How to Get to Your Best Memoir Writing
THE BEST MEMOIR WRITING knows its limits. It does not take on too much. It does not take on too little. It takes on exactly enough and stays with it until it’s done. To illustrate this idea in my class, I’ll hold up my hands about shoulder width, thumbs up, fingers facing forward and pretend to be taking a slice out of someone’s timeline. “Just give me this much,” I’ll say, and if I get a blank look, I’ll usually offer, “Just go from here to there.” If I am working as a memoir editor or developmental editor over the phone, I’ll probably talk about the “here to there” of the best memoir writing.
What is your favorite here to there? What small, interesting distances have you traveled once or twice – or seemingly endless amounts of time – until you got something right? For instance, have you ever lost your sense of humor and then a few days, or weeks, or months later felt the beginning of the lip curl that announces that once again, maybe for the first time in a while, you are finding something funny? That’s a story, and one worth pondering. How, and with the help of what and whom, do we get back a lost sense of humor, and who are with we without it, and who do we become again when we get it back?
All too often memoir writers try to go too big. They want to write autobiography when all we want to read is something that goes from here to there. Give us too much, and it goes by in a blur of details we cannot use. Give us just the right amount of story and we can hold it against our hearts and think long and hard about the value of humor – or grace, poise or honor – and its place in our lives.
So what is your list of here to theres? Mine includes numerous times when I lost my my sense of humor, several times when I literally lost my way in life, a magnificent moment when I had a near occasion to faith after years of non-belief, and many, many more.
So go from here to there.
And write about it.
Marion–this is the best reminder. You could tell me this weekly. Send a picture with your hands up–just like that. I am always trying to go around the world instead of writing about that one conversation on that one Sunday morning. Thank you!
Agreed. Love this! I always try to go too big. Great advice for me to ponder…
A timely reminder, and thanks. I’m at the point of trying to organise (reorganise actually) my childhood based memoir, so that it forms a narrative arc of sorts; so that I can say what it’s about in one or two sentences.
Whenever I visit you I always hear exactly what I need to hear at any given time. How do you do that? :)
Thank you!
Thank you Marion for the reminder to focus on a tiny detail, from here to there, and not to Tokyo and back.
I have a problem with “here to there”. I’m writing about our missionary family – my parents and five kids – traveling from Finland via America to China 1946. Arrival N.E.China/Manchuria Jan 1947. Fleeing from Mao’s was across China to S.E. China Yunnan 10 months later. Then two years in the midst of turmoil, before another search of refuge – just mother and five children – to Ceylon/Sri Lanka to wait for dad, who comes 11 months later. 3 years in Ceylon before returning home to Finland 1953. Should I divide into parts – different books, or is it ok with PART 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 within the book. I have 10 ships moving us and the story onward. (Some trains and cars too!) Sources: letters, articles, memories.
Hi, Lisa.
Welcome to The Memoir Project. And thank you for posing this question. In short, you are not writing about your missionary family. You are writing about something — a theme — and your illustration of your missionary family is the illustration of that theme.
To successfully write memoir, first ask yourself two essential questions: What is this about? and “What is my argument?”
You cannot be successful if you merely write the diary of your life. That is best left to the famous, whose highlights we know, but whose small decisions, conflicts and triumphs we might want illuminated for us. For the rest of us, we should write from one area of expertise at a time.
If you merely write the chronological aspects of your life, you’ll run into two huge problems: First of all, the book will never end, and second, no one will want to read it. Instead, contain your story by knowing what you are writing about and what you are arguing.
In a phrase, get it under control. Then you can succeed.
For a quick pick-up, watch my little video on writing memoir.