I read a lot of memoirs. When reviewing them I find myself bringing up the same points over and over. Â Because I am so freaking helpful, I have decided to write a guide for How to Write A Memoir that Isn’t Going to Make Me Cranky. Â Just fill in your life details.
Prologue
Who the heck are you?
Maybe it is just me but I find myself picking up a lot of memoirs by people I’ve never heard of. Â Does any one else do that? The issue is that I then sometimes find myself so far out of my depth that I feel like I have to research a person before I read their memoir.
Example, I picked up a book by the first Welsh rugby player to publically announce that he was gay. That sounded interesting. That’s a really macho subculture. I wondered how that went for him. I’m also of Welsh heritage and am interested in reading more books set there. But … Â I was lost from the beginning. I don’t know rugby. Things that Welsh rugby fans would know like famous matches and rivalries were written about like they were obvious and I had no clue. I know I wasn’t the target audience so that’s where my prologue comes in.
This is a primer on your life.
- I am famous because of ……
- Terms you need to know to understand my story are …..
- Here’s some links to video, websites, etc. to get your bearings before you read on
If you know who the person is, you can skip the prologue. I’m currently reading/listening to two memoirs. Both authors are vague at first about who they are. I can mentally fill in the blanks with one because I’m familiar with her but I’m lost on the other.
Get to the Point
Chapter 1 – Talk about your highlight
I picked up your book. Â Now you have to convince me to keep reading. Â Show me something from the highlight reel.
Zach Anner did this well. He got famous through a contest to win a spot on a reality show. He led with this story. 
 Then once you were invested in his life he went back and started talking about what it was like to grow up with cerebral palsy. That is so much better than slogging through chapters and chapters knowing that something interesting happens when he is 22 but now you’re 100 pages in and the author hasn’t started kindergarten yet.  Ugh, DNF!
The memoir doesn’t have to be chronological. Just get to the point.
Your Childhood Isn’t Interesting
Chapter 2 is all you get for your childhood
Unless you were a child actor or a prodigy at something, your childhood was not as interesting as you think it is. I get it. You feel like where you grew up shaped you. Ok, here’s your chance to represent the old neighborhood and get it out of your system. You get one chapter. One short chapter. I don’t need to know all about your background and your parents’ backgrounds if this is never going to come up again in the story. Hit what is important and move on to the real story.  For example, I love Eddie Izzard and am loathe to make him a poor example but he went on and on about being born in Yemen (yes, interesting) and then every place he lived after that and who he played with when he was five and then never saw again…. I would have run away screaming if I wasn’t really a big fan. Seriously, I listened on audio and it took HOURS to get to when he became a performer. Â
Why Are You Writing This?
Chapters 3 through Infinity – Tell your story
Obviously, I like it when people tell me their stories. I also like memoirs that aren’t necessarily about the facts of a person’s life but about issues they believe in. Whatever type of memoir you write, just remember what you want to convey. Own it. Don’t get halfway through and then totally change the focus of the story or start wandering off on tangents that don’t lead anywhere so you have to course correct later. I just finished a memoir that according to the cover blurb is about a court case. That’s why I picked it up. It is briefly mentioned in a few spots in the book. Apparently it was famous in the country where this took place so the author assumes we all are so tired of hearing the details. I’m not from that country. I’m done with the book and couldn’t really tell you what happened except she won. Yay! I guess? I spent the whole book thinking, “Ok, this is your life but what about this court case that is supposed to be such a big deal?”
If you love reading memoirs, what are your pet peeves?
Ditto! I also pick up a lot of memoirs about people I don’t know. But I think that’s okay – cause sometimes those people sure have a tale to tell. I am picking them up FOR their life experiences, not their name. At times like that, I sort of look at it as some sort of “real fiction” – after all, fiction is often just an imaginary life lived, so this isn’t any worse, is it? Often even better, cause it will not lack drama (given that it’s well written, of course).
Now that I think about it, I guess that might be the main reason I read memoirs at all – that they’re a non-imagined dramatic life, so basically, I read them for the emotional content (or what you mean when you’re saying “it’s key to get to the point”). So it’s definitely not going to be a good one if it just keeps going about life events, listing them all or something. I haven’t read that many, but most of the ones I have read have just been about regular people, not celebrities. It’s partly why I avoid celeb memoirs as well – I feel like they’ll want to tell me their life events, or that maybe they’ll think they’re just ever so important, which they don’t always tend to be – I mean, unless you’re a fan.
What are your favorite memoirs? I really connected with “Dear Reflection” by Jessica Bell and “All Day” by Liza Peterson (although “All Day” isn’t so much a memoir, as a book about racism that details a few years of a teacher’s experience, teaching in prison. Greatly recommended.)
If At Birth You Don’t Succeed was wonderful. It is the story of a man with cerebral palsy who eventually gets his own travel show. It is very open about his life and its challenges and extremely funny. I just read Gabrielle Union’s We’re Going to Need More Wine. It is more essays about things in her life than a chronological story about her.
Paris in Love by Eloisa James is based on social media updates she wrote while living for a year in Paris. Very funny.
Something Must Be Done about Prince Edward County by Kristen Green is a combination memoir/history. The author’s family lived in a county where schools were shut for years rather than integrate. They were opened by the time she was born but in researching the book she has to realize how she benefited from this and how her family was complicit.
This sounds amazing 🙂 I think I will have to grab If At Birth You Don’t Succeed! Just my kind of book, amazing.
I don’t read many memoirs, but all the things you mentioned here seem to make good sense. If I were going to read one, I would want to get to the point!
I like memoirs a lot as well, I guess looking back at my reading life I’ve gone in and out of memoir/biography phases always. Anyway. This was really interesting to read, and amen to the bit about the childhood stuff, though I hadn’t actually articulated that point. So right. Very few people’s childhood details are interesting…then again maybe they just don’t know how to tell them to make them interesting? I liked Patti Smith’s recollections of her childhood because she is good at pulling a narrative, poetic thread out of just about anything. So maybe, ultimately, the fault lies in the writing and the choice of details by the writer more than that time of life being boring? New theory, developed while typing here right now. Haha.
I know I tend to really dislike memoirs that are mega name drop-y, something that often has to do with my not knowing who the hell all these people are being name dropped. Plus name dropping tends to make people look a bit too obsessed with things I dont think are important and I start to lose the sympathetic thread… Because yeah, like you, I read memoirs of people I havent heard of. I am generally interested in reading about certain life events or themes, so already knowing the person doesn’t necessarily factor into my reading choices. Anyway. Lots of rambling from me today. Happy reading!