Writing Memoir and Personal Story: How to write about yourself without boring your audience
"You should write about your experiences!"
Nearly half the inquiries we receive from people visiting our web site are from people who were told they should write about their experiences.
As Kevin Sampsell, author and influential small publisher says, "Writing about yourself should be thrilling, for both you and your audience. The art of memoir writing or creative nonfiction combines the personal, the universal, and the illuminating."
Think about some of the more popular recent memoirs: "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris; "Tuesdays with Morrie : an old man, a young man, and life's greatest lesson" by Mitch Albom; "My Life" by Bill Clinton; "Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books" by Azar Nafisi.
What made them successful? These stories are indeed personal, universal, and in some way illuminating. They can be humorous, revealing, or profound. The one thing they have in common is that they are good reads.
Kevin, who taught an online class on memoir/personal story writing is amazed at the number of people who approach him with "ideas" for a book about themselves. Writing about yourself, though, isn't as simple as telling your story to a few friends over a bottle of wine.
I've had inquiries from a wide variety of people who thought their stories would be interesting for others to read. Some, I might agree with, such as the woman forced to marry an abusive man in Eastern Europe during the cold war, and then escaped with her children to the US and became a successful business woman.
Or, there's the winner of last year's book writing contest that we held. His story was raw, full of emotional undercurrents. We've sent it back to him for extensive editing, but we're anxious to help him publish the book when it's ready.
Writing a Memoir: Dig deeper for emotion and meaning
Kevin agrees with the need to dig deeper in your story. He adds that, "Digging underneath the story is where the stunning truth is often hiding. Whether it's told in a straightforward language, a secret letter, or even a list, your nonfiction should be an honest, evocative, and unique experience."
What Kevin means by this is that your story is one only you can tell. Sometimes you have to work at crafting the best way to tell the story because what sounds good orally often doesn't come across well on paper.
For example, the key changes we asked our contest winner to make was to dive deeper into his emotional experience. The advantage of telling a story orally to friends is that they can see your face, your hand gestures, your body posture, and more importantly get a sense of your emotional state. Simply "telling" your story on paper can come across like a bad monologue.
Writing Tips: Show, Don't Tell
You want to "show" what happened more than tell the story of what happened. Our contest winner wanted to call his book "fiction" because he couldn't remember all the details. In truth, nobody can. It's your story and you'll tell it the best to your ability. It's what is often called "Creative Nonfiction." You reproduce the dialogue and every detail and nuance of the scenes to the best of your memory. The point isn't to get all the details right, but to share your story in a way that fully engages your reader - as if they're reading a novel.
"In the class, I want to help people find the right voice - the best way to tell their story," Kevin explains. To do this, you'll need to strengthen your writing skills while you learn a new way of telling stories. It's a showcase for your talents, but it also gives you the tools you need to write a story that reads well.
So, you'll need to learn many of the same kind of skills that makes a good novel writer: dialogue, character introduction and development, pacing, and story structure. Many people who want to write their personal story don't think they have to worry about these things, which is why the majority of memoirs never see the light of day.
For example, I've been asked by several women if I thought telling their story of being a victim to domestic violence could be published. That's a tough call. Certainly, these stories should be told. But what will make such a story saleable?
Translating a Good Story to Paper
Your story may be an amazing one. But can you translate it onto paper so that it comes to life and doesn't fall into a one-dimensional pit? You can't simply say, "And then Aunt Myrtle brought us a batch of burnt cookies," without providing some background about Aunt Myrtle that helps us understand the significance of the burnt cookies!
Similarly, memoirs that become too preachy or offer too much advice to the reader are better written as self help books than as personal story. This was the advice I gave to one author, who wanted to use her book as a way to teach women how to recover from domestic violence. Yet, her story was unusual and compelling in itself. I encouraged her to write the story, and perhaps follow up her memoir with a self-help book co-authored with a reputable therapist.
So, you need to write as if you're telling the story orally to a blind audience. You need to set the scene. Give us the fully descriptive lowdown on each character. Show us how you felt through your actions and through good dialogue.
Can you go too far with making up what you can't remember? Sure, but if you do we'll just call it a novel!
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This is my opion I think the same way as you do I would like to write
I have options LOL
