How to Write a Memoir

Hi, Jerry Jenkins here, talking about all things writing. So you want to write a memoir, but something holds you back? Maybe you're wondering if you're clear on what a memoir really is, as opposed to an autobiography? Or perhaps you're afraid no one will care what you have to say? Is your life really all that interesting? Will anyone be captivated by your story?

Let's talk about all that and more in this brief video. And as always, be sure to stay with me all the way to the end to get a free bonus that'll help you go even deeper. I'll be giving you a character arc worksheet that novelists use to flesh out their characters, which might sound like a strange tool for a non-fiction memoirist, but you'll be amazed how it applies to the main character of a memoir too, and that's you.

Through my blog at jerryjenkins.com and my private writing community, the Jerry Jenkins Writers Guild, I teach writers like you to write compelling stories, which you'll have to do in your memoir to hook an agent or an acquisition's editor's attention and ultimately hook your readers.

Now, let me clear up something for you right off the bat, and that's the definition of a memoir. Too many writers think memoir is just a fancy literary term for an autobiography, or that it's a shortened autobiography. It's neither. A memoir is a unique animal unto itself. Of course, it's autobiographical in nature because the stories in it will be anecdotes from your life, but ironically, your memoir is not really about you in the end. Yes, you heard that right.

So, what am I saying? An autobiography would be your life story from birth to the present. Your memoir, on the other hand, is really about the reader. Now, are you telling their story? No, you're telling yours, but your memoir must be theme-oriented, replete with stories from your life that buttress your theme. Now, hear me, this is more than just semantics. How can a book based on your most pivotal life experiences be about the reader?

Too many authors write memoirs because they believe their lives are so interesting that even strangers would enjoy a detailed account. Now, don't take that the wrong way. No doubt, a lot about you is interesting. I hardly know anyone who doesn't have a story, something interesting about them, anyway. But unless you're a celebrity, a household name, most people beyond your family and friends aren't likely to care. So, what do most people care about? Themselves, and how your book benefits them. So, in the end, your memoir, your theme, must be reader-oriented, focused on helping them.

So, what would that look like? Well, it's simple, and it's basic. Your theme should be, in essence, "Here's who I once was, and why I might have appeared to have little hope for a rewarding future. Here's what happened to me and what I learned from it. And here's who I am now." If you don't have a real-life character arc like that, something that includes universal truths and transferable principles, you don't likely have a memoir that benefits the reader more than it benefits you. If your memoir is just a recitation of your achievements, again, beyond your own orbit, sorry, but few people will care.

So, how does the memoir I describe benefit readers, most of whom will not be able to relate with you in detail? The theme is that a person can change or be changed. So, no matter what your readers are enduring now, if you overcame the obstacles in your life, they can overcome the obstacles in theirs. Maybe you were the victim of child abuse, even sexual abuse, or maybe you were orphaned, or maybe you were raised by an alcoholic parent. You had little hope, a bleak future. Most such victims tend to become what they most fear and continue that destructive cycle. But you grew and learned and changed.

Now, that said, resist the urge, once the story is told, to turn the spotlight on your readers and try to apply the principles to their lives. Admittedly, that's the point, the theme of your memoir. Yes, but making the application for the reader is the biggest mistake most memoirists make. Stories well told that support your theme, that anyone can rise above their circumstances, make their own points, and readers will automatically apply them to their own situations without being preached at or taught.

You might start with how bad things were once for you and how unlikely it was that you would escape your situation. Then rehearse the pivotal experiences in your life and the people important to your transformation, what you learned, and how your life changed. Naturally, the more vivid your stories and the more dramatic your change, the more effective your memoir will be. In fiction, we call this character arc, but as you can see, it's just as important in a memoir. The point is reader takeaway. Colorful stories, well told, will drive home your theme in the most natural way, again, without you having to wax didactic or preach to the reader.

So, let's talk about what publishers want. Don't let anyone tell you that only a famous person can sell a memoir. Admittedly, the more famous the writer, the more curious readers might be about the banalities of their everyday life. I might even be curious about what J.K. Rowling or John Grisham have for breakfast, but that's not going to interest me about the average person. Your story will grab me if it includes what you've overcome, hard, gritty, painful truth, bears transferable principles, universal truths that apply broadly. That's what publishers want because that's what readers want. Deliver that, couched in entertaining, evocative, emotional anecdotes, and readers will not only stay with you to the last page, but they'll also recommend your memoir to others. Agents and editors tell me they love to discover such gems, the same way they love discovering the next great novelist.

So, let's get practical. Here are five steps to writing a powerful memoir. The first, we've already covered: settle on your theme and make sure it's reader-oriented, not you-oriented. Keep that at the forefront of your mind as you write. You're not alone. If I overcame this, you can overcome anything. I can read the memoir of someone of the opposite gender, for whom English is not her first language, someone of a different race and religion who lives halfway around the world from me, yet if she writes of her love for her child or grandchild, it reaches me. Knowing or understanding or relating to nothing else about her, I understand and can relate to the love of family. Just remember not to preach. Tell your stories well and trust the reader to get the point.

I often hear from wannabe memoirists that they're afraid to mine their pain deeply enough to tell the whole truth. Sorry, but if that's you, you may not be ready to write your memoir. The most powerful, effective memoirs get close to the bone and avoid glossing over the truth. Yes, it's hard to relive painful experiences, but you must feature those anecdotes from your life that support your theme. The more introspective and vulnerable you are, the more helpful your memoir will be.

Create a list of the events in your life that deeply impacted you. These may include abuse, abandonment, illness, loss, divorce, you name it. And they don't all have to be negative. Include a significant graduation, a wedding, an unforgettable experience with a dear friend. Just make sure they affected you deeply and support your reader-first theme. Be sure to include pivotal people and the roles they played in making you the person you've become. You may have to change names so you don't get into legal trouble with those negative influences in your life. More on that later. Interview family and friends for different perspectives. Peruse photographs. Revisit meaningful places. Research dates, even the weather in the news of the day.

Organize your anecdotes into an outline. Even if you're a pantser when it comes to fiction, someone who issues outlines and writes by the seat of their pants, you cannot write a non-fiction book without an outline. You need to know what you're going to say and what direction you're going to go in every chapter. And overarching that outline, you also need a basic story structure, like novelist Dean Koontz's classic story structure. Although this was intended for writing a novel, it applies perfectly to almost any genre, and especially a memoir. Here it is, in a nutshell:

One: Plunge your main character into terrible trouble as soon as possible. In the case of a memoir, that character would be you, which means you can start anywhere you want. When was your worst trouble? Maybe later in life. Start there.

Two: Everything you do to try to get out of the trouble makes it only progressively worse.

Three: Your situation appears hopeless.

Four: And finally, in the end, because of what you've learned and how you've grown through all those setbacks, you rise to the challenge and win the day.

Trust me, the closer you can stick to that structure, the more engaging your memoir will be. Important in fiction, and true as well in memoir, is to be sure your reader is invested in the main character enough to care when he's plunged into terrible trouble. In fiction, that means layering in a hint of the stakes. Is the main character a spouse, a parent, a child? Mistreated, scared, alone, isolated, suffered some loss? Establishing that quickly will invest your reader in the character. You try to limit your outline to a single page, then write a synopsis of a sentence or two for what each chapter will cover. Write this in the present tense, like, "I enroll in college, only to find that..." And don't worry if you've forgotten the basics of classic outlining or have never felt comfortable with the concept. A list of sentences that synopsize your idea works just fine. And remember, your outline is a fluid document, meant to serve you and your book. Play with it, rearrange it as you see fit, even during the writing.

Okay, once you've outlined your memoir, like a novel, write it like one, too. It's as important in a memoir as it is in a novel to show and not just tell. Here's an example of what I mean:

Telling: My father was a drunk who abused my mother and me. I was scared to death every time I heard him come in late at night.

Showing: As soon as I heard the gravel crunch beneath the tires, I dove under the bed. I could tell by his footsteps whether Dad was sober and tired, or loaded and looking for a fight. I prayed God would magically make me big enough to jump between him and my mom, because she was always his first target.

So, use every trick in the novelist's arsenal to make each anecdote come to life: dialogue, description, conflict, tension, pacing, everything. Stay focused more on theme than chronology. You're not married to the autobiographer's progressive timeline. Tell whatever anecdote fits your point for each chapter, regardless where it falls on the calendar. You might jump from childhood to college and back again. Trust me, the reader will stay with you, just make the details and time changes clear so the reader always knows where you are in the story.

And again, use all the fictional techniques at your disposal to write your memoir. For instance, character arc. How the protagonist, the main character in this case, you, grows, is critical to a successful story. Make clear the difference between who you once were and who you are today. That's character arc. As for point of view, it should go without saying that you write a memoir in the first person. And just as in a novel, the point of view character is the one with the problem, the challenge, something thereafter. So, tell both your outer story, what happens, and your inner story, its impact on you.

Great novels carry setups and payoffs throughout. There would be a book-length setup that demands a payoff in the end, plus chapter-length setups paid off by the end of each chapter. Sometimes there are setups with payoffs within the same scene. The more of these, the better. The same is true for your memoir. Virtually anything that makes the reader stay with you to find out what happens is a setup that demands a payoff. Even something as seemingly innocuous as you're saying that you hoped high school would deliver you from the torment of junior high makes the reader want to keep reading to find out if that proved true. Also, just as in a novel, you want to avoid using narrative summary to give away too much information too early. I've seen memoir manuscripts where the author tells in the first paragraph how they went from abject poverty to independent wealth in 20 years, and now I want to tell you how that happened to me. That takes the air right out of the tension balloon and gives me no reason to keep reading. Better to set readers up for a payoff and then let them wait. Now, that said, don't make readers wait so long that you lose them to frustration, but long enough to build attention.

Now we come to the dicey part. Good memoirs tell hard stories about how relatives or friends who have done us wrong fit in naturally. You worry about the ramifications, throwing them under the bus, and rightly so. If you're brave enough to expose your own weaknesses, foibles, embarrassments, and yes, even your failures to the world, what about your friends, enemies, loved ones, teachers, bosses, and co-workers? If you tell the truth, are you allowed to throw them under the bus? In some cases, yes, but should you? No. Even if they give you permission in writing, what's the upside? Usually, a person painted in a negative light, even if the story is true, would not sign a release allowing you to expose them publicly. But even if they did, would it be the right, ethical, kind thing to do? All I can tell you is that I wouldn't do it, and I wouldn't want it done to me. If following the Golden Rule alone isn't reason enough not to do it, the risk of being sued certainly ought to be.

So, what do you do? On the one hand, I'm telling you that your memoir is worthless without the grit. On the other hand, I'm telling you not to expose evil-doers by name. Stalemate? No. Here's the solution: Changing names to protect the guilty is not enough. Too many people in your family, in your social orbit, will know the person, making your writing legally actionable. So, in many cases, you must change more than just the name. Change the location, change the year, change the gender. You could even change the offense. If your own father verbally abused you so painfully when you were 13 that you still suffer from the memory decades later, attribute it to a teacher and have it happen at an entirely different age. Now, is that considered lying in a non-fiction book? Not if you include a disclaimer up front that stipulates some names and details have been changed to protect identities. So, no, don't throw anyone under the bus, but don't stop that bus.

All right, I hope those five steps were helpful. But here's one last thing for you: thoroughly immerse yourself in this genre before attempting to write in it. Here are some examples of great memoirs to read. First, though, be warned: some of these are graphic and must be read with your big-kid pants on. Feel free to pause the video so you can jot these down. All Over But the Shouting by Brick Bragg, my favorite book ever. Cultivate by Laura Casey. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway. Out of Africa by Karen Blixen. Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt. Still Woman Enough by Loretta Lynn. Born Standing Up by Steve Martin. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff. Molino by Benji Molino and Joan Ryan. Undone by Michelle Kashat. And Will the Circle Be Unbroken by Sean Dietrich.

And now, to keep my promise to you for staying with me, I'm putting on the screen a link to that free resource, the character arc worksheet. Just click on that link for your copy. And remember, if your life has been transformed, you may have the foundation for a memoir that can change other people's lives. Check back here for more writing tips, and I'll see you next time.