revolve around people rather than events, though typically, the focus was not on the author’s own life but on the people around him. Once again, the French took the lead — namely, Duc de Saint-Simon, who has received literary fame for his penetrating character sketches of the court of Louis XIV. (Think diary entries packed with petty intrigue and rumor-mongering.)

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From Julius Caesar to Julia Roberts

As time wore on, this elite posse of memoirists came to include noted professionals, such as politicians and businessmen (it was still always men), who wanted to publish accounts of their own public exploits. The exception to this model was Henry David Thoreau's 1854 memoir Walden — an account of his two years in a Massachusetts cabin, finding fulfillment in the wilderness. 

In his book Memoir: A History , Ben Yagoda sketches a family tree pinning Walden as a precursor to the modern success of spiritual and “schtick lit” memoirs like Eat, Pray, Love and Gretchen Ruben’s The Happiness Project , as well as the long literary tradition of “My year of…” memoirs that gave us Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking . Yagoda also traces the roots of these spiritual memoirs back even further to The Confessions of St Augustine written in A.D. 397, in which Augustine admits to a sinful youth spent munching stolen pears ( gasp)  before finding the path to Christianity.

“I ate, I prayed, I loved, my dudes!” (image: Sony Pictures)

Yagoda’s point? Once a memoir type emerges, it’ll keep spawning subgenres. For example, traces of the professional memoir and the fragmentary diary can be found in Adam Kay’s medical bestseller This is Going to Hurt. One thing that all memoirs have in common, however, is that they allow us to get to know a stranger on an intimate level — a prospect that appeals to our nosy side and will likely never get old.

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Is a memoir the same as an autobiography?

Memoirs and autobiographies are usually found on the same shelves of the bookstore, and so are often conflated in the minds of authors. But we’re here to tell you they’re not the same thing. While both are accounts of the writer's experiences, autobiographies span their entire life, providing the who-what-where-when-why of each stage, in chronological order. 

Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom is an example of an autobiography: it details his childhood, his years as a freedom fighter, as well as those spent in prison, and finally, the complex negotiations that led to his release and the beginning of the end of apartheid. 

A memoir, on the other hand, is more selective with its timeline. The constraints of the autobiography are loosened, and authors can intimately explore a pivotal moment or a particular facet of their life, allowing their thoughts and feelings to take control of the narrative. For example, journalist Ronan Farrow's Catch and Kill chronicles his investigation leading up to the #MeToo movement, while William Finnegan’s Barbarian Days is a soaring ode to his one great love and obsession — surfing. 

Memoir’s emphasis on storytelling is sometimes said to differentiate it from autobiography, but there are much more important differences to be aware of. After all, a good autobiography ought to weave a narrative, too. 

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They’re not just for celebrities

These days, most bestselling memoirs tend to be written by celebrities (or their ghostwriters ). Naturally, publishers are keen to capitalize on a well-known person's platform and existing fanbase to sell books — but that doesn't mean you need to be a reality star or a newsmaking criminal to tell your story. 

"You have to give people a reason to care about you," says Paul Carr, the author of three published traditionally published memoirs . "They need a reason to relate to your story — for your story to resonate with them."

While most people reading this article are probably not household names, there may be some aspects of your life that can be told in a way that touches on universal human experiences. Or perhaps your story is something that can help people improve their lives in big and small ways.

Even if your memoir doesn't have broad commercial potential, there can be other reasons for writing one:

• To recall and cement the memory of a certain time in your life;
• To leave behind an important story or lesson for your family;
• To document your travels or a once-in-a-lifetime trip;
• To open up about something painful or difficult; or simply,
• To tell a powerful story that will resonate with readers.

If there's someone out there who will benefit from reading your story — whether it's millions of fans or your immediate family — you may find that to be enough of a reason to pick up your pen and start to write.

In the next article in our series about memoirs, we offer up 21 examples of memoirs that might inspire you to write your own. 

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What Is a Memoir?

More focused than an autobiography, a memoir is an intimate look at a moment in time.

By Jessica Dukes

The memoir genre satisfies two of our most human desires: to be known, and to know others. Here’s how we define memoir, its history and types, and how to get started writing your own.

"Memoir" Definition

A memoir is a narrative, written from the perspective of the author, about an important part of their life. It’s often conflated with autobiography, but there are a few important differences. An autobiography is also written from the author’s perspective, but the narrative spans their entire life. Although it’s subjective, it primarily focuses on facts – the who-what-when-where-why-how of their life’s entire timeline. Booker T. Washington’s Up from Slavery is an example of autobiography – the story begins with his childhood as a slave, proceeds through his emancipation and education, and ends in his present life as an entrepreneur.

To define memoir, we loosen the constraints of an autobiography. Memoir authors choose a pivotal moment in their lives and try to recreate the event through storytelling. The author’s feelings and assumptions are central to the narrative. Memoirs still include all the facts of the event, but the author has more flexibility here because she is telling a story as she remembers it, not as others can prove or disprove it. (In fact, “memoir” comes from the French “mémoire” or “memory.”) In Night , the Nobel Prize-winning title, Elie Wiesel tells his own story about one period of his life – how he survived his teenage years at Auschwitz and Buchenwald.

History of the Memoir

In A.D. 397, St. Augustine of Hippo began writing The Confessions of Saint Augustine , telling the world of his sins: “It was foul, and I loved it. I loved my own undoing.” Ever since, we’ve been hooked on the idea that we can get to know a stranger so intimately, even (and especially) a famous one. Although Confessions is technically an autobiography in structure, the intimacy of his narrative was a new phenomenon. From there, we can draw a straight line to all memoirs that followed.

Like a family tree, once a memoir type emerges, it gives rise to a number of sub-categories. In his book, Memoir: A History , Ben Yagoda gives a string of examples connecting Augustine’s Confessions to the modern success of spiritual memoirs. Thus, Anne Lamott’s Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith and Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love are a part of a long literary tradition. In turn, the success of books like Eat Pray Love fuels the demand for other “schtick lit” titles like The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin and Julie & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously by Julie Powell. Also, let’s note that Julie & Julia/i> follows the long tradition of “My year of…” memoirs, which includes beloved titles like Henry David Thoreau’s Walden .

Types of Memoir

There is no finite number of memoir sub-categories, just as there are no finite types of experiences we have as thinking, feeling human beings. So, what does memoir mean today? Most of them fall into several large types, but with a definite chance of overlap.

Transformation memoirs are written after an author has endured a great challenge. These stories almost always include a theme of redemption, whether it’s achieved or missing. For example:

In  Finding Freedom , Erin French first discovers her love for cooking as a young girl in her father’s diner in Freedom, Maine. But in early adulthood, she struggles through prescription drug addiction, a daunting custody battle for her son, and multiple rock-bottoms, until she ultimately finds renewal through her community and love for food, opening the critically acclaimed restaurant The Lost Kitchen.

Here We Are: American Dreams, American Nightmares is Aarti Namdev Shahani’s family immigrant story, of how an unknown dealing with a drug cartel led to her father being sent to Rikers Island, and a study in how difficult it is to make it in America.

Educated is Tara Westover’s incredible account of how she overcame a childhood spent in survivalist camps in rural Idaho and worked her way into Harvard and Cambridge universities.

Confessional memoirs are unapologetically bold. The author shares painful or difficult secrets about themselves or their family and how it has affected them. For example:

Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions shocked readers in that it was a secular coming-of-age story, and because it contained unexpected details of his life, like his sexual preferences.

Running with Scissors is Augusten Burroughs’ childhood laid bare. His mother left him to be raised by her psychiatrist who lived in squalor, never sent him to school, and never protected him from the pedophile living in the back yard.

Professional or celebrity memoirs cover important moments in the author’s rise to fame and success. Some examples include:

I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai details her horrible attack by the Taliban, her recovery, and her decision to fight for girls’ education worldwide.

Just Kids by Patti Smith is a beautiful recollection of her friendship with Robert Mapplethorpe in the years before they became famous.

Travel memoirs let us escape with the author and learn about a time and place through their experiences. For example:

Cheryl Strayed’s Wild takes us on her emotional solo journey along the Pacific Crest Trail as she grieves the loss of her mother and her marriage.

A Year in Provence is Peter Mayle’s heartwarming account of the year that he threw caution to the wind and moved his family into a crumbling, 200-year-old farmhouse in the French countryside.

How to Write a Memoir

Is there a part of your life that is begging to be turned into a story? It might be time for you to write a memoir. Here’s how to get started.

First, choose a pivotal moment in your life. It can be as broad as “my childhood” or as narrow as “that time I went to prison.” (Hey, it worked for Piper Kerman.)

Consider why this time period is important. What struggles did you endure? What lessons did you learn? What universal truths will capture a reader’s imagination?

Start gathering your memories, as many as you can. List the people you experienced this moment in time with, how they looked, and the conversations you had with them. Capture your feelings about every event and don’t hold back. The best memoirs bare it all.

Now, structure your memoir like a novel. There should be a clear story arc. The retelling of your memories should include descriptions of settings, and three-dimensional characters that readers will care about. Recreate dialogue as faithfully as you can.

Ultimately, readers want to know “how.” How did you survive this situation? How are you now? Most importantly, how have you changed? If memoirs have one thing in common, it’s an author who shares the lessons of his or her life for the greater good of all.

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Writing a Memoir: How to Craft a Compelling Story

• September 6, 2023

Table of Contents:

What is memoir, a step-by-step guide on how to write a memoir, think of ideas for a memoir:, put the reader in your place, draft titles:, make it emotive:, memoir theme:, show your progress:.

• Revise Until You're Satisfied:

Key Characteristics and Profound Details

Conclusion:.

Writing a biography is all about learning how to tell an engaging story based on real events but in a way that grabs the reader’s attention.

You might have some great stories to tell, but with a good memoir outline and tone, you might get the memoir or writer’s life experiences outline that keeps your reader’s attention from the beginning to the end.

Have you ever tried to tell a really interesting family story, but it didn’t come out right?

It’s different than giving an interview to tell a story. Your family life, life experiences, and adventures require a good, engaging story format to get the reader’s attention for the emotional truth you’re trying to tell, but in a way that lets them understand where your strong story is coming from.

An autobiography is not the same as a memoir. In other words, it’s part of your life’s story. A memoir is a story from your life or about a part of your life.

The length and memoir outline will depend on what it’s about, but most of the time, people who want to write one have too much to say and need to cut it down. One way to do this is to make sure your themes are clear. Memoir is usually kept in check when the author knows what her main ideas are and writes each scene while keeping in mind two questions:

• What does this scene have to do with my main point?
• How do I want this scene to fit into the rest of my story?
• Memoir is about making sense of your story so that others can connect to it.

Memoir is not “what happened,” because unless you are famous, what happened to you in your life is not what will draw people to the page. The topic (like escaping a traumatic event, trying to live by the rules of self-help books, or being in jail) or the theme (like addiction, parent-child relationships, repeated family patterns, or finding your own identity) draws readers in.

Most memoirs are slow to read because the author needs to try to find value in their story. A person who reads it might wonder, “What’s the point?” If there’s nothing for the reader to learn from the story, the memoir needs two key parts that make it a memoir: thought and lesson.

If you share your life story with others, make it one they will remember. Many samples of memoir outline and advice for writing your own are included on this page.

How to start a biography? Start-up is always the hardest part of anything. Check out the “I Remember” writing exercise, similar to exercises found in “Writing Prompts” .  if you haven’t decided what to write about yet. This prompt is a great way to create a list of memories. Joe inspired it

Brainard’s book I Remember. From there, pick your most intense memory and start writing your story. It’s that easy! If you want more ideas, our Facebook group is a great place to look.

Writers with a lot of power show, not tell. And if you’re writing a biography, this is important to your success because you have to let the reader see things from your point of view so she can come to her conclusions.

The best way to do this is to let your reader see the story unfold before their eyes by using descriptive language that helps them picture each scene. Mary Karr has written three diaries and a book called “The Art of Memoir.” In “The Art of Memoir,” she says you must “zip the reader into your skin.” You could also think of it as if you were carrying an old-fashioned camera on your shoulder as you took your reader through the scenes of your life. You want your reader to feel like they are with you or, even better, inside your experiences.

Your autobiography is not a book or a guide. It’s a fun book, and people expect it to be exciting. Titles should be interesting and catchy but also make sense of the story.

Most writers make a rough draft of titles at the beginning, a process detailed in “E-Book Writing and Publishing Services” .

Once they finish writing, Book Writing Services check to ensure their titles are in the best shape possible. You can start by writing rough drafts of your titles.

Don’t try to blow the minds of your readers. Take off their pants, shirt, shoes, and even their underwear. Make your readers gasp in amazement, laugh wildly, cry tears of sadness or pity, or do all three.

Take them on an emotional journey that makes them want to read the next chapter. The best way to make your readers feel these emotions is to link your feelings. So as the main character, key thoughts and takeaways about what’s happening in your story.

If you want to write a good memoir, it needs to have an interesting theme. Think about the themes that run through the stories you want to tell.

What will your readers learn from them? Most great memoirs’ tone, style, characters, and stories show how the author feels about something.

So, the memoir outline of your book stays the same from beginning to end, and your readers can feel the vibe that made them want to read it in the first place. Now, think about the idea and look into the best ways to write about it.

Find out which frameworks, ways of telling a story, and nuances of language work best with the topic you chose to write about. Write down ideas for what kind of words to use and how to tell the story in a way that fits the theme.

By the end of your memoir, you should have show how you have grown, changed, or evolved, a crucial aspect in stories about “How to Write a Self-Help Book” .

Any events you talk about in your book will be more meaningful if you show how they affected you and how you grew and changed because of what you went through or survived. How has what you’ve been through altered the way you think about life? Change how you feel about other people or yourself. Help you in some way to get better or smarter?

It needs you to know things your character might not have known when they were the same age as you. That is why learning to mix in thoughts that don’t break the fictional dream is so important.

Revise Until You’re Satisfied:

Every good piece of writing is the result of many rounds of editing. Depending on what kind of writer you are and how you describe a “draft,” you may need three, seven, or even ten changes. There is no “magic number” of drafts you should aim for, so go with your gut.

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18 Narrative and Memoir Essays

Narrative writing.

Human beings tell stories every day. We understand most of nature through stories. Though facts can be memorized, stories — the details, the description, the experience — make us believe.

Therefore, as we begin to study writing, we need to begin with the properties of the story. How do good storytellers make us believe? How can good writing draw a reader into a story? How can we harness the power of the story to make a point, even in a dry, academic context?

The purpose of narrative writing is to tell stories. This is a form we are familiar with, as any time we tell a story about an event or incident in our day, we are engaging in a form of narration. In terms of writing, narration is the act of describing a sequence of events. Sometimes this is the primary mode of an essay—writing a narrative essay about a particular event or experience, and sometimes this is a component used within an essay, much like other evidence is offered, to support a thesis. This chapter will discuss the basic components of narration, which can be applied either as a stand-alone essay or as a component within an essay.

Ultimately, narrative writing tries to relay a series of events in an emotionally engaging way. You want your audience to be moved by your story, which could mean through laughter, sympathy, fear, anger, and so on. The more clearly you tell your story, the more emotionally engaged your audience is likely to be.

WHERE DO WE FIND NARRATIVE?

We talk about narrative writing in many ways. Books will introduce it as Narration, Narrative, and Storytelling. Narrative creeps into most of the other kinds of writing we learn about, too. Persuasive essays use short stories — often called anecdotes  — to engage a reader’s attention and sympathy. Consider the difference between these two openings to the same essay:

Which opening makes you want to read more? The second one engages its readers with a story — and we’re hard-wired, as humans, to want to hear the end of a story.

Television plays on this characteristic all the time. Think of your favorite show and the maddening, brief preview that starts before the credits roll. It’s always a quick snippet that makes you stay tuned because the writers and producers know their audience will sit through several minutes of mindless commercials just to find out how the story will continue.

In our own writing, we can use stories in just the same way. We can draw our readers into our own experiences, even if they’ve never been through anything even similar to what we have, by telling our own stories.

HOW DO WE WRITE A NARRATIVE?

A narrative essay is a piece that tells one consistent, cohesive story. In academic writing, a narrative essay will also always convey a lesson, a moral, or a point that the writer wishes the reader to take.

When we say “moral,” some people think of after-school specials and having “good behavior” tips crammed down their throat. However, the most powerful lessons conveyed through writing are often done with great subtlety. True, the punishing pace of writing expected in a college course may not leave enough time to develop a nuanced story — no one is going to churn out War and Peace  or even  The Hobbit  in ten weeks — but not every story has to have the moral stated clearly, in bold font, at the very beginning.

Think about it this way: When you were a kid, if your grandmother had sat you down and said, “Listen. We’re now going to have a thirty-minute conversation about how it’s really bad if you start smoking,” would you have listened? Probably not. If, however, your grandmother took you to visit your uncle Larry, who had terminal lung cancer, and then casually mentioned as you left that Larry had been smoking since he was your age — would you get the lesson? Would you remember it? Do you remember better the 200 lectures you had as a teenager about not being a bully, or do you remember the one time that you witnessed its effects firsthand?

In a narrative, we want to pull that same kind of trick on our readers: get our point across, but do it in a way that engages the imagination and attention. Use the power of the story.

The narrative relies on the same components that all good writing does: it needs detail, clear organization, and a central purpose (AKA our friends Development, Organization, and Unity).

NARRATIVE DEVELOPMENT: BRING THE DETAILS

Consider this passage from the very first Sherlock Holmes mystery, “A Study in Scarlet,” which describes a major character:

The author includes detail upon detail to describe this gentleman. He could have simply said, “He was dying from hunger and from thirst,” which would tell us everything we need to know. Instead, he describes how these feelings have had an effect upon the man — he is  gaunt , he’s starting to look like a skeleton, and he can barely stand without the support of his rifle.

Think of the best book you’ve ever read (or the best television show you’ve ever watched, or the movie you love), and you may be able to relate to this. Good description is the difference between hearing a game on the radio and watching it live in the stadium (or on a ginormous 3-D television). The very breath of life in a narrative will always be your ability to describe a scene.

This relies on the use of specific language. As you read through the revision section, you were encouraged to avoid phrases that your audience might find misleading. Consider this as you write a story. With every sentence, ask, “What does my audience know? What do they think?” If you say a car is “beautiful,” will your audience think of a 2018 Hybrid Honda Accord or of a 1966 Chevelle (pictured at right)? If there’s some doubt, change your words to reflect your meaning.

You may have heard the advice that asks you to “show, not tell” in writing. This is what we mean: be so descriptive in telling a story that the reader feels s/he is there beside you, seeing the swimming pool or the school’s front doors or the new car or the new child with his/her own eyes.

NARRATIVE ORGANIZATION

Narrative traditionally follows time order, or  chronological order , throughout. This seems obvious when you think about it — we tell stories in time order, starting (usually) at the beginning and working through to the end.

In an essay, pieces of the story can be organized into timespans by paragraph. For instance, if I’m describing a particularly harrowing day at work, I might have a paragraph just for the morning, and then a paragraph about my terrible lunch break, and then a paragraph about my afternoon.

Narrative essays usually can’t cover more ground than a day or two. Instead of writing about your entire vacation experience, study abroad month, two years of work at the plant, or 18 years living at home, focus on one particular experience that took place over a day or two. That’s enough for a reader to digest in a few pages, and it will also give you a chance to really lay in details without feeling rushed.

Sometimes, we start stories out of order. Many popular movies and television shows do this regularly by showing a clip of something that happens later before starting the whole show. If you’ve ever seen an episode of NCIS, you’ll be familiar with this technique: they start each section of the show with a photo of the ending scene, then start an hour or two before that scene in the live-action. Shows often jump to “One Week Earlier” between commercial breaks.

Think of the emotional impact that has upon you as a viewer. Again, it’s a trick the writers pull with their story to drive you through the boring/silly/pointless/insulting commercials so that you’ll stay with them. We want to know how the characters get to that end.

You can manipulate your audience in this way, too, but be careful; giving away too much of the ending may sometimes make a reader simply put down what they’re reading. It’s safer (though not always better) to just start at the beginning and write things down as they happened. Particularly in a first draft, sticking to the natural story order will be a good way to make sure nothing gets missed.

Chronological order , the order in which events unfold from first to last, is the most common organizational structure for narratives. Stories typically have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Certain transitional words and phrases aid in keeping the reader oriented in the sequencing of a story. Some of these phrases are listed below.

Figure 5.2 Transition Words and Phrases for Expressing Time

The following are the other basic components of a narrative:

•  Plot . The events as they unfold in sequence.

•  Characters . The people who inhabit the story and move it forward. Typically, each narrative has there are minor characters and main characters. The minor characters generally play supporting roles to the main character, or the protagonist.

•  Conflict . The primary problem or obstacle that unfolds in the plot, which the protagonist must solve or overcome by the end of the narrative. The way in which the protagonist resolves the conflict of the plot results in the theme of the narrative.

•  Theme . The ultimate message the narrative is trying to express; it can be either explicit or implicit.

Writing at Work

When interviewing candidates for jobs, employers often ask about conflicts or problems a potential employee had to overcome. They are asking for a compelling personal narrative. To prepare for this question in a job interview, write out a scenario using the narrative moved structure. This will allow you to troubleshoot rough spots as well as better understand your own personal history. Both processes will make your story better and your self-presentation better, too.

Narrative Anecdotes

An  anecdote  is a short, personal  narrative  about something specific. It is often used as a component in an essay, acting as evidence to support your thesis, as an example to demonstrate your point, and/or as a way to establish your credibility. It always has a point in telling it.

Elements of an Anecdote

1. Who, Where, When

Have you ever wondered why children’s stories begin something like this?

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, the teachers were revolting …

It is the start of a simple narrative. It also contains all the elements of a beginning to any narrative: when, where, and who. An anecdote, because it is short, will begin similarly:

One day, while I was sitting at a stop sign waiting for the light to change…

This little particle of an anecdote tells when, who, and where before the first sentence even ends.

Note : An anecdote sets up a particular incident; it does not tell about a long period of time.

2. What Happened (Sequence of Events)

Any narrative also includes a sequence of events. You should be able to read an anecdote and tell what happens first, what happens next, and so on. In the following anecdote, the bolded words suggest each event in the sequence.

Example Anecdote:

My first day of college I parked in the “South Forty,” which is what everyone called the huge parking lot on the edge of the campus. It was seven forty-five in the morning, hazy and cool. I walked across the parking lot, crossed a busy street, walked over a creek, through a “faculty” parking lot, crossed another street, and came to the first row of campus buildings. I walked between buildings, past the library and the student mall. I passed many quiet, nervous-looking students along the way. Many of them smiled at me. One trio of young girls was even chuckling softly among themselves when they all smiled and said “Hi” to me at once. By the time I got to my classroom, far on the other side of campus from the parking lot, I was smiling and boldly saying “Hi” to everyone, too, particularly the girls. Every single one of them smiled or responded with a “Hi” or made a friendly comment or even chuckled happily. It was my first day of college.

When I found the building I was looking for, a friend from high school appeared. She was in my first class! I smiled at her and said, “Hi!” She looked at me. She smiled. Then she laughed. She said, “Why are you wearing a sock on your shirt?” I looked down. A sock had come out of the dryer clinging to my shirt.

3. Implied Point

Most of us want to make sure that we “get the point across” to whatever story we are telling, assuming it has a point. To do this, we tend to explain what we are telling. It is sometimes very difficult to stop. However, stopping in a timely way allows the reader to draw his or her own conclusions.

Show, don’t tell

In the anecdote above, I am very tempted to tell the reader what I felt at the moment I realized that everyone was laughing AT me rather than just being friendly. For the ending, where the point is in this case, it is best to let the reader infer (draw conclusions, fill in the blanks) what happens implicitly rather than to state explicitly what the point is, or what the narrator felt, or anything else.

The more indirect you are about your object or place the better. In the anecdote above, it might be obvious that my object is a sock or my place is a parking lot. The point is, it is not an anecdote “about” a sock; it is referred to indirectly.

How do we show rather than tell? First, describe what you see (I don’t really see anything with “I was SO embarrassed…”) or what you smell, hear, or taste, but NOT what you feel. An easy way to check whether you are showing or telling is to go through your anecdote and underline the verbs. If the verbs are “be”-verbs (is, was, were, etc.) or verbs that describe actions we cannot see (“I thought…” “I believed…” “I imagined…” “it made me upset…” and so on) then you are probably telling. In the sentence above I used “walked,” “lecturing,” “ripped,” and “said.”

Most Common Question:

“What makes stories or anecdotes interesting and something I can relate to?”

Actually, it is a simple principle, even though it may not be obvious. We “relate” or “connect” most easily to situations we recognize and so fill in the blanks. If you “tell” me, for example, “I was SO embarrassed …” then you have not let me fill in MY embarrassment. On the other hand, if you “show” me a scene, it allows me to fit my own experience into it:

“I walked past the corner of the aluminum whiteboard tray while lecturing to a class. It ripped my pants. After a moment I said, ‘Class dismissed.’”

The writer of those statements, hopes the reader will fill in some similarly embarrassing moment without the writer clearly stating that this is what is supposed to be done. The connection, the act of “filling in,” is what people tend to refer to as “relating to.”

Interestingly, it does not even matter whether or not readers fill in what the writer intend for them to fill in; it is the act of filling in our own experiences that makes us “relate” to an incident. From a writer’s perspective, that means we should show rather than tell.

Second, resist the temptation to “explain.” Let the reader fill in the blanks! It is so much more personal when the reader participates by filling in.

Assignment 1

Write an anecdote that contains who, where, when, and what happens (a sequence of events). Think about an anecdote that  involves ,  alludes to, or otherwise includes your object or place ; it does not have to be “about” your place. It also does not have to be “true” in the strict sense of the word; we will not be able to verify any believable details if they add to the effect of the anecdote. Type it out. Keep it simple and to the point.

What are ‘clichés’ and why can’t we use them?

Clichés are figurative phrases and expressions that you have probably heard a million times. For our purposes, there are two kinds of clichés: the ones that jump out at you and the ones that we use without thinking.

If you are paying attention, you will notice that the two sentences above contain at least 3 clichés. You might also notice that clichés are best suited to spoken language, because they are readily available and sometimes when we speak, we don’t have time to replace a common expression with a unique one. However, we DO have time to replace clichés while we are writing.

The problem with clichés in writing is that they are too general when we should be much more specific. They also tend to tell rather than show. In the first sentence above, we have most likely heard the phrase, “have probably heard a million times.” In speech, that expression works. In writing, it should be  literal  rather than  figurative.  The first sentence is better this way:

Clichés are figurative phrases and expressions that we have heard so many times that we all share some understanding of what they mean.

Not exactly what you thought when you read it at the beginning of this answer, is it? That is why being  literal and specific  in writing is better than  figurative and vague  as a rule.

Here is a re-write of the second sentence at the start of this answer:

For our purposes, there are two kinds of clichés: the ones that are obvious expressions (like “You can lead a horse to water …”) and the ones that are not part of expressions but seem to “go” easily into a group of words (like “we use without thinking”).

The second type is more difficult to identify and eradicate. Usually it is a group of words we have heard before that doesn’t add anything to a statement. For example, instead of “We watched the donuts roll down the street every night,” you might be tempted to add to it this way: “We watched the donuts roll down the street each and every night.” Avoid clichés in your writing.

To see more see more commonly used clichés and for guidance on how to rewrite them, see this  handout (https://writingcenter.unc.edu/cliches/)from The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Writing Center.

Some Other Rhetorical Tips

• To create strong details, keep the human senses in mind. You want your reader to be immersed in the world that you create, so focus on details related to sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch as you describe people, places, and events in your narrative.
• Create tension by making the reader nervous about what is going to happen through sentence structure, tone, and voice.
• Add dialogue to show the immediacy and drama of the personal interactions (re-creating conversations as necessary to make your narrative work).
• Name specific objects to re-create the scene by selecting details that leave the readers with a dominant impression of how things were.
• Show people in action by describing precise movements and dialogue to convey the action of the scene.

External Links:

“ Sixty-nine Cents ” (https://tinyurl.com/ybjasq9c) by Gary Shteyngart: In “Sixty-nine Cents,” author Gary Shteyngart describes a coming-of-age experience as a first-generation Russian-Jewish immigrant in modern America.

Sherman Alexie grew up on the Spokane Reservation in Washington State. He chronicles his challenges in school, starting in first grade, in  Indian Education (https://tinyurl.com/hlshngr).

Sandra Cisneros offers an example of a narrative essay in “ Only Daughter ”  (https://tinyurl.com/yc4srod7) that captures her sense of her Chicana-Mexican heritage as the only daughter in a family of seven children. The essay is also available here  (https://tinyurl.com/y7hzxhz6).

 Annie Dilliard offers an example of a narrative essay in an excerpt, often entitled “ The Chase ” (https://tinyurl.com/ycsen7r4) from her autobiography  An American Childhood , outlining a specific memorable event from her childhood. This essay is also available  here  (https://tinyurl.com/y7udsl88).

NARRATIVE UNITY

The final consideration in putting together a narrative essay should be unifying it around a single theme or lesson. As you draft, you may already have this lesson in mind:  everyone should wear a seatbelt.  However, remember that your reader needs to make up her own mind. Don’t insult a reader by beating them up with your lesson, and don’t leave them guessing about the meaning of your piece by leaving it out completely.

Many writers include a paragraph of reflection after telling a personal story in an essay that lets a reader know, directly, the significance that the story has on the writer’s life. This can be a good way to get a lesson across. Showing what you’ve learned or found important in an event will provide the reader with a clue about the overall meaning of the story.

You should use “I” in a personal, narrative essay . There are types of academic writing where “I” is inappropriate, but this is not one of those times. In fact, the best narratives will often be the most personal, the stories that avoid hiding behind “you” or “they” and instead boldly tell the writer’s own story.

NARRATIVE OUTLINES

The typical narrative essay follows an outline that should seem like common sense:

• Paragraph 1: Introduction
• Paragraph 2: Event #1
• Paragraph 3: Event #2
• Paragraph 4: Event #3
• Paragraph 5: Conclusion

This outline is flexible. Perhaps the first event in your story will take significant space to describe; it may need 2 paragraphs of its own. Maybe there are smaller events that happen within the larger events. Maybe for your piece, it makes sense to jump right into the story instead of spending an introduction paragraph to give some setup. What matters most is that a reader can easily follow the piece from beginning to end and that she will leave with a good understanding of what you wanted the reader to learn.

Student Sample Essay

My College Education

The first class I went to in college was philosophy, and it changed my life forever. Our first assignment was to write a short response paper to the Albert Camus essay “The Myth of Sisyphus.” I was extremely nervous about the assignment as well as college. However, through all the confusion in philosophy class, many of my questions about life were answered.

I entered college intending to earn a degree in engineering. I always liked the way mathematics had right and wrong answers. I understood the logic and was very good at it. So when I received my first philosophy assignment that asked me to write my interpretation of the Camus essay, I was instantly confused. What is the right way to do this assignment, I wondered? I was nervous about writing an incorrect interpretation and did not want to get my first assignment wrong. Even more troubling was that the professor refused to give us any guidelines on what he was looking for; he gave us total freedom. He simply said, “I want to see what you come up with.”

Full of anxiety, I first set out to read Camus’s essay several times to make sure I really knew what was it was about. I did my best to take careful notes. Yet even after I took all these notes and knew the essay inside and out, I still did not know the right answer. What was my interpretation? I could think of a million different ways to interpret the essay, but which one was my professor looking for? In math class, I was used to examples and explanations of solutions. This assignment gave me nothing; I was completely on my own to come up with my individual interpretation.

Next, when I sat down to write, the words just did not come to me. My notes and ideas were all present, but the words were lost. I decided to try every prewriting strategy I could find. I brainstormed, made idea maps, and even wrote an outline. Eventually, after a lot of stress, my ideas became more organized and the words fell on the page. I had my interpretation of “The Myth of Sisyphus,” and I had my main reasons for interpreting the essay. I remember being unsure of myself, wondering if what I was saying made sense, or if I was even on the right track. Through all the uncertainty, I continued writing the best I could. I finished the conclusion paragraph, had my spouse proofread it for errors, and turned it in the next day simply hoping for the best.

Then, a week or two later, came judgment day. The professor gave our papers back to us with grades and comments. I remember feeling simultaneously afraid and eager to get the paper back in my hands. It turned out, however, that I had nothing to worry about. The professor gave me an A on the paper, and his notes suggested that I wrote an effective essay overall. He wrote that my reading of the essay was very original and that my thoughts were well organized. My relief and newfound confidence upon reading his comments could not be overstated.

What I learned through this process extended well beyond how to write a college paper. I learned to be open to new challenges. I never expected to enjoy a philosophy class and always expected to be a math and science person. This class and assignment, however, gave me the self-confidence, critical-thinking skills, and courage to try a new career path. I left engineering and went on to study law and eventually became a lawyer. More important, that class and paper helped me understand education differently. Instead of seeing college as a direct stepping stone to a career, I learned to see college as a place to first learn and then seek a career or enhance an existing career. By giving me the space to express my own interpretation and to argue for my own values, my philosophy class taught me the importance of education for education’s sake. That realization continues to pay dividends every day.

Most People Don’t Understand Memoirs  

In 2006, James Frey wrote a memoir about parts of his life when he was under the influence of drugs called  A Million Little Pieces , and after Oprah had him on her show to discuss the book – it was featured in her popular book club, of course – she was told that he “lied” about certain parts. Well, he didn’t lie. Memoirs contain what we remember. What we remember isn’t always “fact.” What I always say is that if you have all of your family members report what happened at a family gathering – like a birthday party or Christmas – whose report would be correct? No ones! That’s what a memoir is. It’s still nonfiction because it’s what the person remembers, but it’s not false on purpose. If I remember that my sister responded to me in a snotty way one day and my other sister didn’t think so, no one is correct. It’s just my memory versus hers.

Now, typically, memoirs encompass just a chunk of someone’s life, like when James Frey wrote about his drug years, but sometimes, some famous person in their 70s (or older) will write his/her memoir. No matter what, it’s simply what they remember, and I suppose if someone’s on drugs or has an awful memory, the stories could appear to be false. But they aren’t. That’s why they say, “life is stranger than fiction.”

Memoirs are part of the nonfiction category of literature; they contain a lot of description and detail, and they are typically very, very personal in content.

The Bits and Pieces of Memoir

The memoir is a specific type of narrative. It is autobiographical in nature, but it is not meant to be as comprehensive as a biography (which tells the entire life story of a person). Instead, a memoir is usually only a specific “slice” of one’s life. The time span within a memoir is thus frequently limited to a single memorable event or moment, though it can also be used to tell about a longer series of events that make up a particular period of one’s life (as in Cameron Crowe’s film memoir Almost Famous ). It is narrative in structure, usually describing people and events that ultimately focuses on the emotional significance of the story to the one telling it. Generally, this emotional significance is the result of a resolution from the conflict within the story. Though a memoir is the retelling of a true account, it is not usually regarded as being completely true. After all, no one can faithfully recall every detail or bit of dialogue from an event that took place many years ago. Consequently, some creative license is granted by the reader to the memoirist recounting, say, a significant moment or events from his childhood some thirty years, or more, earlier. (However, the memoirist who assumes too much creative license without disclosing that fact is vulnerable to censure and public ridicule if his deception is found out, as what happened with James Frey and his memoir,  A Million Little Pieces .)

Furthermore, names of people and places are often changed in a memoir to protect those who were either directly or indirectly involved in the lives and/or event(s) being described.

Why read memoirs?

To learn about other people’s lives and their thoughts about events that have occurred.  Memoirs are a personalized look at history.

How to write memoirs?

Reflect n your life. write what you remember about events that matter to you from your unique point-of-view.

Dialogue is another way to bring life to your writing. Dialogue is conversation or people speaking in your story. An engaging dialogue goes beyond what is simply being said to include descriptions of non-verbal communication (facial expressions, body movement, changes in tone, and speed of speech) and characterization. The way people speak and interact while talking reveals much about them and the situation.

Writing a natural-sounding dialogue is not easy. Effective dialogue must serve more than one purpose – it should:

• Drive the plot forward,
• Reveal information about the characters, and
• Build tension or introduce conflict.

Sample Dialogue

“So, what was it really like?” I asked.

“I’ve told you. It was amazing.”

I shifted to my side so I could look at her. “You have to give me more than that,” I insisted, “and not the mom and dad version.”

Liv mirrored my move to her side and propped up her head with her arm. Her blue eyes searched my greens, looking for the right words. “I shouldn’t–”

We broke our gaze as we heard our mom call for us. Once again, I didn’t get the truth.

Basic Dialogue Rules

• “I want to go to the beach,” she said.
• He asked, “Where’s the champagne?”
• “That is,” Wesley said, “that neither you nor me is her boy.”
• Even if the speaker says only one word, with no accompanying attribution or action, it is a separate paragraph.
• Start a new paragraph when you wish to draw the reader’s attention to a different character, even if that character doesn’t actually speak.
• For internal dialogue, italics are appropriate.

Example Memoir

Chocolate Can Kill You

Just when you think your life could not get any better, the Great One Above throws you for a loop that causes you to think upon your life, yourself, and your “little” obsession with chocolate. I am somewhat ashamed of this story, but it taught me so much. I still remember Alisa’s face when I came crying into the Valley City gym, I can hear Dad’s echoing “Are you OKAY?” consistently in my mind as if it had been a childhood scolding, and I see the image of the snow coming at me at 70mph every time I drive on a highway now.

In 1997, the morning after Valentine’s Day, I took off to see my sister in Valley City. She was there because of a wrestling meet. She is one of their prized assistants and without her, they would never get to see how goofy they look in tights. It was a crisp morning, and I cannot remember if I filled the bronco’s tank, but I did purchase a Twix bar before heading out on I-94. I vaguely remember thinking, Gee a seat belt would be good, even though the roads were as clean as they could have been in a North Dakota February. On that ten-degree morning, I met up with no one on the highway.

I was just bee-bopping along the left side of the road, listening to the radio and singing aloud as if I was Mariah Carey. It was at this time that I chomped into my first Twix bar.

In an attempt at a different radio station or something or another, I dropped the last bar between my legs onto the floor of the black beastly bronco.

This is where I become a stupid human. I tried to recapture the chocolate bar thinking, or maybe not even thinking, It will only take me a second. Whoever has said that seconds count in any accident WAS RIGHT! All of a sudden, I look up to see that I am driving 70 mph into the median’s snowdrifts. I cranked the wheel, thinking I could just drive back onto the highway. I mumble a few swear words and realize I am going 70 MPH IN A VERY DEEP SNOWDRIFT! I take my foot off the accelerator and while the front end slows, the back end has accumulated too much energy or velocity (a good physics question) and begins to lift upwards. I close my eyes, cross my arms across my chest, and crouch back into my seat and start to feel the bronco as well as myself turn and twist and hover for what seemed an eternity in slow motion. I did not open my eyes once.

And then all of a sudden, the small jolted car lands- PLOP – ON ITS WHEELS! My chair has completely reclined, and I sit up seeing smoke coming from my engine. I forget how to work my car and instinctively get out as if to show God I am alive. I stand on top of the drift becoming taller than my boxy 4×4. There are small dents in the front where you would open the hood but that is the biggest damage I can see.

“Are you OKAY?” An old couple are parked and honking at me from the other side of the highway going towards Fargo. They tell me to come with them and turn off the engine. I grab my parka and make my way through the snow to sit down in the back seat of the long car and take in that old people smell. This is when I quietly cry.

“You did a flip! It’s amazing you walked away from it,” says the old man and I think to myself sarcastically to calm down, Yeah I tried to do that. I ask them to take me to Valley City trying not to sound three and a half. Another major thought echoes What will Dad say?

They turned around at the next available bridge which was a mile away and the lady told me the exit so I could give it to the people that will tow my little bruised bronco. They talked to themselves as I tried to think of what exactly happened, how glad I was to be alive, and how I felt about it. Once inside the gymnasium, I found Alisa’s eyes and she instantly frowned and looked scared.

“Did you and Jason fight?” No, I try to say but I am crying in front of a large crowd who all seem more interested in me now than the matches. I sit down beside her and say:

“I did a flip… the bronco… flipped … it did a 360.”

“The bronco did a WHAT! ARE YOU OKAY!” She panics. I go to call Dad as she tells her friends, and they also feel sympathetic and are quite amazed. I don’t know how I managed to remember my calling card number, but I reached Mom and Dad just waking up. Once again Dad frightens me with his voice and vows to be there as soon as possible and tells me to call the highway patrol.

I was the only accident that whole day on the highway, I think, so I looked pretty silly.

Mom and Dad showed up an hour later. Mom was half-awake, and Dad looked like he’d been chugging coffee left and right. They had seen the bronco being towed incorrectly towards Fargo, so Dad feared the transmission was screwed up again much less the rest of the car. We took off for Fargo and stopped at the spot seeing the tracks lead into the snow, then 25 feet of no tracks, and suddenly a large indentation where the bronco had sat down.

Once at the Mobile on I-29, Dad jumped into the bronco to try to start it. It revved right up. I shook my head and thought of the motto, Built Ford Tough. Only the alignment and steering was off from me trying to turn it back onto the road, and the steam I had seen was the radiator fluid splashing onto the hot engine.

We had to meet with a highway patrolman, so the bronco could get a sticker and photos could be taken. I also, fortunately for the taxpayers, had to pay a Care of Vehicle bill of thirty dollars which means that the government basically can fine someone for trashing his/her own vehicle. This pissed me off incredibly after a day like I had just had. My mom had to remind me though that at least it wasn’t a medical bill.

The highway patrolman reminds me how valuable it was that I had had a seat belt on because I would have for sure gone through the windshield with that type of event and all the tossing that I had endured. That does not make replaying this event in my memory any better. As if God was saying: “No, not yet.”

It’s a common joke to not let me eat while I am driving.

That day made me incredibly grateful for my life, and for the people who came to my aid, especially my parents for spending their whole Saturday with me. Whether we were trying to contact the highway patrolman, paying the tower and the ticket, or comforting me- they never complained. Who knew chocolate could lead to such a life-threatening, yet philosophical day?

Time to Write

Purpose:  This assignment will demonstrate the understanding of how to write a memoir

Task: This assignment frames a single event for the memoir essay.

Write a Memoir Essay.  This essay should clearly identify a significant event or series of closely tied events that convey the significance of that event or has somehow shaped your personal perspective.  Remember that you are writing for an audience that doesn’t share your knowledge of the event(s), people, setting, etc. It is up to you to make your memoir come to life.

Key Features of a Memoir:

• Invoke the 5 senses
• Use narrative suspense
• use metaphor
• include significant details
• provide descriptive language
• use effective dialogue
• include transitions

Key Grading Considerations

• The rhetorical purpose is clear, focused, and appropriate to the audience and assignment.
• The purpose is focused on the memoir.
• Shows engagement with issues of story, language, rhetoric, or thinking deeply about a personal event.
• The theme relates to a personal experience but also illustrates more universal principles.
• Transitions
• Learning Point Thesis Statement
• Topic Sentences
• Some Narrative Elements that flow with the paper
• Clear introduction, event story, and conclusion
• Dialogue is used
• Descriptions and quotes to help visualize the event
• Correct, appropriate, and varied integration of textual examples, including in-text citations
• Limited errors in spelling, grammar, word order, word usage, sentence structure, and punctuation
• Good use of academic English
• Demonstrates cohesion and flow
• Uses the rules of dialogue
• Date format

Attributions

• Memoir Content Adapted from Excelsior Online Writing Lab (OWL). (2020).  Excelsior College. Retrieved from https://owl.excelsior.edu/ licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-4.0 International License .
• Narrative Writing Content Adapted from BETTER WRITING FROM THE BEGINNING . (2020).  Jenn Kepka. Retrieved from Better Writing from the Beginning licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-4.0 International License .

English 101: Journey Into Open Copyright © 2021 by Christine Jones is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Anne R. Allen's Blog... with Ruth Harris

Writing about writing. Mostly.

January 22, 2012 By Anne R. Allen 71 Comments

How to Write a Publishable Memoir: 12 Do’s and Don’ts

by Anne R. Allen

They say we all have a book inside us—our own life story. The urge to put that story on paper is the most common reason people start writing. Adult education programs and senior centers everywhere offer courses in “writing your own life.” Memoir is the most popular genre at any writers conference.

Unfortunately, it’s the hardest to write well—and the least likely to be published.

Agent Kristin Nelson once blogged that she’s seen so many bad memoirs that she cringes when she meets a memoirist a writer’s conference. Author J. A. Konrath offered the simple advice: “Unless you’re one of the Rolling Stones, don’t write anything autobiographical.” Miss Snark pronounced, “every editor and agent I know HATES memoir pitches…I’d rather shave the cat.”

But memoirs like  Eat, Pray, Love, In the Garden of Beasts  and  Townie: a Memoir , top the bestseller lists.

In this age of “reality” TV, there’s a huge audience for shared real-life experience. Readers are hungry for true stories: look how angrily they reacted to writers like James Frey and Herman Rosenblat, who passed off fiction as memoir.

So keep working on that masterpiece-in-progress. But hone your craft—brilliant wordsmithing and/or stand-up-worthy comedy skills help a bunch—and follow some basic dos and don’ts:

1)     DO read other memoirs 

Before you put pen to paper, it’s a good idea to read some currently selling memoirs. See what works and what doesn’t. Know the genre and the market

2)     DON’T write an autobiography

An autobiography is a list of events: “I was born in (year) in (place) and I did (this) and (that.) Mr. Konrath is right—unless you’re Mick Jagger, nobody cares. (Except your family. Don’t let me discourage you from self-publishing a chronicle of your life as a gift to your descendants.)

3)     DO tell a page-turning story

Abook-length memoir is read and marketed as a novel. It needs a novel’s narrative drive. That means tension and conflict—and ONE main story arc to drive the action. Most memoirs fail from lack of focus. Choose a basic storyline, like: “Orphan kids save the family farm during the Depression,” or “A cross-dressing teen survives high school in the 1950s.”

4)     DON’T confuse memoir with psychotherapy

Writing a book about a traumatic personal event may be cathartic for the writer, but there’s a reason shrinks charge big bucks to listen to people’s problems. Put the raw material in a journal to mine later for fiction, poetry, and personal essays.

5)     DO remember that a memoirist, like a novelist, is essentially an entertainer .

A memoir may be nonfiction, but it requires a creative writer’s skill set. Always keep your reader in mind. Never fabricate, but only tell what’s unique, exciting and relevant to your premise.

6)     DON’T expect a big audience for medical journaling

If you or a loved one has a serious disease, chronicling your experiences can be invaluable to those suffering similar trials. To the general public—not so much. You may find it’s best to reach your audience through online forums, blogs, and magazines. (See #6) Remember that publishing is a business, and no matter how sad your story, if it’s not an enjoyable read, it won’t find an audience.

7)    DO consider non-book formats to tell your story.

Beginning writers often make the mistake of jumping into a book-length opus. It’s smarter and easier to start with short pieces—what a writer friend calls “memoiric essays.” Nostalgia and senior-oriented magazines and blogs are great venues for tales of life in the old days. Some niche journals and websites focusing on hobbies, pets, disablities, veterans, etc. even provide a paying market. These will also give you some great publishing credits, and you won’t have to slog for years before reaching an audience.

This is one area where  BLOGGING  can provide you with a fantastic forum. A new blog I love is by  Tony Piazza , a veteran of the film business—and mystery author—who has insightful stories about every Hollywood star you ever heard of.

8)     DON’T include every detail 

Including every little incident and every character because “it’s what really happened” doesn’t make good storytelling. Just because something is true doesn’t mean it’s interesting. Your happy memories of that idyllic Sunday school picnic in vanished small-town America will leave your reader comatose unless the church caught fire, you lost your virginity, and/or somebody stole the parson’s pants.

9)     DO limit the story to an area where your experience is significant and unique .

If you gave birth in the mud at Woodstock, dated Elvis, or helped decipher the Enigma code, make that the focus of your book. I knew a musician who worked with of some of the great legends of American music. His memoir of those jazzy days was gripping, but because it was buried in his “happy ever after” life story, he never found a publisher.

10)   DON’T jump into the publishing process.

First hone your skills as a creative writer. Unless you’re only writing for your grandchildren (nothing wrong with that—but be clear in your intentions) you need to become an acomplished writer before you can expect non-family members to read you work. Even the most skilled editor can’t turn a series of reminiscences into a cohesive narrative.

NOTE:  There are ghostwriters who specialize in memoirs, so if you want to get your story into book form and aren’t interested in becoming a professional writer, you can hire one. Many editing services offer ghostwriting—a more expensive process than editing—but worth the cost if you don’t enjoy the writing process. I’d recommend using a memoir specialist like  YourMemoir.co.uk ., which looks like an excellent service.

11) DO look at small and regional publishers.

A national publisher may not be interested in stories of the vanished ranch life of old California, but a local publisher who has outlets at tourist sites and historical landmarks may be actively looking for them. Another plus: you don’t need an agent to approach most regional publishers. A good example of a memoir that found a home at a regional press is Anne Schroeder’s  Branches on the Conejo,Leaving the Soil after Five Generations   (Another perk of being with a small regional press is that the book can still be in print after a decade.)

12) DON’T get discouraged.

Ann Carbine Best, an award-winning poet, knew she had a story to tell that would help thousands of women who shared her experience. Unfortunately, most publishers thought her subject matter was too niche and controversial to be a blockbuster. But with a small press, she found a welcoming audience for  In the Mirror , her memoir of a doomed marriage.

If you’re working on a memoir, polish your creative writing skills, remember publishing is a business, keep your reader in mind–and you’ll avoid the cringe-making amateurishness that agents, editors and readers fear.

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About Anne R. Allen

Anne writes funny mysteries and how-to-books for writers. She also writes poetry and short stories on occasion. Oh, yes, and she blogs. She's a contributor to Writer's Digest and the Novel and Short Story Writer's Market.

Her bestselling Camilla Randall Mystery RomCom Series features perennially down-on-her-luck former socialite Camilla Randall—who is a magnet for murder, mayhem and Mr. Wrong, but always solves the mystery in her quirky, but oh-so-polite way.

Anne lives on the Central Coast of California, near San Luis Obispo, the town Oprah called "The Happiest City in America."

January 22, 2012 at 5:59 pm

Whoo! Well done Cayla! I shall go and put this on her Facebook wall so she can find it, bahaha!

As for autobiography … I've often been told my Army Brat upbringing would make a good story, but I'm not so sure. There's enough army brats out there aren't there? besides, it's the hilarious misadventures that happen briefly in between the normality that would make mine different, and I have no idea how interested the reader would be. I shall stick to fiction, methinks 🙂

Awesome post though! 🙂

January 22, 2012 at 6:09 pm

These are some fantastic tips! Thank you!

I wish my life was interesting enough to write a memoir but I've not had anything extraordinary happen to me. I might write one for my children/grand-children/descendents though. I hope it inspires them enough to become writers also!

January 22, 2012 at 6:20 pm

Not something I would ever write (my life was rather average) but great tips for those who do.

July 6, 2021 at 7:50 am

You may think your life was average, but you never know what other’s think!

January 22, 2012 at 6:38 pm

Hi Anne! I wholeheartedly agree with all your advice. I've been writing my memoir (off and on!) for a LONG time. But I've learned so much and become a better writer over the past couple of years, so I do believe things are progressing as they should. I just sent a check to Ann Best for her memoir! Can't wait to read it!

January 22, 2012 at 6:41 pm

Anne, great, usable advice as always.

But there is one other approach, the one my DH used: have a horrible, traumatic, earth-shattering (literally) experience & then wait 50 years to tell it.

At a young soldier, Michael was sent to the Pacific Proving Ground to "observe" as the Army called it, the US H-bomb tests. He made notes at the time & over the years tried many times to tell the story but the events were so bizarre and horrific, he couldn't quite figure out how to write it.

Slow forward 50 years: he tried again & this time we managed to laugh just about all the way thru. The book is called THE ATOMIC TIMES (the name of the Eniwetok newspaper he edited) and has been praised by readers from Henry Kissinger to Robert Parker.

Lesson: some experiences need quite a long time to marinate!

January 22, 2012 at 7:22 pm

Charley–I sure find it easier to write fiction than the real stuff. I can't stop making things up, for one thing. 🙂

Kamille–A great memoirist can make "ordinary" things become extraordinary, but that's not a talent I have. Fiction works better for me, too.

Alex–You mean the CassaStar books aren't written from your personal experience in intergalactic travel? Well, I'm going to tell Oprah…

CS (aka Wordmonger)–How many people have quit their jobs to go live on a remote goat ranch for a year?

Ann–Excellent advice from somebody who knows how to do it right. Thanks.

Becky–You've got it exactly right. It takes a long time to write a professional-quality memoir.

Mark–Welcome! I'm so glad you found it helpful. Your book sounds intriguing.

Ruth–You're right. And I think Michael's experience isn't unique. I think a lot of people have to process a traumatic event for a long time before they can write about it.

January 22, 2012 at 9:10 pm

@Charley R – I think you could have a collection of shorts that's all those oddly bizzare moments, those would work great. Or stick to fictin. You're really good at that! *giggles*

AND OMG I won! *excited dance* (I actually saw the e-mail first so I got out most of my squeeling then. Hopefully not to the detriment of Catherine's ears/eyes.) Anyway before I babble too much(too late I know)…

yeah my life has been fairly bland, after all that's why I write fiction. I've been escaping the bland into my own fantastical worlds for quite some time.

January 22, 2012 at 11:00 pm

Phyllis–Yes, of course you can print it out and pass it around, as long as you give credit me and the blog. You might mention there will be more stuff like this in the book I'm writing with Catherine Ryan Hyde that will be out in June.

And oh, my you do have some intense life experiences to write about. But I think for those of us who are long-time fiction writers, that stuff gets into our writing in many ways, doesn't it?

Mark–You're so right that travel memoirs do really well. That's what Eat, Pray, Love is, essentially. And if people want to get a travel memoir published, they should be writing short travel articles now.

Cathryn, Congratulations! I don't think it's your life experiences that make you a fiction or nonfiction writer–no matter how exciting your real life is. I think it's something you're born with. I've been into fiction from the time I could hold a crayon. I guess I'm a born liar. 🙂

January 22, 2012 at 11:03 pm

But if you want to make money at memoir writing, you still have a few more steps to go:

13) be extremely famous before starting

14) cross platforms of fame before even thinking first draft, ie. if you are a pop star, do something on Broadway, or if you are an actor, build a school in Gambia.

15) randomly split names of past lovers into two groups. For the first group, mention every last salacious detail. For the second group, appear to have difficulty remembering who that person was.

Now the money will start flowing in!

William Doonan http://www.themummiesofblogspace9.com

January 23, 2012 at 12:47 am

Anne, another meaty post. I had to laugh at #8–"DON’T include every detail because 'it’s what really happened.'”

Anyone who has ever taught creative writing knows how tough it is to drill this rule into people's heads. I knew a few teachers who actually assigned an autobiography to students in the first class, so they could do an "information-dump" and kind of purge all these details from their systems. (Wouldn't that be fun to grade? Aargh.)

Fact is, many people sign up for creative writing courses beCAUSE they have some trauma or strange twist in their personal narratives that they're dying to tell people about. As their teacher, you need to repeat until you're blue in the face: all details are not equally important, interesting or evocative, and a crafted memoir is the only one readers want to read.

January 23, 2012 at 12:59 am

Anne, I really like the idea of FIRST writing short personal essays or vignettes for special markets in print or online (#7 above if I interpreted correctly). Writing these short pieces is a great way to find your voice and to apply craft to real experience: dialogue, sense of place and time, story arc, etc. All good story components are critical, I think, for writing exciting and compelling memoir. Start small. Especially if you're thinking of writing a much longer work later on.

Great post, as usual, Anne.

January 22, 2012 at 6:22 pm

Another fine post. Thanks, again, Anne, & I'm with Kamille. I'm such a milquetoast!

January 22, 2012 at 6:30 pm

My advice: pretty much as you've outlined here, Anne. Get the necessary writing skills and read other memoirs, and use the techniques of fiction, which is crucial. My skill with dialogue was what made my memoir as strong as it is (I'm not as good with descriptive passages). Readers like dialogue. It really moves the story along.

I began writing pieces of my memoir even three decades before it finally came together and was published. Even after I got the publishing contract, there were MANY times when I was discouraged; it isn't easy delving into painful memories. But I'm glad I didn't "throw in the towel" as I sometimes felt like doing during the editing process. The book launch was a great 71st birthday present. It's never too late to write and be published! So if you think you've got a compelling story to tell…I agree that people do like to read "true" stories. So write a good one!

Great post, Anne. And thanks for including a link to my memoir. Ann Best, Author of In the Mirror & Other Memoirs

January 23, 2012 at 2:38 am

The only way I'd ever write a memoir is in graphic novel form so I could be a superhero, or at least have a cool cape. Triple stars for your advice to mine life's events for use in fiction.

January 22, 2012 at 6:40 pm

Aloha Anne,

I found your blog via a tweet from Alex Cavanaugh (which I retweeted:)

As someone who's co-writing a memoir about a opera singer (who lost his voice, but found his cause) I wanted to say thanks and that this was a *great* post for me. You have a new follower:)

January 22, 2012 at 8:00 pm

I started a writing club here five years ago and most members now want to write memoirs. Can I print and pass out copies of your wonderful 12 Dos and Donts?

As for Moi, do I write about finding Mr. Right in marriage number three? Or about having my son kidnapped? Oh yes, and then ten years later, my other son was kidnapped.

January 22, 2012 at 9:09 pm

Memoirs that cross into other genres are the best commercially.

Bill Bryson's travel memoirs are huge sellers because they are simultaneously memoir, travelogue, humour and narrative non-fiction.

Everyone loves to travel, so well-written travel memoirs will always be popular.

January 23, 2012 at 8:16 am

NOT a memoir writer, but I'm glad you paid special attentiion to them here.

…….dhole

January 23, 2012 at 9:16 am

Hi Anne, Thanks so much for including me, Marnie from Your Memoir, in this post. It's absolutely brilliant and full of great advice. I think my favourite tip would be to remember that you have to entertain the audience and to this end a memoir needs a novel's narrative drive, no question. This is quite a difficult concept for some of my clients, who feel that to give their story a narrative drive is in some way not being authentic. They are quite reticent to treat themselves, and their story, as a 'real' book. Most of my clients are writing 'just' as a personal record for family and friends you see. A great post and some very interesting comments from people whose books I would love to read. Even those who say their lives are dull. I don't believe them. No such thing. Everybody's life is unique and interesting, which is why I love my job. Thanks again.

January 23, 2012 at 2:26 am

You are so right about reading other memoirs. The more of them I read, the more I see different ways to structure the story I want to tell. And the best ones I read (e.g., Bill Bryson) really put their story within a universal frame. In other words, the story is not really all about me. If it were, who besides my family would want to read it. Finally, I agree with the idea of getting the feet wet by publishing essays, but it's difficult to figure out where to tell my story beyond literary journals. I'm still working on that writing problem.

January 23, 2012 at 5:50 am

Great post, Anne. I am sure I'll never do a memoir. I mean who wants to read one more story about an ex hippie flower child who railed against the establishment, went without a certain undergarment (before gravity and childbirth ravaged them) and who basically had the best time when sex, drugs and rock 'n roll didn't cause a communicable desease? So what if I can't hear in one ear and my grandchildren don't understand why grandma is so different? You think for one minute I'd confirm any of it in print? Hell no! I mean, for me it's like identity theft, anyone stupid enough to steal my identity gets what they deserve 🙂

January 23, 2012 at 3:51 pm

Excellent post. I'm wary of memoirs, and tend only to read them when my book club insists. (I found eat, pray, love intensely boring and self indulgent.)

I love the idea of a memoirist putting several years of distance between the events and the recounting. I'm sure that lessens the "then this happened, then that happened" kind of narrative.

January 23, 2012 at 4:55 pm

Great detail and advice. I'm forwarding your link to the memoir discussion groups I belong to.

I would add that Memoir doesn't have to mean YOUR STORY. Expanding the personal to include the universal will involve more readers in "your" story.

Writing BRANCHES ON THE CONEJO taught me the importance of capturing social history. That little book has nearly sold through its 3500 print run and is now on out-of-print book sites for $75.

January 23, 2012 at 6:58 pm

William—LOL. Actually the most successful memoirs, like Eat Pray Love and Angela’s Ashes aren’t by mega-celebrities, but they are by professional writers and journalists with some stature in the business. It helps to have friends.

Rebecca—I think all of us who have taught newbies run into this all too often. It might be good to put this on the board on the first day and keep it there “a crafted memoir is the only one readers want to read.” People love to make lists of unrelated events.

Mindprinter—You know whereof you speak. You’ve written some superb personal essays that have found homes in lots of prestigious journals. And I’m still hoping for a screenplay of your story of your friendship with an emperor!

Julie—Think screenplay. Seriously. A screenplay is much easier to adapt from a shorter work than a longer one. If you have a great episode in your life to tell about, it might just make a good film. I’ve had the privilege of reading Mindprinter’s article from the African American Journal that I KNOW would make a hell of a movie.

Leslie—I love the idea of a graphic novel memoir. Has anybody done that? Cape or no cape, it could be awesome.

Fois—Oh, yes. I’m a member of the sex drugs and rock and roll generation too. We were so spoiled, weren't we: no horrible STDs or the TSA molesting us at airports. "Flying into Los Angeleez, bringing in a couple of Keys…" I’m not sure anybody but us wants to read about it now. But damn, it was fun.

Donna—Thanks. But never say never. You’ve got a job that provides a lot of fodder for writing.

Marnie—Thanks for stopping by. I’m really impressed with your site and your service. A lot of people are dying to tell their life story, but don’t care to learn to become professional writers, and you’re just the one to help them. Although I don’t envy you having to teach them it’s not “wrong” to turn history into something readable.

Mari—I love Ruth’s suggestion too. A few decades of aging might be required to make some stories palatable to the general public. (I’m generally not a fan of memoirs either, although every so often one astonishes me.)

LK—It sounds as if you’ve hit on a niche audience that will be loyal. Congrats on your success. The travel memoir (or essay) is a very popular form. With people who hope to travel to those place for real, or just in their armchairs.

Anne—Very good advice: a memoir doesn’t have to be about you. It’s nice to know your book is a collectible, but I hope you’ll put it in ebook soon so it doesn’t go out of print!

January 23, 2012 at 4:18 pm

My first book is a memoir about my backpacking days around Australia. During that year I kept a detailed diary of my experiences, and I thought it would be such a waste if I didn't try to write a book at the end of it. I published my manuscript as an ebook in April last year after having the work edited. I had no idea if I would sell any copies at all, so you can imagine my delight that at 9 months later, I have received several 5 & 4 star reviews from total strangers, most of whom live in America (I live in the UK). I still can't believe that I've created something which other people love and tell me they can't wait for book no. 2 – another memoir about travelling Canada.

January 25, 2012 at 6:12 am

Nicely done. Good advice. I have been thinking about ghost writing a memoir. This helps. Ciao, Carole http://www.facebook.com/Writingdivine

January 26, 2012 at 7:16 pm

golden–I think ghosting memoirs can be rewardiing. As long as the client understands that most memoirs don't make a lot of money. (People can have grandiose ideas of book profits, if they aren't familiar with the realities of the market.) Good luck. I'm glad this helps.

January 28, 2012 at 10:19 pm

Some really good tips here, thanks for this Anne. Thinking of some local celebrities who could have done with this list of does and don'ts lol.

January 29, 2012 at 5:30 pm

Thanks Emily. Yes, celebrities who don't use ghosts can put out some pretty unreadable stuff. And it sells anyway 🙁

July 19, 2012 at 8:22 pm

Great article. My husband's life has been bizarre journey through various subcultures and the seedier elements of society. Not only has he survived extreme scenarios that most people never encounter, the details are hilarious. He's a natural story teller, but some of the best stories are dependent on the weird cadre of people he has met. He wants to tell his story as a memoir and has no qualms about offending anyone, but being sued for some of the scandalous details is a real concern. How can he tell his story with all the oomph and appeal of "truth" without inviting defamation suits? None of the people involved would ever agree to be included, and while names can be changed, the real stories are too good to fictionalize. Have any advice?

July 19, 2012 at 8:41 pm

Anon–He will need to tread carefully. I would change the names of any character who is likely to take offense and do the Dear Abby trick of saying. "my friend…I'll call him 'Bud' did blankety-blank.."

And if he's accusing somebody of criminal activity–even a very long time ago–he's treading on very dangerous ground.

Most important, remember that a memoir needs to tell a story, not relate a series of anecdotes, so he might do better with a collection or series of funny stories.

I'd advise him to read some of David Sedaris's books and see how he uses funny personal stories in a way that's not libelous.

But your husband would probably do well to run things by a lawyer before publishing.

March 4, 2013 at 4:48 pm

David–Thanks. Most people write autobiography instead of memoir–and autobiography can be pretty dull, even when the subject is wildly famous. Most people prefer to read a story rather than a series of events. So if you can write about one incident instead of a whole lifetime, you're way ahead of the pack.

March 4, 2013 at 3:06 pm

This blog is great. I'm pleased I discovered it. I had my autobiography, Never Ending Circles, published last August but I had in mind a niche audience which were students. So I was surprised when it became popular with local general readers too. This was partly because they knew me and partly because I had written about things that had effected most people. I'm working on my memoir now and realising that you never stop learning your craft. I am now starting this one with a major incident in my life to grab the reader rather than childhood which I sort of wish I had also done with the auto/bio but its all part of the learning process I suppose. Look forward to more of your posts.

May 2, 2013 at 8:30 am

Best advice I've heard in a long time! I'm one of those medical "cases" (LOL) and I know I have to work extra, extra hard on the entertaining angle (not to the point it shows or is ridiculous, of course! Ha!) but enough that readers stay entertained, my themes shine through, and my message gets across. Quick n' easy… Yeah, right! I'm trying! Thanks for honest, straight-to-ya advice. Much appreciated. -Leslie aka The Healing Redhead

January 20, 2014 at 6:46 pm

I missed this one Leslie. Sounds as if you'll have a good book! Keeping in mind that it needs to be entertaining is half the battle.

January 20, 2014 at 10:18 am

I want to write up my travel memoirs from my year around the world. If this was yours memoir how would you write it? Person, theme, style etc? Would you focus on the photo side? Natalie

January 20, 2014 at 10:21 am

Brilliant advice.

How you would write a travel memoir from a year around the world?

I can't seem tho chose my narrative style for it or decide whether to make it a travel guide or memory based photo book.

January 20, 2014 at 6:53 pm

Natalie–If it were me, I wouldn't have the photos because I'm the world's worst photographer 🙂 But first let me congratulate you on managing to travel around the world. What a great accomplishment and how fun!

Trips like yours can often be best done in blog form. That way you can post all the photos and keep the narrative going in a simple linear style.

For a book, you need to consider the cost of photos. Big, big bux for print and tough to put in ebooks (Basic Kindles only see black and white)

Then you want a story arc. Look at what works in other memoirs. In Eat Pray Love, her arc was finding herself (and love) after a bad breakup. What's your reason for the trip? What thwarted you from accomplishing it? That's the thread that will keep readers turning the pages.

April 21, 2015 at 1:31 am

I've been trying to write my story (teen years) for about 10 years now. I had something very traumatic happen to me, it was a very abusive relationship. I couldn't write about the story because the man I was involved with was arrested and later became one of the first charges of it's kind in the country. There was a publication band and I couldn't write about it. But I just learned the other of the man's death. My friends who have read my blog writings and have followed the story are begging for me to write the story and share it because of the topic and because of the media attention the case got early on in investigation before the ban. I'm sitting here torn. I've written most of the story down over the years. Now that the man is dead I'm free to write about the trial (what I know) and him. But how to put this all in one book is overwhelming for me.

April 21, 2015 at 2:37 am

Wendy–Sometimes the best way to write about something is in fiction rather than confessional pieces and memoir. I find it much easier to do that. I wrote The Gatsby Game about an old boyfriend who died under mysterious circumstances. But by making the story fictional, I didn't have to go places I didn't want to go. (Which wouldn't have added to the story.).

And I once read a great piece of advice from playwright Marsha Norman, who wrote the gut-wrenching "Night Mother". She said "You can't write about something until it's over." And that means it has to be over and fully processed for YOU. There still may be things you need to process.

And nobody says you have to write about your traumas. Mostly I don't. I've been through a lot of things nobody needs to know about except my family and friends. I think we live in an era of too much information. It's okay to keep something private if you'd prefer to do that. There are lots of other subjects to write about besides trauma.

July 17, 2015 at 10:21 pm

Thank you for this. Do you have a polite and sales-friendly way to say "no comment" when someone asks if a novel is autobiographical? I mean, I don't want to alienate a reader who is looking to bond with an author; however, it really is nobody's business.

Did I write a memoir about an anorexia sufferer's journey and the frustrating intricacies of the treatment industry? I don't know. I CAN tell you that I just published a book.

July 17, 2015 at 10:47 pm

Congrats on your new book! With a memoir, you have do deal with people who say "how can you remember exactly what somebody said 20 years ago–how can it all be true?" and if you write a novel, they think everything in it really happened to you..

With a memoir, you can say, "memory is always subjective. This is how I remember it".

With a novel you can say. "It's fiction, so it's all a product of my imagination. But of course real life experiences influence where my imagination goes."

July 17, 2015 at 11:21 pm

Thank you, and thanks for that helpful advice!

February 23, 2016 at 8:30 am

Thankyou so much. I’m writing my first Memoir at age 54 and am researching Blog vs Book . Hmm I might combine them both.

February 23, 2016 at 12:19 pm

Michelle–Blogging your memoir first and later turning it into a book can work really well. Check out Nina Amir’s blog “Blog Your Book.”

May 7, 2016 at 9:18 pm

Thank you!! This information is so helpful! I’m in the process of having my memoir edited and look forward to the new journey

May 7, 2016 at 9:25 pm

Rosann–I’m so happy this helps. A lot of people think memoir is easy to write, but it may be one of the toughest forms to do well. You’re very wise to hire an editor. Best of luck with your book!

March 20, 2017 at 4:25 am

I’m finding all this information from you, as well as the comments, very interesting indeed, and I’m making lots of notes longhand for later!

I too am in the process of writing a thematic memoir. The prompt, for want of another word, is the discovery of my journals handwritten when I was 13 yrs old, all of which contain incredible details of my life then which I couldn’t share in real-time, but which proved to be key evidence in a trial. Without those diaries there would have been no conviction or custodial sentence, which gives me the notion that a higher power was at play in those childhood days, preserving the evidence for the future me to have justice served, over FORTY years later…!

I’m getting loads of encouragement from friends, supporters and professional writers alike, to write this thematic memoir, not least to give courage to other people who, like me, survived, and to show that it is never too late to disclose and report historic crimes.

What I love about my childhood journals most though is the vivid observations, particularly about nature and the countryside I lived in. And how opinionated my young self was…oh my goodness! From all the social commentary the diaries contain it would appear that I also had my finger on the pulse of national & international news…

So anyway, that’s a rather long-winded way of saying how buoyed up I am by this blog with regard to my own writing. I have given myself a 3-year deadline from now to being ready to publish. And that’s despite the fact that I already have about 40,000 words gathered on my laptop over the past 3 years… I guess these things just take time, eh?

Thanks for listening as well as for all the great tips. All the best, Esther

March 20, 2017 at 9:31 am

Esther–It sounds as if you have a goldmine there in your childhood journals. I saved my childhood journals as well and incorporated them into my novel Food of Love. I think they gave the work an immediacy and intensity my mature voice would have missed.

Do consider starting a blog on the subject and use some of the stuff that can’t go in the book on the blog. You will then start building an audience that will be ready-made when your book is finished and you may help a number of young people along the way.

Best of luck!

June 11, 2017 at 8:45 am

Excellent. I’ve been editing lately for memoir writers, and I explain the problems with publishing but encourage the enterprise with realistic expectations. Sharing this!

June 11, 2017 at 9:21 am

Cindy–Thanks. I think that was the toughest part of editing for me–telling writers that a personal memoir was probably not going to be a big seller and not to expect the big bux. Some personal memoirs do break out, but most agents and publishers are not going to take a chance on them. 🙁

August 3, 2017 at 10:30 pm

Hi, thanks for the helpful list! I’m currently working on a collection of memoir-esque, dark/comic narrative non-fiction stories inspired by my time as an army “journalist” during the early years of the Iraq War. I’m roughly 50,000 words in and attempting to think ahead to next steps as I near completion (my goal is 70-90K words). The publishing process seems like it’s going to be a nasty beast, so that last point about not getting discouraged was well-placed for me. Your tips are already coming in handy. Thanks again, take care.

August 4, 2017 at 9:11 am

emj–Your idea sounds intriguing. Short memoiric essays (especially funny ones) tend to do better than long narrative memoirs because they can be published in magazines and on websites. You can start building an audience now, even before you finish the whole collection.

Look at the career of David Sedaris, who is the master of the short comic essay. If you can record some of them as podcasts, you can start building an audience with audio, too. Best of luck! .

August 4, 2017 at 11:32 am

Yes, I was planning on doing audio eventually, largely because I’ve always loved David Sedaris’ work. Maybe I’ll start sooner than later. And if you can recommend any publishers in the market for this sort of thing, I’m definitely all ears! Thanks for the quick reply.

August 4, 2017 at 3:12 pm

emj–The big publishing houses and most agents aren’t interested in memoir, unless you’re a Rolling Stone or you’ve run for President. But you may find a small press. Look at the Authors Publish website. They list publishers who don’t require an agent.. There’s a link to Authors Publish in most of my “opportunity alerts” at the bottom of recent blogposts. hit “home” to read the recent ones.

But your best way to get the book length collection published is to get smaller journals to publish pieces of it first.

And start a blog! I’ll be talking about that tomorrow.

January 9, 2018 at 5:15 pm

I appreciate the sage advice. I am in the process of writing my own memoir, roughly 75,000 words into it. I have began to stall, almost like I have run out of things to say. I did not think that was possible. I suffer from Bipolar and I started writing as a form of therapy; it has been cathartic to say the least. I have remembered things from my past I thought long gone from my memory. I have numerous funny stories, mostly about my mother, running throughout the book. My question is concerning your comment about not including all of the details. How do you know what details to leave out?

Thank you for your time.

January 9, 2018 at 6:57 pm

Jonathan–75K is actually a very respectable length for a nonfiction book these days. They’ve been shrinking fast in the last decade.

What you leave out is anything that’s not “Chekhov’s gun”. Chekhov famously said “if you have a gun on the table in act one, make sure it’s fired by the end of the play.” (I paraphrase.) But that’s true of all narrative. Only put in the details that move along the story.

You may find that you have enough out-takes to put into a blog or some nostalgia or inspirational anthologies. A blog, magazine, or anthology is a great way to get an audience for your book. Best of luck!

January 10, 2018 at 9:34 am

I actually had a blog once upon a time; I deleted it because nobody read it. Silly, I know. I thank you for the advice. I will see where this journey takes me. I will continue to follow your blog; glad to have found it.

January 10, 2018 at 9:52 am

Jonathan–You might find a lot of help in my new book “The Author Blog: Easy Blogging for Busy Authors.” I have several chapters devoted to memoirists like you. It’s only $2.99 right now for the ebook. 🙂

January 10, 2018 at 10:19 am

Thank You. I will look into it. If I may, I have one more question. How much of the memoir would you recommend posting on the blog?

Again, I appreciate your kindness. To not just me, but all aspiring authors. You do not have to do that.

January 10, 2018 at 10:33 am

Jonathan–You don’t want to put the memoir on the blog, because then it will be considered “published” and “freely available on the web” so both Amazon and trad pub will reject it. But what you want to put on the blog is all the out-takes and research.

That funny story that doesn’t quite fit, or long story about a peripheral character that makes the book too long. And photos! You can put all those photos that are so expensive to put in print.

January 4, 2019 at 12:32 pm

Hi, my husband and I are writing his memoir of his years as an army brat living in Okinawa with his family during the height of the Vietnam war in 1968, 1969 and 1970, When he was 11, 12 and 13 years old. The manuscript is about 48,000 words. It has been a three-year process with many drafts. We are Seeking advice about what our next step should be. Years ago when I lived in Oregon, I was a member of Willamette writers Guild. In the past, I wrote an art instructional book called Paint Happy (North Light 2002, 2004). I thought I live in California, should I re-join WWG to look for an agent? One reader (i sent it to a few friends) told me that a memoir should be 32,000 words. Another one told me it should be longer. I’m a bit at a loss. Can you please give me some advice? Thanks- And happy new year Cristina

January 4, 2019 at 2:47 pm

Hi Cristina–Here’s my post on how long a book should be by genre. http://bit.ly/2H5lJoS Generally a memoir is sold like a novel, so it should be about the same length (70K words) but it can be as few as 40K, depending on your audience. Your friend who quoted 32K was way off. Your length is probably fine.

You don’t need to belong to a writers’ group to get an agent. You do need to educate yourself on how to write a query, learn agent protocol, etc and you can learn a lot by networking with other writers. But you can do that online. Check out all the info on our page “How to Get Your Book Published” The link is in the menu bar at the top of the blog just under the header.

December 10, 2020 at 1:37 pm

Hello, I found this very helpful in my future writing project. Every one of us is a book holding on to be composed, and that book, whenever composed, brings about an individual clarified. Come and visit my blog on The Importance of Writing a Memoir

Thanks Byron

[…] Nothing could be further from the truth. Nonfiction needs to be even more carefully structured than fiction—especially memoir. A simple chronology almost never makes for compelling reading. (For more on writing memoir, see my post on How to Write a Publishable Memoir.) […]

[…] more on writing memoir, see Anne’s piece HOW TO WRITE A PUBLISHABLE MEMOIR and Ruth’s interview with memoirist Michael Harris on THE STORY THAT TOOK 50 YEARS TO […]

[…] That means you have to superimpose those things on a story that already exists, instead of creating your story around a structure.  More on this in my post “How to Write a Publishable Memoir.” […]

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[…] author and writing coach Anne R Allen instructs aspiring writers to scope out their competition.  Read other memoirs.  Study the […]

[…] Here are some excellent tips from Anne R. Allen for penning your memoir. […]

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What is a Memoir? A Comprehensive Guide for Nonfiction Writers

by Harry Wallett

Each one of us has a unique journey that has shaped us into the people we are today, and it’s these stories that connect us, inspire us, and even change us.

But how do you put your life experiences into words? How do you transform your memories into a powerful piece of writing that will captivate readers? Enter the memoir — a beautiful and compelling way to share your personal story.

In this article, we’ll demystify the art of memoir writing, helping you understand what a memoir is, how it differs from an autobiography, and how you can embark on the journey of writing one.

We’ll explore the essential elements of a memoir, offer practical tips on how to craft an engaging and emotionally resonant narrative, and even share some examples of successful memoirs to inspire you.

Are you ready to dive into the world of memoir writing? Let’s dive in!

Differences Between a Memoir and an Autobiography

First off, let’s talk about what sets a memoir apart from an autobiography. While both types of writing share the author’s life experiences, there are some key differences.

Understanding these distinctions will help you better craft your memoir and ensure it stands out from other nonfiction narratives.

Here’s a closer look at the main differences between memoirs and autobiographies:

Scope of focus

Autobiographies typically cover the author’s entire life, providing a comprehensive account of their experiences from birth to the present. In contrast, memoirs focus on specific events, periods, or themes within the author’s life.

When writing a memoir, you’ll zoom in on the moments that shaped you the most, delving into the emotions, insights, and personal growth that resulted from those experiences.

Storytelling style

Autobiographies tend to be more chronological and factual, providing a linear, factual account of the author’s life. Memoirs, on the other hand, often employ creative storytelling techniques to share personal experiences.

This might include using flashbacks, shifting perspectives, or playing with narrative structure to create a more engaging and immersive experience for readers.

Memoirs also tend to emphasize the author’s reflections and interpretations of events, rather than simply recounting the facts.

Emotional depth

One of the key characteristics of memoirs is their emotional depth. Memoirs often delve deeper into the author’s emotions, exploring the feelings, thoughts, and motivations behind their actions and experiences.

This allows readers to truly connect with the author’s story, empathizing with their struggles and celebrating their triumphs. In comparison, autobiographies might touch on emotions but generally maintain a more objective, factual tone.

Author’s perspective

In a memoir, the author’s perspective takes center stage. This means that, rather than providing an objective account of events, memoirs focus on the author’s personal interpretation of their experiences.

This subjective perspective can provide unique insights into the author’s mindset and help readers understand how they made sense of the world around them.

Key Elements of a Memoir

Now that we’ve got the basics down, let’s look at the four essential ingredients of a memoir:

• Personal experiences and memories: A memoir is built on your unique experiences, so don’t be afraid to share your story.
• Vulnerability and honesty: Open up and be truthful about your feelings and thoughts. It’s what makes a memoir genuine and relatable.
• Theme or central message: A strong memoir revolves around a central theme, message, or lesson that ties the story together.
• Reflection and introspection: Take the time to reflect on your experiences and how they’ve shaped you. This is what will make your memoir insightful and thought-provoking.

How to Write a Memoir: A Step-by-Step Primer

Ready to get started on your memoir? Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you on your way:

Step 1. Identify your story: Think about the moments in your life that had the most significant impact on you. What do you want to share with the world?

Step 2. Develop a theme or message: Consider the central lesson or message you want your readers to take away from your memoir. This will help guide your storytelling.

Step 3. Organize your memories and experiences: Jot down important events, emotions, and people in your story. This will help you create a clear and organized narrative.

Step 4. Write with emotion and vulnerability: As you write, let your emotions flow. Be honest and vulnerable about your experiences — it’s what’ll make your memoir powerful and relatable.

Step 5. Incorporate dialogue and vivid descriptions: Bring your story to life with engaging dialogue and vivid descriptions. Show your readers what happened instead of just telling them.

Step 6. Edit and revise your memoir: Once you’ve written your first draft, take the time to revise and polish your work. Make sure your story flows well and your message is clear.

Tips for Writing a Compelling Memoir

To make your memoir truly stand out, keep these tips in mind:

• Be authentic and honest: Your memoir should be a genuine reflection of your experiences and emotions. Don’t be afraid to be yourself.
• Show, don’t tell: Use descriptive language to paint a vivid picture of your experiences. Instead of just stating how you felt, describe the situation and let the reader infer your emotions.
• Focus on a specific period or event: By concentrating on a particular time or event in your life, you can create a more engaging and focused memoir.
• Create a strong narrative arc: Like any good story, your memoir should have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Develop a narrative arc that takes readers on a journey through your experiences.
• Use humor and personality: Don’t be afraid to inject your unique voice and sense of humor into your writing. It’ll make your memoir more relatable and enjoyable to read.

Examples of Successful Memoirs

Want some inspiration? Here are three memoirs that have captivated readers and what you can learn from them:

• “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls: Walls’ memoir about her unconventional childhood teaches us the power of vulnerability and the importance of staying true to your experiences.
• “Wild” by Cheryl Strayed: Strayed’s account of her solo hike on the Pacific Crest Trail shows how focusing on a specific event can make a memoir more engaging and emotionally resonant.
• “Born a Crime” by Trevor Noah: Noah’s memoir about growing up in South Africa demonstrates the impact of using humor and personality to make a powerful story even more relatable and memorable.

In Conclusion

Writing a memoir can be a deeply rewarding and transformative experience, allowing you to connect with your past, make sense of your experiences, and share your wisdom with others.

By embracing vulnerability, honesty, and creativity, you’ll not only create a memoir that resonates with your readers but also help them see the world from a different perspective — and maybe even inspire them to embark on their own journey of self-discovery.

So, as you take the first steps towards writing your memoir, remember that you’re in good company. Countless writers have come before you, sharing their stories and leaving a mark on the world.

And now, it’s your turn!

Harry Wallett is the Managing Director of Cascadia Author Services. He has a decade of experience as the Founder and Managing Director of Relay Publishing, which has sold over 3 million copies of books in all genres for its authors, and looks after a team of 50+ industry professionals working across the world.

Harry is inspired by the process of book creation and is passionate about the stories and characters behind the prose. He loves working with the writers and has shepherded 1000s of titles to publication over the years. He knows first-hand what it takes to not only create an unputdownable book, but also how to get it into the hands of the right readers for success.

Books are still one of the most powerful mediums to communicate ideas and establish indisputable authority in a field, boosting your reach and stature. But publishing isn’t a quick and easy process—nor should it be, or everyone would do it!

One response to “What is a Memoir? A Comprehensive Guide for Nonfiction Writers”

I enjoyed your article. Having done both autobiography and memoir, I totally agree with your characterization of memoir’s emotional freshness and imaginative leaps. I havenow wrutteb a25chaitdr memoir, HALF-LIFE, and about 10 chapters of a “sequel “. THE OTHER HALF.

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What Is a Memoir? Definition & Purpose of This Genre

POSTED ON Oct 3, 2023

Written by Sarah Rexford

Answering the question, what is a memoir, can set you on an inspiring trajectory. Are you wondering how to write a book based on a true story ? The characteristics of a memoir equip you to tell your story, encourage your readers, and share your legacy. 

In fact, memoirs are a unique genre within nonfiction, and not just because they are about the individuals writing them. Memoirs set themselves apart by being exceptionally selfless and at the same time, immensely vulnerable.

With that said, the definition of memoir can be confusing. If a memoir includes different stories from an individual’s life, how is it different from other sub-genres of nonfiction? Feeling confident to answer, what is a memoir, is key to sharing your story in a way that resonates with readers.

In this article, I dive into answering what is a memoir, as well as elaborate on the purpose of this crucial genre. So, what is a memoir and what is the purpose for writing one?

What is a memoir? What's covered:

What defines a memoir .

The defining aspect of a memoir is that it is a book based on a true story and pulls examples from the writer's life that reinforce a specific theme. The next time someone asks you, “What is a memoir?” you can simply say the following. “It’s a historical account written about the themes of an individual’s life.” 

Knowing how to define memoir is the first step in a process that can change your life and the lives of your readers.

However, just because your memoir is based on stories from your life does not mean it is a book about your life story. While an autobiography focuses on your life from birth to present day, a memoir uses specific events in your life to point to a particular theme. 

There are a couple key questions to consider before confidently answering, what is a memoir? The first question pertains to length. The second question asks how memoir stands out as a genre unique unto itself.  

How long is a memoir?

The length of your memoir should fall between 50,000 to 60,000 words. While there are outliers to this rule, learning how to write a memoir starts with setting the boundaries of your word count. 

If you drag your memoir on, listing every event in your life that remotely fits your theme, you will bore your readers. On the other hand, if you cut corners and your story comes in at a mere 15,000 words, you likely missed some prime teaching moments. 

How is memoir different from other genres?

A memoir is unique among genres (particularly autobiography vs memoir ) because the writer focuses on a key theme while placing themselves in the protagonist role. Learning how to write a memoir – or even just get started with the memoir outline – starts with taking a look at the various lessons you have learned throughout your life thus far.

So, what is a memoir’s key differences among other sub-genres of nonfiction and fiction ? While there are many creative memoir ideas and memoir examples you can use to inspire, your memoir should stand out in two ways. You should:

• Share stories from your point of view, but avoid sharing your entire life story
• Focus on a specific book theme and resist including chapters that do not support this theme

If you want to share key moments but you can’t share your entire life (this would be an autobiography), what is a memoir book’s purpose? 

What is the main purpose of a memoir?

The purpose of a memoir is often to inspire readers, teach a lesson, or show the author’s perspective on a specific theme. While biography vs autobiography can do this to some extent, their main purpose is to recount the entire life story of an individual. 

1. The importance of vulnerability.

Look at how the below table illustrates the definition and purpose of this genre:

“What is a memoir, then?” you ask. “Can I write one even though I’m not famous?” Yes! The characteristics of memoir are to inspire and teach. No matter who knows you or who doesn’t, you as an individual have experiences you’ve learned from.

Memoirs are vulnerable. While autobiographies can cushion hard life lessons with various other stories, the purpose of a memoir is to highlight a specific theme. Consider the following themes found in memoir: 

• Accepting change and moving forward
• Dealing with a monumental loss
• Making the most of a personal weakness 
• Overcoming difficulty despite overwhelming setbacks 

Each of these themes strikes the chord of vulnerability. It’s impossible to write a captivating memoir without revealing at least one aspect of vulnerability. 

For instance, in her memoir, Educated , Tara Westover reveals she was seventeen-years-old when she first set foot in a classroom. 

Revealing this moment in her life had to take immense courage. However, her theme of overcoming would not be the same if she had not shared this vulnerability with her readers. 

2. The importance of balancing self-focus with reader-focus.

All this discussion about sharing vulnerable moments may feel a bit egotistical. After all, interpersonal conversations are a two way street. Why should you expect a reader to care about your story, especially if you’re not famous or a celebrity? 

The answer lies in balancing sharing your key life stories with putting the needs of your reader first. A helpful way to find this balance is to finish this sentence after writing a scene or chapter: 

“The reason I say this is…” 

If you don’t have a good reason for the story you just shared, you should probably cut the scene. Here are a few different answers to consider.

Self-focused:

Reader-focused:

• To show how well I dealt with this issue
• To look competent (when I really don’t feel it!)
• To appear like I have it all together
• To show how my readers can learn from my mistakes 
• To show that even if you feel incompetent, you can press on
• To remind readers they don’t have to have it all together (I don’t!)

Remember that sharing personal stories can be an authentic display of selflessness and vulnerability.

Using your personal life stories is not an ego move, as long as you do so from a place of helping your readers. 

Your next step after answering, what is a memoir?

Now that you’ve answered, what is a memoir, it’s time to get to work. Before you dive into writing your first draft, ask yourself the following questions. 

• What theme most sticks out from my life thus far?
• Who do I think will most benefit from hearing my story?
• How can I share this theme in an accessible way?
• Why do I want to share my story? For my benefit or for my readers?

Knowing the answers to the above will help you save time by intentionally writing to your target audience.  To help you further along your memoir journey, here are some valuable resources:

• How to Start a Memoir
• 20 Memoir Writing Do’s and Don’ts
• 75+ Memoir Writing Prompts

Once you draft your memoir you can always go back and do different types of editing (in fact, you should!). Getting your initial thoughts down is key to actually succeeding in writing your memoir.

A successful memoir often relies on not just a great story, but a deep understanding of the publishing process. To help you get started, use the free resource below! 

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The Memoir in Essays: A Reading List

Elizabeth kadetsky on the multiple ways we can look at the self.

While the personal essay has enjoyed continued popularity, a book-length collection of linked essays, centered on an author’s self or life, is less common than a traditional memoir or novel. A truly successful essay collection can reveal the author processing experiences at many different points in time and through many different lenses. As a writer, I’ve always been drawn to the essay as a form, for its concision, for its ability to highlight an intriguing gap between author and narrator that lends an inherent tension and self-questioning. A collection of essays treating the same or related inquiries multiplies this effect.

The distance afforded by those multivalent lenses can allow an author to regard one’s younger self as a different character, a different persona. This can create an unease or uncertainty that is exciting, and also very relatable to the reader. An author’s ability to forgive that earlier version of herself is especially prevalent in the memoir-in-essays, perhaps because of the extended time period covered as a writer composes essays across years or even decades.

We are lucky enough to be in the middle of a renaissance. Several recent and upcoming memoirs-in-essays use the inquisitive essay form to tell life stories from different vantage points and make the reader question and revel in unreliable narrators and new perspectives. The more traditional memoir focuses on seeking and attaining redemption. The nonlinear structure of an essay collection reveals that there is never easy redemption, never clear resolution: bad things happen for no reason; overcoming one trial does not lessen the need to adapt in the next.

These new, enchanting and powerful collections are a welcome reminder that in our collective state of unrest and unknown futures, there is a comfort in knowing that there is an inherent uncertainty in having the answers.

Emily Arnason Casey, Made Holy: Essays (University of Georgia Press)

In beautiful, scenic prose, Emily Arnason Casey probes her middle American childhood from the stance of different venues, times of life, and primary characters—a family cabin and repository for memories both happy and sad; a little sister who grew up and wasn’t a sidekick anymore; a mother who didn’t reveal the family propensity to alcoholism until it was too late; an aunt who succumbed to the illness’s lure. In a spiral-like structure that keeps returning to a central and unanswerable question—how, and why, must this family battle the draws and effects of alcohol addiction—Arnason Casey tells a poignant story of a “normal” family that through its quirks and desires must find a path to survival. The author finds solace in nostalgia and a way forward by examining the errors of the past and by embracing, as a mother, the promise of the future generation. Her probing and compulsive need to question reminds us that alcoholism has no simple etiology, and that its cures are as individual as they are elusive.

Sonja Livingston, The Virgin of Prince Street: Expeditions into Devotion } (University of Nebraska Press)

At a time of dwindling religiosity, Livingston finds herself wishing for greater connection to her Catholic roots while also exploring the physical space of the church in upstate New York that made memories for her as a child. Because of religious attrition, the church that she grew up in becomes the gathering space for dozens of rescued saint statues deaccessioned from other churches nearby. Livingston embarks upon a quest to find a missing Virgin Mary statue, that moves not in straight lines but elliptically, following a parallel physical and emotional journey that is an exploration into faith, Catholicism, and a desire for spiritual connection on modern terms. In examining the sustained power of a central icon of the Catholic church and an object of personal, sentimental attachment, Livingston’s linked essays highlight the irresolvable paradox of modern religiosity—that the seeker must follow an uncharted middle pathway when the old texts and their tropes, their patriarchy and their strictures, necessarily fall away.

Amy Long, Codependence (Cleveland State University Poetry Center)

In this haunting and troubling book, Long revisits scenes and anecdotes from her  boyfriend’s heroin addiction and her subsequent dependence on opioids for chronic pain. Formal experiments such as essays disguised as lists, prescription forms, and medical reports are interspersed among scene-driven recollections from different points in time: the author’s first introduction to the drug; the allure of an older addict; attempts at recovery. The grounding presence of the author’s supportive mother is offset by the narrative’s tragic other constant—the euphoria and escape offered by the drug. By eschewing a linear narrative structure, Long illustrates the difficulty of achieving recovery and puts lie to the myth that addiction is a logical disease that naturally ends with a cure. In its very form, this memoir undermines the narrative so prevalent in media treatments of this illness—that in order to trounce the beast, the individual suffering from addiction need only attend a recovery program. Having written about and witnessed my own sister’s decades’ long struggle to overcome opioid addiction, I was drawn to Long’s wisdom in portraying addiction not as a problem to be solved so much as a complexity to be observed and penetrated.

Sejal Shah, This Is One Way to Dance (University of Georgia Press)

The Indian-American author continually revisits her troubled relationship to her American identity through layered essays treating her bifurcated Indian and American past. Exploring her family’s immersion in Gujarati subculture when she was a child growing up in Rochester, New York; her experience as one of few people of color in her MFA creative writing program; and many family weddings in which she must confront her presumed future as a desi bride, Shah questions her place in both American culture and the thriving American-Gujarati subculture. By placing dates at the ends of the essays, it is suggested that her complicated and lifelong conflicts about race and cultural identity can be told chronologically. But, as she explains in her introduction, many essays had multiple end dates after having been revised and reconsidered as time moved forward. The multiple end dates elegantly upend the notion that a rational, hypothesis-thesis-synthesis structure can encompass the complexities of identity and belonging. Shah’s choice to write non-narratively about her conflicts of identity provide insight for anyone raised with a dual or multiple cultural identity—anyone who may, at different points of time, feel a greater allegiance to one culture, another, or a never straightforward amalgam of many. Who we understand ourselves to be, Shah’s book tells the reader in subtle ways, is not a fact so much as a moving target, an unending query.

Sue William Silverman, How to Survive Death and Other Inconveniences (University of Nebraska Press)

Silverman is the author of three previous memoirs. In How to Survive Death and Other Inconveniences , she tells her life story through the lens of an obsession with death and the desire to come to terms with the inevitable but often avoided reality that in the end we are mortal. The essays begin with a chronological life story of growing up in New Jersey and encountering American culture’s death-avoidance, but then take a swerve when several brief but elusive mentions accrue into an account of a rape at a young age and a discovery that her memory of the event connects to her fixation on death. A chronological structure gives way to a thematic plot, in which Silverman seeks to confront her topic through reporting, immersion, and reflection—for instance by visiting a morgue, exploring mythological figures associated with death, and recollecting a family funeral. The sophisticated writing and structure make the whole greater than the sum of its many fascinating and worthy parts. Silverman’s essays continually reveal the irrational functioning of memory and how it connects our pasts to our worldviews. Honoring subconscious logic, How to Survive Death and Other Inconveniences makes the gambit that the mysteries of the self are both keys to understanding and uncertainties to be celebrated. We become who we are without being fully conscious of our choices—probing those choices won’t give us easy answers, but the discoveries along the way will be illuminating and well worth the necessary befuddlements.

__________________________________

Elizabeth Kadetsky’s memoir , The Memory Eaters, is available now from University of Massachusetts Press.

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Memoir coach and author Marion Roach

Welcome to The Memoir Project, the portal to your writing life.

Writing Lessons: How to Write a Memoir That Reads Like a Novel

IT’S A QUESTION I GET ALL THE TIME: How to write a memoir that reads like a novel? How to make it a page-turner and give it a fiction-like feel in its fine plot? All good questions, and perhaps no one is more qualified to answer them than Marcia Butler, author of the highly-acclaimed, The Skin Above My Knee. The book earned enormous praise in reviews in The New York Times , The Washington Post , and more. I had the great pleasure to work with Marcia, so I know what she did, how she works and something about how she thinks. But it’s how she writes that shows you her real goods, and she generously volunteered to write what is below for the readers of The Memoir Project blog. Enjoy.

How to Write a Memoir that Reads Like a Novel

by Marcia Butler

“Music is liquid architecture. Architecture is frozen music.” Goethe

Implicit in this quote is that all art forms are connected by the notion of shapeshifting. This is, of course, a simplistic reduction. But to add to this, all creative arts begin with small parts and end up with a totality which is greater than those parts. Music – note by note. Buildings – brick by brick. Painting – brush stroke by brush stroke. Dance – step by step. Writing – word by word. In the end, I believe all art forms are versions of storytelling and the best stories are told from the perspective of truth and integrity; craft and discernment. What can be more real than a memoir?

One of the highest compliments a memoirist can receive is to have her book characterized as a page turner certainly, but even better, that it reads like a novel. The protagonist is fleshed out and the story line is revealed in a cohesive yet artful manner. The structure of the book beats with necessary rhythm and as such, pulls the reader in deeply. The protagonist (the author) is both vulnerable and heroic. Ancillary characters add dimension and complexity. There is ambiguity, mystery and resolution. These descriptions could be attributed to a great novel and also a beautifully rendered memoir.

The craft of writing a memoir and a novel is more alike than different. To my mind, the only real difference is that with memoir, the plot which is the author’s life story, is completely known. In fact, the author knows much more than can ever be reasonably included in the memoir. A life is full and large, and part of the memoirist’s job is to decide which scenes to select for inclusion. For instance, childhood scenes alone could take up a lot of page space, but the trick is to use those that best propel the narrative forward. Additionally, many people touch our lives, but the memoirist must decide which of those people will best support her unique story from a dramatic point of view.

By contrast, a novel, though it may be inspired by a real-life event, is made up. Some novelists prefer to outline structure and plot before they begin to write. They identify the landmarks and “write toward” that outline. I know many, including myself, who figure it out as we go – kind of like walking blind down a path. As the story progresses the characters themselves “decide” what to do. This is the mystery of fiction – not knowing the trajectory until the novel is finished, or at least until a draft is complete. But plot and character decisions, whether in fiction or memoir, remain the same: the author must include scenes and people which will capture the interest of the reader, who in either case, doesn’t know story.

Fiction can be crafted in first person POV and work nicely as a memoir-like novel. On the other hand, memoir – someone’s actual life story – does not necessarily lend itself well to fictionalizing. This is because life is, at times, just too odd to be believed. The things that happen to us as human beings are often beyond imagining and the reader cannot suspend disbelief. And that is why it’s vital to approach memoir carefully and understand that not all the events in our fascinating and sometimes devastating lives should be in the book. This is where we put on our novelist hat.

Write many scenes but be prepared to ditch most of them. In the fiction world, this is called “killing your darlings”. But take heart! No amount of writing is ever wasted, even if you ultimately don’t use the material. When you write, revise and then discard you are excavating your way to the material that you will use. Writing is linear. I liken it to practicing difficult music when I was a professional oboist. One does not just sit down and play things perfectly the first time. Musicians spend lots of time practicing what they cannot play . With this comes an ability to tolerate discomfort for many hours. And all of this frustration is not in vain because it is part of perfecting the music for a performance. The same can be said for writing and tossing out. Writers must learn to tolerate the crappy first, second and third drafts, knowing that they are all, in fact, necessary to the process. No one jumps on the perfect words the first time around. This is the case for memoirs and novels.

World building is essential in memoir and fiction. Just because the memoirist knows her environment inside and out, place setting of the story must bounce off the page. We need to see clearly where your people are interacting. You are standing on a street corner, but what do the buildings on that corner look like? Is the sun out that day? Or is it raining? Give the reader a bird’s eye view to the environment you are creating. If the scene takes place inside, are the walls covered in wallpaper or a vibrant paint color? How is the room decorated? Is the space a mess or neat as a pin? Is there a coffee stain on the white marble counter? Does your mother shudder because the lemonade is too tart? How does that look? Can you describe the exact quality of a warm, moist ocean breeze? What kind of scream do you hear on the third floor of the house? Muffled? Sustained? All of these details tell us vital information about the world our characters live in. Once you get into the habit of attending to this aspect of story-telling – you will bring each scene to life.

The next layer of world building, is to include the senses. People not only behave, they see, smell, hear, taste and feel. Make sure that “you” and your characters are responding to these senses on a regular basis. This is how the protagonist (you) can be fleshed out, as if using close third POV in fiction where the author is sitting on the shoulder of the character. You may not remember much about this, but it is important that the reader hear what you hear. See what you see. Taste what you taste. Smell what you smell. Get creative; fill in the gaps. The essential scene is a memory – and then you must fill in the scene with sense memory as much as possible.

In fiction, back flashes are useful to tell the reader not only what happened in the past, but also why characters behave as they do in the present. It is a clever device to weave material through a memoir as well. Mixing chronology is a way to engage the reader further because a back flash is unexpected, somewhat like a tempo change in music, or a pop of color on a canvas. Though, the way one harkens back must be organically tethered to the action in present time. There should be a very good reason we need to know this piece of history just then.

Introspection is vital in a memoir. The author needs to, at times, write about conclusions she has come to regarding the events in her life. Another word we might use is interiority, which is what fiction writers utilize when they are in very close POV. The author is literally inside the mind of the protagonist and is musing about what is happening. This is the expansion of the lens – inside and outside – back and forth – which memoirists and novelists need to bring a wide bandwidth of psychology to their story.

The spine of a book, metaphorically speaking, is the plot or the story line. This is true for memoir and for a novel. From this fundamental tree trunk, the memoirist makes the story come alive through all the devices and craft elements that novelists use. Indeed, all art forms work this way and I find it useful to think broadly when approaching my writing. I hear in music. I see art in a museum. I feel interiority of character in dance. Architecture helps me know culture. If the memoirist brings all this to bear in telling her life story, she will create a page turner in the best sense of the term. Just like a novelist.

Author’s bio

Marcia Butler’s nationally acclaimed memoir, The Skin Above My Knee , was one of the Washington Post’s “top ten noteworthy moments in classical music in 2017”.  She was chosen as 2017 notable debut author in 35 OVER 35. Her work has been published in Literary Hub, PANK Magazine, Psychology Today, Aspen Ideas Magazine, Catapult, Bio-Stories and others. Her first piece of flash fiction appears in the anthology One Hundred Voices from Centum Press. Marcia was a 2015 recipient of a Writer-in-Residence through Aspen Words and the Catto Shaw Foundation. Her forthcoming debut novel, Pickle’s Progress, will be released in Spring 2019 from Central Avenue Publishing. Marcia is currently making a documentary film exploring the complex and intersecting aspects of creativity, called The Creative Imperative. Marcia was a professional oboist for twenty-eight years until her retirement in 2008. During her musical career, she performed as a principal oboist and soloist on the most renowned of New York and international stages, with many high-profile musicians and orchestras – including pianist Andre Watts, and composer/pianist Keith Jarrett. The New York Times hailed her as a “first-rate artist”. She lives in New York City.

HOW TO WIN A COPY OF THE BOOK I hope you enjoy Writing Lessons. Featuring well-published writers of our favorite genre, each installment takes on one short topic addressing how to write memoir. It’s my way of saying thanks for coming by. Love the author featured above? Did you learn something in the how-to? Then you’ve got to read the book. And you can. I am giving away one copy, and all you have to do to win is leave a comment below about something you learned from the writing lesson or the excerpt. I’ll draw winners at random (using the tool at random dot org) after entries close at midnight Monday, May 14, 2018. Unfortunately, only readers within the US domestic postal service can receive books. Good luck!

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Related posts:

• Writing Lessons: Waiting for Someone to Die Before You Write Memoir?
• Writing Lessons: When Are You Ready To Write Memoir?
• Writing Lessons: Memoir Advice? Know Your Audience, With Kate Richards

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Reader interactions.

Alison Singh Gee says

April 4, 2018 at 2:16 pm

I loved Marcia’s brilliant distillation of the process and hopes for writing one’s life story. I plan to teach Marcia’s essay in my UCLA creative nonfiction class. Thank you for the showcase of rich, literary insights on writing.

Marcia says

April 4, 2018 at 3:53 pm

Thank you Alison! Glad it will get out to your talented students!

April 4, 2018 at 11:03 pm

When I read these two sentences, I felt a sense of relief: “No amount of writing is ever wasted, even if you ultimately don’t use the material. When you write, revise and then discard you are excavating your way to the material that you will use.” I’d been thinking recently of how many pages I’ve written for my first novel, how many I’ve thrown out, how many times I’ve rewritten just one page (especially the first one!), and sometimes I’ve felt like I was just spinning my wheels. Glad to know I’m not!

Dana Schwartz says

April 5, 2018 at 6:48 am

I loved this article so much, and for me, the biggest take away was world building. Sometimes I take for granted that the reader will know what I do, but of course I must paint the world and set the scene in order for them to truly inhabit it with me. Her memoir sounds utterly intriguing!

Marcia Butler says

April 5, 2018 at 12:16 pm

I’m so glad you gleaned this from my essay. Many thanks for the read.

Happy writing to you!

Deirdre says

April 5, 2018 at 7:19 am

The Sense section resonated with me. I tend to go for dialogue and rush to get to the point quickly, yet I know that as a reader my mind uses its senses to fully experience scenes. And as a golfer, I am intimately aware of the need to practice and let go of what doesn’t work. The integration of music, sport, art and writing was so well said and heartening. I often use a quote I was told relative to Martial Arts, but is useful to all chosen challenges, ‘The Art is long, Life is short.’ (If I don’t win your book Ms. Butler, I will buy it for sure! Warm thanks to you and Marion Roach for inspiration – an overused description for generosity of heart and experience.)

April 5, 2018 at 12:19 pm

Thank you so much for your comment. And I agree, golf is so much a head game – just like writing. And interesting that the next game is never informed by the one you played the day before. Which is what many authors say is true when writing their next book. It does not fold over the way one hopes!

Many thanks for reading my memoir (in advance!)

Karen DeBonis says

April 5, 2018 at 7:33 am

I’ve been struggling with whether to add my current day perspective to my memoir, in which most of the action happened twenty years ago. So it was helpful to read that “Introspection is vital in a memoir. The author needs to, at times, write about conclusions she has come to regarding the events in her life.” And I’ll look up “interiority,” a new word for me. Thanks for all the insights!

April 5, 2018 at 12:22 pm

Dear Karen,

From what I understand from publishing houses, that long lens perspective is expected in a memoir. However, use it with a light touch. The time shift could be jarring.

Much luck to you with your memoir!

April 5, 2018 at 10:19 am

Wonderful insights into how to make one’s story come alive.

Many thanks for the read Mary!

April 5, 2018 at 10:46 am

I’d like to learn more about the KILL section described here, such as how to decide what to discard and what to keep and build on. Thanks to Marcia for this list!

April 5, 2018 at 12:24 pm

Keep getting content down. The whole of the book, or essay, will tell you what is to remain. It’s kind of a woo woo thing. The work needs to actually “know itself”. This is a long discussion obviously!

April 5, 2018 at 11:20 am

Flash: “There should be a very good reason we need to know this piece of history just then.” I have read, i.e. been instructed, to keep writing chronological as much as possible. This insight makes sense as writers need freedom tell their story more like an engaged conversation rather than following a linear A to Z.

April 5, 2018 at 12:28 pm

Yes. There are recommendations, of course. But if writers didn’t break rules, well, we wouldn’t have thousands of classics on our shelves. The chronological thing is useful, surely. It is a start and it may be how the piece ultimately ends up. However, as an artist, I encourage you to experiment. Go with your gut. Be very brave. It you don’t try it your way, you will never know.

oxox Marcia

Judith Magee says

April 5, 2018 at 1:44 pm

Dear Marcia: Thank you for sharing your process with us. Connecting writing to various art forms brought together what I intuitively know. But your use of the word “shapeshifting” made it more conscious.

Your final remarks, for example, made this notion of shapeshifting come home: “I hear in music. I see art in a museum. I feel interiority of character in dance. Architecture helps me know culture.” Wow! As you say, writing combines this notion with the emphasis on world building, tapping into the five senses, and the other techniques you mention.

I hope that I can aspire my writing with your techniques!

April 5, 2018 at 4:31 pm

Dear Judith,

Thank you so much for appreciating this. And really, isn’t everything connected? Having worked seriously in 3 art forms, I find such commonality everywhere – to the point where the creative flow actually feels the same. So I recommending that everyone dip into whatever world interest you. You can find inspiration for your writing everywhere.

April 5, 2018 at 2:39 pm

This post really resonated with me, especially the “Kill” section, where Marcia likened writing to practicing music. Having played the violin for over 20 years, I practiced a lot of what I could not initially play, and only over time did I become comfortable playing various pieces. I still think that killing your own written darlings is more difficult than killing what doesn’t work when playing someone else’s, but hopefully it will get easier!

April 5, 2018 at 4:38 pm

You know so well how it feels to stick to something that very difficult. Day after day. Then gradually the piece of music takes shape and becomes beautiful and whole. I write a lot about music in my memoir; part of it is about my career as a professional oboist. The analogy to tossing out in writing is not exact but rather runs side by side. It is the process of creating content and working through this very diligently that allows the work to “know itself”. Thus, many things you wrote will be discarded because those passages do not serve the story. I can’t say that things will “get easier”, but it is immensely fulfilling when that whole does appear!

Jeanne says

April 6, 2018 at 8:30 am

So very helpful and inspiring. I printed to hang on my wall, right next to my memoir’s argument. Thank you.

April 6, 2018 at 10:29 am

Dear Jeanne,

I’m so glad my essay has inspired you. Keep writing – the world needs your voice and your story.

Jilliann Woods says

April 6, 2018 at 12:48 pm

Hello Marcia,

“…musing about what is happening. This is the expansion of the lens – ” It is what comes naturally to me as I write, this musing, but I’ve been struggling with whether and how to include my observations. Your perspective of expanding the lens for the reader is perfect.

Your comments on back flashes address another of my current challenges – actually, your entire post is helpful and motivating.

April 6, 2018 at 3:47 pm

Dear Jillian,

What a thrill to hear how my words have clarified some things for you. In general, I find that if something opens up for me as a possibility in the piece, I try it out. It appears to me for a reason – it is in my consciousness. And questioning too much just leads to doubt. The idea of not knowing can be tolerated if we are brave in our expansion of possibilities. Hope this isn’t too dense to be meaningful – but the upshot is: try everything and be prepared for failure. This process will help the distillation for clarity about what IS correct.

Jilliann says

April 7, 2018 at 11:42 am

Thank you Marcia, I am copying your advice and posting it on my writing wall :)

April 7, 2018 at 10:03 pm

I am honored to be on your writing wall! Stay with it. The writing life is worth it.

Theresa says

April 9, 2018 at 6:55 pm

Marcia’s article covers everything (I believe) a person needs to incorporate into memoir without being preachy or talking to us like 6th graders. Clearly stated and excellent examples along the way. I teach creative writing and memoir and this week I will share the article with my class. It is through writing that we become better writers and Marcia’s statement, “When you write, revise and then discard you are excavating your way to the material that you will use” encourages us to accept all of this as part of the process. I will read this article over and over again as I too write my memoir. Thank you!

April 10, 2018 at 11:29 pm

Dear Theresa,

What an honor! I am thrilled that you got a lot out of my essay and also that you will share with your students. Please do let me know what they think. Process is everything and I am glad that I made this clear for you. Again, many thanks for this outreach!

Cara Koch says

April 27, 2018 at 8:09 am

Your comments give me the courage to play with time and sequence in what I have written, without feeling I have “wasted” writing it chronologically in the first draft. Thank you!

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R. Eric Thomas

On the creative process, empathy engines, and nancy meyers kitchen parties..

Ten years ago, Brené started the Daring Interview series on her blog. It quickly became one of our favorite features. Now, we are relaunching the series and adding in a few new questions, including some from the late James Lipton, host of Inside the Actors Studio, and Smith Magazine ’s Six-Word Memoir.

R. Eric Thomas is a creative chameleon who seems to pop up in pop culture when you least expect it. And when he does, his voice might sound familiar. Many met him through “Eric Reads the News,” his much-shared, popular, Elle humor column that he wrote daily for four years. He’s also a best-selling author, playwright, screenwriter, and humorist, known for his captivating storytelling and sharp wit; through television shows Dickinson (Apple TV+) and Better Things (FX); and as a long-running host of The Moth .

He’s currently developing multiple film and television projects, including a half-hour comedy based on his memoir, here for it: or, how to save your soul in america . and his latest book, congratulations, the best is over , is about facing his intersecting identities and going home. whether he’s crafting essays that provoke thought, penning plays that ignite imaginations, or delivering stand-up comedy that leaves audiences in stitches, thomas is a master of versatility and vulnerability. there’s humanity in his humor. he’s outspoken about his depression and struggles with mental health, and his work often explores themes of identity, relationships, and personal growth — all delivered with that distinctive voice. .

Vulnerability is . . .

Acknowledging the unfinished parts, the rough edges, the bittersweet, the things that will never be resolved, the places where our hopes didn’t match our reality. Vulnerability is the truth, which is to say it’s beautiful and it’s sometimes hard and it’s worth it.

What role does vulnerability play in your work? 

It’s got to be the cornerstone of everything I write, fiction or non-fiction, screenplay or stage play. Stories are empathy engines — when you share a story about what you wanted, what you thought would happen, what you tried so hard to get — it opens up a pathway to the listener and expands their worlds. But that doesn’t happen without vulnerability. Vulnerability is what gives me empathy with my characters, it’s what allows me to turn the hard parts of life into essays, even comedic essays. Vulnerability is what elevates a story from the level of anecdote into something that can touch another person.

What’s something that gets in the way of your creativity, and how do you move through it?

Anxiety is a big one. There are a million little things to do and they crowd my mind and make me anxious. My creative work is how I make a living so when I worry about money, which I do all the time, my creativity suffers. Perfectionism and even near-perfectionism (and even just-okay-ism) make me anxious and make me fearful of writing and block my creativity. 

My best antidote for all of that is to remember that writing is so much more than putting fingers on keys — it’s conversations about ideas, and weird things that happened to you on an errand, and a poem that you read repeatedly or a song that plays in your head. I break down my creative process into bite-sized chunks sometimes, allowing myself the grace to listen to that song or to run that errand or to connect with someone else for a bit and it always gets my mind going.

Vulnerability is the truth, which is to say it’s beautiful and it’s sometimes hard and it’s worth it.

It’s often difficult to share ourselves and our work with the world, given the reflexive criticism and mean-spiritedness that we see in our culture — especially online. What strategies do you use to show up, let yourself be seen, share your work with the world, and deal with criticism? 

I’ve tried exposure therapy — reading every negative thing people have to say about me — and that does *not* work for me. So I always go to empathy. As a consumer, there are things that I don’t like, creative projects that weren’t my cup of tea, things I read or saw that outraged me with how much I hated them. I never want to be that for someone else. But no one is going to be everyone’s cup of tea. There are people out there who don’t like Beyoncé, which is incomprehensible to me. 

When I allow myself the grace to be another non-Beyoncé out here trying his best and extend empathy to every person coming in contact with my work, knowing that they want to find something that they connect to or that hits them right where they needed it, I right-size my work and my efforts and my critics. I tend to only invest in critique from people who know me and are able to engage with me thoughtfully, with an awareness of what I’m trying to do and what the best ways to do that might be. With other critiques — online and the like —  tend to use the “take what you need and leave the rest” philosophy.

Describe a snapshot of a joyful moment in your life.

I was on vacation in Provincetown recently. My husband and a friend and I rented a house and the minute I walked into the house and saw the Nancy Meyers-esque kitchen, I knew I had to throw a dinner party there. This place had a stand mixer and more giant silver bowls than I knew what to do with. It demanded to be cooked in. Over the week we were away, we collected friends by happenstance and kept inviting them over to this party. On the night of the party, I stood in the Nancy Meyers kitchen, my hands tearing salad greens in a big silver bowl, as people who had very recently been strangers filed in through the screen door. It filled me up so completely.

Stories are empathy engines — when you share a story about what you wanted, what you thought would happen, what you tried so hard to get — it opens up a pathway to the listener and expands their worlds.

Do you have a mantra, manifesto, or favorite quote for living and loving with your whole heart?

I have to go back to Mary Oliver: “If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it.”

What is your favorite word? 

Extraordinary. 

What is your least-favorite word? 

Every word seems to have its use, but I get an ick from the word squee. I also get an ick from the word ick. Maybe it’s just the “internet language” of it all. IDK lol.

What sound or noise do you love?

What sound or noise do you hate? 

Brakes squealing — always costs money.

What is your favorite curse word?

A song/band/type of music you’d risk wreck and injury to turn off when it comes on? 

There’s not a lot that I’m not going to listen to at this point. I grew up Evangelical and wary of hard rock but then I spent a decade waiting tables as a young adult, much of it at the Hard Rock Cafe, and I realized that much of what I’d been afraid of was just the soundtrack to every car and truck commercial. I’d already heard Metallica and didn’t know it! That said, death metal is a no-go for me. I like life!

Favorite show on television? 

Too many to list, but Ugly Betty came into my life at just the right moment. 

Favorite movie? 

My Best Friend’s Wedding or Sleepless in Seattle .

What are you grateful for today? 

My health; I don’t take it for granted.

If you could have anything put on a T-shirt, what would it be? 

I wrote in my first book that I was obsessed with the Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood character Lady Elaine Fairchilde and her catchphrase “Toots!” Since then, so many dear people have given me custom “Toots!” t-shirts and tank tops. I would take so many more.

Favorite meal? 

A talent you wish you had? 

Favorite song/band?

What’s on your nightstand? 

Books and headphones.

What’s something about you that would surprise us? 

I died once! (I’m fine now.)

Your six-word memoir . . .

The best is not over yet.

By Laura Mayes

Laura Mayes is a senior director of creative and content at the Brené Brown Education and Research Group. She’s also an Emmy-winning writer and a co-founder of Mom 2.0. Over the past 25 years, she’s created, developed, and produced live events and programs, including industry conferences, brand events, media events, book and product launches, award shows, the curation of two national art exhibits, and numerous nationwide programs for women in media. She and her family reside in Austin, Texas.

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Ross Douthat

What Students Read Before They Protest

By Ross Douthat

Opinion Columnist

When I was a college undergraduate 25 years ago, the fancy school that I attended offered what it styled as a “core curriculum” that was really nothing of the sort. Instead of giving students a set of foundational courses and assignments, a shared base of important ideas and arguments, our core assembled a grab bag of courses from different disciplines and invited us to pick among them.

The idea was that we were experiencing a variety of “approaches to knowledge” and it didn’t matter what specific knowledge we picked up. There was no real difference between taking the late Helen Vendler’s magisterial “Poems, Poets, Poetry” survey class or taking instead a course on “Women Writers in Imperial China: How to Escape From the Feminine Voice.”

At the time I looked with a certain envy southward, to Columbia University, where the core curriculum still offered what the name promised: a defined set of important works that every undergraduate was expected to encounter. Against the belief that multiculturalism required dismantling the canon, Columbia insisted that it was still obligatory to expose students to some version of the best that has been thought and said.

That approach survives today: The Columbia that has become the primary stage for political drama in America still requires its students to encounter what it calls “cornerstone ideas and theories from across literature, philosophy, history, science and the arts.”

This is an admirable goal, and also a useful one, since it gives a clear look into what kind of “ideas and theories” the current consensus of elite academia deems important to forming citizens and future leaders — including the future leaders currently protesting at Columbia and other campuses around the country. It helps pin down, in a particular syllabus, general impulses that anyone with eyes to see will notice all across the meritocracy, from big Ivies to liberal arts colleges to selective high schools and middle schools.

The Columbia core’s requirements include many of the traditional “Great Books” — Genesis and Job; Aeschylus and Shakespeare; Adam Smith and Alexis de Tocqueville — along with readings in the sciences and exposure to music and fine arts. They also include sources obviously intended to diversify the traditional core and bring it up to date — some from the medieval and early modern past, many from the 20th century.

I want to look in particular at the syllabus for “Contemporary Civilization,” the portion of the core that deals most with political arguments and authors. The pre-20th century readings follow traditional patterns (Plato, Aristotle, Augustine; Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau) with specific supplements that diversify the list: more Islamic writers in the Middle Ages, Christine De Pizan alongside Machiavelli, a raft of readings on the conquest of the Americas, the Haitian Declaration of Independence and Constitution alongside the American Declaration and Bill of Rights.

But then comes the 20th century, and suddenly the ambit narrows to progressive preoccupations and only those preoccupations: anticolonialism, sex and gender, antiracism, climate. Frantz Fanon and Michel Foucault. Barbara Fields and the Combahee River Collective. Meditations on the trans-Atlantic slave trade and how climate change is “colonial déjà vu.”

Many of these readings are absolutely worth engaging. (Some of them I have even assigned in my own limited experiments in teaching.) But they still embody a very specific set of ideological commitments.

To understand the world before 1900, Columbia students read a range of texts and authors that are important to understanding America and the West in their entirety — Greek and Roman, religious and secular, capitalist and Marxist.

To engage with the contemporary world, the world they are being prepared to influence and lead, they read texts that are only really important to understanding the perspective of the contemporary left.

Of course these reading lists can change and the way they are taught will vary with the instructor. But the priorities of Columbia’s canon fit a wider trend. I speak to both college students and high school students fairly often, and it is common to meet kids whose entire sense of contemporary political challenges consists of racism and climate change. (Note that these are usually children of the upper middle class; 18-to-29-year-olds in general are more likely to be worried about economic issues.) They are not necessarily enthusiastically embracing these causes; if they’re talking to me, they’re more likely to be disillusioned. But this is the scope of ideas they’re being given about what an educated person should find concerning or worthy of attention.

This has two effects, one general and one specific to the current protests at Columbia. The first effect is a dramatic intellectual and historical narrowing. In the Columbia curriculum’s 20th-century readings, the age of totalitarianism simply evanesces, leaving decolonization as the only major political drama of the recent past. There is no Orwell, no Solzhenitsyn; Hannah Arendt’s essays on the Vietnam War and student protests in America are assigned, but not “The Origins of Totalitarianism” or “Eichmann in Jerusalem.”

Absent, too, are any readings that would shed light on the ideas that the contemporary left is ranged against: There is no neoconservatism, certainly no religious conservatism, but also nothing that would make sense of neoliberalism in all its variations. There is no Francis Fukuyama, no “end of history” debate. Class critiques are mostly invisible, left behind in the 19th century with Karl Marx. And there are no readings that focus on the technological or spiritual aspects of the present, or offer cultural critiques from a nonprogressive vantage point — no Philip Rieff, no Neil Postman, no Christopher Lasch.

This narrowing, in turn, leaves students with an equally narrow list of outlets for the world-changing energy that they’re constantly exhorted to embrace. Conservatism of any sort is naturally off limits. A center-left stewardship seems like selling out. There’s no clear path to engagement with many key dramas of our time — renewed civilizational competition, the stresses of digital existence, existential anomie.

Climate change looms over everything, but climate activism is expected be merged somehow with anticolonial and antiracist action. Yet it’s actually quite difficult to make anti-colonialist preoccupations map onto a world where Western Europe is aging and declining and once-colonized populations now fill its major cities, where the locus of world power has shifted into Asia, where the world’s most tyrannical and imperialist regimes are non-Western and nonwhite. You inevitably have to mystify things a bit, perpetually discovering the hidden key to the 21st century in the power relations of the distant past.

But if you’re willing to simplify and flatten history — 20th-century history especially — it is easier to make these preoccupations fit Israel-Palestine. With its unusual position in the Middle East, its relatively recent founding, its close relationship to the United States, its settlements and occupation, Israel gets to be the singular scapegoat for the sins of defunct European empires and white-supremacist regimes.

Sometimes this scapegoating seems subconscious, but quite often it’s entirely literal — as in the video circulating this week in which one of the organizers of the Columbia protests explicitly analogizes contemporary “Zionists” to the slaveowners of pre-revolutionary Haiti, whom he says were justly murdered by their slaves. (The student has since issued a statement apologizing for rhetorical excess.)

Recognizing that this is happening — that Israel is a kind of enemy of convenience for a left-wing worldview that otherwise lacks real-world correlates for its theories — does not excuse the Israeli government for its failings, or vindicate its searching-for-an-endgame strategy in Gaza, or justify any kind of mistreatment of student protesters.

But it helps explain the two things that seem so disproportionate in these protests and the culture that surrounds them. First, it explains why this conflict attracts such a scale of on-campus attention and action and disruption, while so many other wars and crises (Sudan, Congo, Armenia, Burma, Yemen …) are barely noticed or ignored.

Second, it explains why the attention seems to leap so quickly past critique into caricature, past sympathy for the Palestinians into justifications for Hamas, past condemnation of Israeli policy into anti-Semitism.

The truth is that these aspects of contemporary protest politics are not just a recrudescence of past bigotries. They are partially that, but they are also something stranger, a reflection of a worldview that has come to its anti-Semitic temptations through a circuitous route.

This worldview is broad enough to set curricula but too narrow to find full purchase in the world as it exists, intent on finding enemies but discovering more of them in the past than in the present, and fastening on Israel with a sense of excited vindication — a spirit that yields easily, as righteous vindication often does, to hate.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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Ross Douthat has been an Opinion columnist for The Times since 2009. He is the author, most recently, of “The Deep Places: A Memoir of Illness and Discovery.” @ DouthatNYT • Facebook

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NPR suspends veteran editor as it grapples with his public criticism

David Folkenflik

NPR suspended senior editor Uri Berliner for five days without pay after he wrote an essay accusing the network of losing the public's trust and appeared on a podcast to explain his argument. Uri Berliner hide caption

NPR suspended senior editor Uri Berliner for five days without pay after he wrote an essay accusing the network of losing the public's trust and appeared on a podcast to explain his argument.

NPR has formally punished Uri Berliner, the senior editor who publicly argued a week ago that the network had "lost America's trust" by approaching news stories with a rigidly progressive mindset.

Berliner's five-day suspension without pay, which began last Friday, has not been previously reported.

Yet the public radio network is grappling in other ways with the fallout from Berliner's essay for the online news site The Free Press . It angered many of his colleagues, led NPR leaders to announce monthly internal reviews of the network's coverage, and gave fresh ammunition to conservative and partisan Republican critics of NPR, including former President Donald Trump.

Conservative activist Christopher Rufo is among those now targeting NPR's new chief executive, Katherine Maher, for messages she posted to social media years before joining the network. Among others, those posts include a 2020 tweet that called Trump racist and another that appeared to minimize rioting during social justice protests that year. Maher took the job at NPR last month — her first at a news organization .

In a statement Monday about the messages she had posted, Maher praised the integrity of NPR's journalists and underscored the independence of their reporting.

"In America everyone is entitled to free speech as a private citizen," she said. "What matters is NPR's work and my commitment as its CEO: public service, editorial independence, and the mission to serve all of the American public. NPR is independent, beholden to no party, and without commercial interests."

The network noted that "the CEO is not involved in editorial decisions."

In an interview with me later on Monday, Berliner said the social media posts demonstrated Maher was all but incapable of being the person best poised to direct the organization.

"We're looking for a leader right now who's going to be unifying and bring more people into the tent and have a broader perspective on, sort of, what America is all about," Berliner said. "And this seems to be the opposite of that."

Conservative critics of NPR are now targeting its new chief executive, Katherine Maher, for messages she posted to social media years before joining the public radio network last month. Stephen Voss/Stephen Voss hide caption

Conservative critics of NPR are now targeting its new chief executive, Katherine Maher, for messages she posted to social media years before joining the public radio network last month.

He said that he tried repeatedly to make his concerns over NPR's coverage known to news leaders and to Maher's predecessor as chief executive before publishing his essay.

Berliner has singled out coverage of several issues dominating the 2020s for criticism, including trans rights, the Israel-Hamas war and COVID. Berliner says he sees the same problems at other news organizations, but argues NPR, as a mission-driven institution, has a greater obligation to fairness.

"I love NPR and feel it's a national trust," Berliner says. "We have great journalists here. If they shed their opinions and did the great journalism they're capable of, this would be a much more interesting and fulfilling organization for our listeners."

A "final warning"

The circumstances surrounding the interview were singular.

Berliner provided me with a copy of the formal rebuke to review. NPR did not confirm or comment upon his suspension for this article.

In presenting Berliner's suspension Thursday afternoon, the organization told the editor he had failed to secure its approval for outside work for other news outlets, as is required of NPR journalists. It called the letter a "final warning," saying Berliner would be fired if he violated NPR's policy again. Berliner is a dues-paying member of NPR's newsroom union but says he is not appealing the punishment.

The Free Press is a site that has become a haven for journalists who believe that mainstream media outlets have become too liberal. In addition to his essay, Berliner appeared in an episode of its podcast Honestly with Bari Weiss.

A few hours after the essay appeared online, NPR chief business editor Pallavi Gogoi reminded Berliner of the requirement that he secure approval before appearing in outside press, according to a copy of the note provided by Berliner.

In its formal rebuke, NPR did not cite Berliner's appearance on Chris Cuomo's NewsNation program last Tuesday night, for which NPR gave him the green light. (NPR's chief communications officer told Berliner to focus on his own experience and not share proprietary information.) The NPR letter also did not cite his remarks to The New York Times , which ran its article mid-afternoon Thursday, shortly before the reprimand was sent. Berliner says he did not seek approval before talking with the Times .

NPR defends its journalism after senior editor says it has lost the public's trust

Berliner says he did not get permission from NPR to speak with me for this story but that he was not worried about the consequences: "Talking to an NPR journalist and being fired for that would be extraordinary, I think."

Berliner is a member of NPR's business desk, as am I, and he has helped to edit many of my stories. He had no involvement in the preparation of this article and did not see it before it was posted publicly.

In rebuking Berliner, NPR said he had also publicly released proprietary information about audience demographics, which it considers confidential. He said those figures "were essentially marketing material. If they had been really good, they probably would have distributed them and sent them out to the world."

Feelings of anger and betrayal inside the newsroom

His essay and subsequent public remarks stirred deep anger and dismay within NPR. Colleagues contend Berliner cherry-picked examples to fit his arguments and challenge the accuracy of his accounts. They also note he did not seek comment from the journalists involved in the work he cited.

Morning Edition host Michel Martin told me some colleagues at the network share Berliner's concerns that coverage is frequently presented through an ideological or idealistic prism that can alienate listeners.

"The way to address that is through training and mentorship," says Martin, herself a veteran of nearly two decades at the network who has also reported for The Wall Street Journal and ABC News. "It's not by blowing the place up, by trashing your colleagues, in full view of people who don't really care about it anyway."

Several NPR journalists told me they are no longer willing to work with Berliner as they no longer have confidence that he will keep private their internal musings about stories as they work through coverage.

"Newsrooms run on trust," NPR political correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben tweeted last week, without mentioning Berliner by name. "If you violate everyone's trust by going to another outlet and sh--ing on your colleagues (while doing a bad job journalistically, for that matter), I don't know how you do your job now."

Berliner rejected that critique, saying nothing in his essay or subsequent remarks betrayed private observations or arguments about coverage.

Other newsrooms are also grappling with questions over news judgment and confidentiality. On Monday, New York Times Executive Editor Joseph Kahn announced to his staff that the newspaper's inquiry into who leaked internal dissent over a planned episode of its podcast The Daily to another news outlet proved inconclusive. The episode was to focus on a December report on the use of sexual assault as part of the Hamas attack on Israel in October. Audio staffers aired doubts over how well the reporting stood up to scrutiny.

"We work together with trust and collegiality everyday on everything we produce, and I have every expectation that this incident will prove to be a singular exception to an important rule," Kahn wrote to Times staffers.

At NPR, some of Berliner's colleagues have weighed in online against his claim that the network has focused on diversifying its workforce without a concomitant commitment to diversity of viewpoint. Recently retired Chief Executive John Lansing has referred to this pursuit of diversity within NPR's workforce as its " North Star ," a moral imperative and chief business strategy.

In his essay, Berliner tagged the strategy as a failure, citing the drop in NPR's broadcast audiences and its struggle to attract more Black and Latino listeners in particular.

"During most of my tenure here, an open-minded, curious culture prevailed. We were nerdy, but not knee-jerk, activist, or scolding," Berliner writes. "In recent years, however, that has changed."

Berliner writes, "For NPR, which purports to consider all things, it's devastating both for its journalism and its business model."

NPR investigative reporter Chiara Eisner wrote in a comment for this story: "Minorities do not all think the same and do not report the same. Good reporters and editors should know that by now. It's embarrassing to me as a reporter at NPR that a senior editor here missed that point in 2024."

Some colleagues drafted a letter to Maher and NPR's chief news executive, Edith Chapin, seeking greater clarity on NPR's standards for its coverage and the behavior of its journalists — clearly pointed at Berliner.

A plan for "healthy discussion"

On Friday, CEO Maher stood up for the network's mission and the journalism, taking issue with Berliner's critique, though never mentioning him by name. Among her chief issues, she said Berliner's essay offered "a criticism of our people on the basis of who we are."

Berliner took great exception to that, saying she had denigrated him. He said that he supported diversifying NPR's workforce to look more like the U.S. population at large. She did not address that in a subsequent private exchange he shared with me for this story. (An NPR spokesperson declined further comment.)

Late Monday afternoon, Chapin announced to the newsroom that Executive Editor Eva Rodriguez would lead monthly meetings to review coverage.

"Among the questions we'll ask of ourselves each month: Did we capture the diversity of this country — racial, ethnic, religious, economic, political geographic, etc — in all of its complexity and in a way that helped listeners and readers recognize themselves and their communities?" Chapin wrote in the memo. "Did we offer coverage that helped them understand — even if just a bit better — those neighbors with whom they share little in common?"

Berliner said he welcomed the announcement but would withhold judgment until those meetings played out.

In a text for this story, Chapin said such sessions had been discussed since Lansing unified the news and programming divisions under her acting leadership last year.

"Now seemed [the] time to deliver if we were going to do it," Chapin said. "Healthy discussion is something we need more of."

Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by Deputy Business Editor Emily Kopp and Managing Editor Gerry Holmes. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no NPR corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.

• Katherine Maher
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