The Top Six Questions That Memoir Writers Ask Me

Join us today as Linda Joy Myers shares the most common memoir-related questions she years, and her answers to each one.

In my work coaching writers, I observe them struggling with whether they should write a memoir, how to begin, and what to include. Most people are inspired to write a memoir because they have something significant they want to share, experiences and lessons they want others to know about. Some writers have been journaling for years, but a journal is not a story. A memoir is a more public document that others will read. We now expect a story, with scenes and novel like immersion when we read a memoir.

Then there’s the issue of family and friends, and how much to reveal. I compiled the top six questions that memoir writers ask, questions that all memoir writers must solve as they begin to write their life story.

· “Where do I start?”

· “What do I include?”

· “Should I just copy my journals?”

· “What makes my life interesting to other people?”

· “Do I have to write a whole book?” (Gasp.)

· What will my family do to me?

 

1.   Where to start? The place to begin a memoir essay or a book is to list the significant turning points, or moments of change, in your life. It might include the death of your grandmother or the day you fell in love. Or the moment you found out you were adopted or the day you discovered you were pregnant. Our lives are full of these moments. Ask this question: when did my life take a turn from the direction it was going? When were the moments of profound change?

Make lists of these turning points and then begin writing. Choose one that grabs you emotionally and go with it. You do NOT have to write in any kind of chronological order. Allow your emotions to be your guide.

 

2.   What do I include? This is a big question. To craft a memoir you must choose from the overwhelming details in your life. If you begin with turning points, include only what is necessary to give the reader an experience in scene of what happened. You need to interleaf action and feeling, and use sensual details such as taste, sound, texture and description to create a world the reader can enter.

 

3.   Should I just copy my journals? A journal is not a story, unless the journal was written with a reader in mind—but a journal is normally intended to be private. Most people vent and write randomly in journals, leaving out details because the writer already knows them.

 

A memoir is an artistic combining of significant moments to construct a text that brings a reader into your world and gives them an emotional experience.

 

4.   What makes my life interesting to other people? People who read memoir want to understand themselves better by entering into someone else’s story and learning how they worked things out. Many people are not aware that they have lived an interesting life, or that even small moments can be inspiring to others. Stop worrying about whether your life will be interesting to others, and go about your business of finding the turning points that are significant to you. First write your memoir the way you need to write it. It’s a way for you to reflect and learn about yourself and to contemplate your life in new ways. You will learn about yourself as you write, and you will be surprised by what you discover. Stay in the flow of the process of writing. It’s your friend and guide. Trust it to lead you into the heart of your story.

 

5.   “Write a book? Gasp.” Yes, that is how I felt every time I thought of writing a memoir. Feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of my task stalled me for a long time, until one of my mentors said, “Just write one vignette, small story at a time. Keep it small, focused, and about something important to you.”

 

That gave me permission to stop being so grandiose in my expectations about writing a book that I was scared into silence. I began writing one significant moment at a time for several months. When I had quite a few stories, I could see how I might fill in the blanks of my timeline. I didn’t know where my story ended—after all, I was still living my story as I wrote it! As I saw the themes emerge as I wrote, I discovered the arc of my book and understood the appropriate ending.

 

After you capture some turning point stories, you may find yourself with several personal essays that you can send out for publication. Each vignette or chapter is a story, with a desire, conflict, and resolution. Shape your memories and your stories so they have dramatic form. You will find out that you have many small jewels of your life that have meaning and that can be shared.

 

6.   What will your family do when they find out you are writing a memoir? It depends on your family! Some family members get worried, rattled, and defensive, wondering if they will be portrayed fairly, worrying about secrets being revealed or if you have the “correct” version of the family history. If you share your memoir with family and friends while you are writing it, you run the risk of censoring what you have to say to keep the peace, or trying to please everyone, which is impossible. Remember this is YOUR story, and it has to be written from your point of view with your feelings and reactions.

 

I always recommend that memoir writers create what I call a “safe sacred space” while they create the first draft of their stories. It’s important to guard your creativity from prying eyes. Our early sketches are fragile like small sprouts, and need to be protected from the winds and weather of the world.

 

    The most important thing is to begin writing your memoir today! Select your turning points and immerse yourself in the moments that shaped you. Close your eyes and see yourself at that moment. Bring it alive in your memory and begin to write.

It is a brave act to write your memoir and reveal yourself. It’s also one of the most satisfying things you can do.

Writing through Pain—and Into Healing

Linda Joy Myers will be presenting a session called "Structures of Memoir: The Narrative and Emotional Arcs" at the upcoming Stories from the Heart conference.  Join us today, as Linda talks about the healing that can come to us when we go through the process of putting difficult memories down on paper.  She also offers some suggestions as to how we can approach painful topics. 

 

As we begin one of my workshops, sometimes a student somewhat apologetically says, Some of my stories are hard to hear. I don’t want to traumatize anyone. But they are hard for me too. I hope I don’t get stuck in the bad feelings. I’m not even sure I want to write them.”

 

They talk about being afraid to start writing some of the deeper stories, they’re worried about stumbling upon painful material, or getting caught in a painful story and feeling overwhelmed.

 

We may know that writing is “good for us,” but it takes courage to put pen to paper to discover what we have to say that might have been suppressed, or to write about incidents we are afraid to put into words—it makes them even more real. And it’s always a challenge to delve into areas where the family does not wish us to go, where we want to tell our truths, but they conflict with other versions of truth the family would prefer to hold.

 

Dr. James Pennebaker, author of Opening Up, whose research proved that writing helps to heal both body and mind, says that writing helps to put a painful story in perspective. Although a story or scene may be uncomfortable at the time of writing, studies show that after the writing is complete, even months later the people in his studies had better immune system functioning, greater T-cell count, performed better in jobs, and reported feeling happier.

Research has found that the brain undergoes changes when we write about and process material that has been frozen in the memory banks as trauma appears to do. Traumatic memories are trapped in parts of the brain, and are replayed, either consciously or unconsciously, until we are able to stop the loop.

There is more than catharsis in writing stories. Writing a story integrates mind and emotions, helping the nervous system reformulate neurons and pathways. This kind of integration helps us to let the trauma go and move forward into a new story.

 

Stories are told with intention and a focus. Stories have a beginning, middle, and end, which is to say that they are contained within a structure. You begin “in the middle of things,” develop the story—which will include the dark and the light aspects of life. One reason we write is to learn something about ourselves, to explore who we are. The lessons learned as you—one of the main characters—go through your trials and discoveries to find resolution becomes the arc of the story. A scene by scene structure allows us as writers to confront traumatic events and put them into perspective as we write ourselves into the story as both witness and the character who lived the events.

You as the writer are free of course to decide how far to explore painful material. What follows are suggestions of ways to approach painful subjects while also giving yourself a chance to get started with stories that heal.

Ways to write about difficult subjects

 

· Write about what happened in the third person: “she” or “he” instead of “I.”

· Fictionalize the story. Make up other names for the “characters” in your family or in the situation you are writing about. Make up the setting and other details around the incident.

· Write it from a distance as if you are watching the scene on a movie screen.

· Write about a difficult incident the way you wanted it to turn out. Then see if you can write what really happened.

· What happened before and after the difficult incident? Write around it.

· Tell your story in a letter to a best friend, or someone whom you love and who loves you, who would be nurturing with their response.

· Write what happened in a list with no descriptions.

· Or you can dig deep and write about everything in exact detail like a journalist, maintaining a certain distance.

· Write several positive stories. Focus on beauty, happiness, and generosity. Forgiveness, compassion, and letting go.

· Balance writing about the “dark” and the “light.” It is important to have a perspective about your life, even if a lot of bad things happened.

· Where are you now? Who are you now? Write about survival.

· Write about happiness—the happiest day of your life, and why.