• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • 20 Top Tips
  • About Marion
  • Online Classes
  • My System
  • Coaching & Editing
  • Books
  • Blog
  • Podcast
  • Contact
  • Home

Memoir coach and author Marion Roach

Welcome to The Memoir Project, the portal to your writing life.

How to Write Memoir Using Lists

One of my favorite topics to discuss and teach is how to write memoir using lists. Whenever I suggest a list to one of my students or clients, it is inevitably met with skepticism. And yet lists convey so much with so little. Consider the list of what you took when you left. That’s right: When you left. We’ve all left something , somewhere or someone. What did you plan to take and what did you pocket at the last minute as you swept out? Write those down. 

How about that list of what you did not say when someone else left, or perhaps what you wish you did say the last time you saw someone? How would those read? And what might they convey that is simply overstated with any more than the barest of copy? Consider the list.

Then consider the writing process that went into Joan Wickersham’s brilliant memoir, The Suicide Index: Putting My Father’s Death in Order. That very word, “order,” in the title tells you what was at stake for her as much as the word “index” conveys her process. Don’t know the book? Have a read and witness how the stately structure of the index allows her to turn the mystery of his life into a future she can live.

The writers I work with are all too familiar with my margin notes that include exhortations to them to “loosen up,” “relax” and “enjoy the writing more.” This is one method of doing so. All too often the very topic at hand freezes the writer on the page, something that no reader wants to witness. Instead, try something daring. Write the ingredients that went into your bad husband as a recipe card for disaster. Try indexing your feelings and researching each one via some diagnostic manual. Oh, and after you are done with lists, think about mental maps and other such visuals that could lend themselves to memoir.

But let’s start here: Give me a list, or even an item that you took when you left. If you’d like to see my very favorite list ever, please read it here. But let’s list.

 

Photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash

Share this:

  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn

Related posts:

  1. Writing Memoir by Making Lists: It’s as Easy as One, Two, Three
  2. The Best of Best-of Lists for Memoir
  3. How To Write Less and Say More

GET THE QWERTY PODCAST

Qwerty Podcast logo

Subscribe free to the podcast

DON’T MISS an episode of Qwerty, the podcast for memoir writers. You can subscribe to all future editions on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or Stitcher, or anywhere podcasts are distributed.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Jan Hogle says

    January 26, 2020 at 9:35 am

    Great reminder post, Marion!
    I also love and use lists. I wish I could find the list my husband and I made 40 years ago as a marriage contract. Darn it.

    Some years back, I wanted to write about my memories of my mother, so I started with a bulleted list because I was finding it difficult to dredge up sufficient memories. We shared a house for only 18 years until I escaped to college, and for many of those years, I don’t think I was paying attention. So, I created a bulleted list of things I remembered, and then shared it with my brother to see if he thought our memories were close. They were! He made a few corrections and comments. Then my daughter asked to see the 10-page document. Is 10 pages enough memories of one’s mother?

    • marion says

      January 26, 2020 at 11:08 am

      Well, perhaps you will enjoy reading this — Charles Darwin’s pro-and con-marriage list.

      • Jan Hogle says

        January 26, 2020 at 11:20 am

        I did read that! Then realized he married his cousin. It was written so long ago but eerily seems almost appropriate for now. In some ways.

  2. Kerstin says

    January 26, 2020 at 9:18 pm

    Great advice! I’ve always been fond of lists, ie when writing a blog post, but thanks for the reminder to apply this technique to my memoir.

    • marion says

      January 27, 2020 at 7:26 am

      Dear Kerstin,
      You are most welcome.
      So glad you like the device.
      Please come back soon.
      Best,
      Marion

  3. Julie Ranson says

    January 27, 2020 at 8:06 pm

    When I left my ex, I took:
    -my pride
    -the love I’d fake too long
    -the Wedgewood china I loved
    -the best linens

    • marion says

      January 27, 2020 at 9:57 pm

      Yes
      Oh yes.
      Yes, indeed.

  4. Christine Jacobsen says

    January 28, 2020 at 3:37 pm

    I love the list concept, I tried it. But before that I thought I would try a poem to get to the core of my argument:
    There once was a woman named Christine
    who thought she was awfully keen
    On finding her place in the whole human race
    And to know she had finally been seen
    She started a DNA story to shed light and allegory
    It opened her heart, this brand new start at finding God and his glory
    Searching her soul and new addresses, she found what her mind had long sensed
    That home is the place, in the whole human race,
    where your hear mind and soul are one.
    So how to tell this grand story, of God and his glory
    Of coming home to herself and how the world melts into the
    Cosmic soup we all love?

  5. Jan Hogle says

    February 1, 2020 at 12:09 am

    This was fun…. list-making:

    List of what I took to college in 1969 in Florida:
    1. Red plaid footlocker
    2. Electric typewriter with manual carriage return
    3. Portable record player/radio combo
    4. Alarm clock
    5. Desk lamp
    6. Record collection
    7. Guitar
    8. Songbooks
    9. Singer Featherweight sewing machine
    10. Shorts
    11. Tee-shirts
    12. Flip-flops
    13. Sneakers
    14. Sweatshirt
    15. Bikini bathing suit
    16. Bicycle
    17. Virginity
    18. Photograph of me in my high school prom dress
    19. Instamatic camera
    20. Journal notebook

    • marion says

      February 5, 2020 at 11:28 am

      Number 17.
      Oh my. Nicely done.

Primary Sidebar

GET THE QWERTY PODCAST

Qwerty Podcast logo

Subscribe free to the podcast

DON’T MISS an episode of Qwerty, the podcast for memoir writers. You can subscribe to all future editions on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or Stitcher, or anywhere podcasts are distributed.

Join the newsletter

Subscribe to get my latest content by email.

Success! Now check your email to confirm your subscription.

There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again.

We won't send you spam. Unsubscribe at any time. Powered by Kit

SITEWIDE SEARCH

Books I recommend to learn to write memoir

Learning to write begins with reading. Click on any photo above and go to my Suggested Reading List. Then what? Put away the prompts and exercises. Stop practicing and learn to write with intent. How? Come join my Live Online Classes.

SEE MY WRITING SYSTEM

BUY MY HOW-TO MEMOIR WRITING BOOK

  • Amazon

TOPICS

POPULAR STORIES

  • How to Write Memoir When You Don’t Have it All Figured Out, with Jess Gutierrez
  • Differing Versions of a Family Tale? No Problem.
  • What Tone Should Memoir Take? In Praise of Humility in Memoir
  • How Writers Figure Things Out, with Joan Wickersham
  • How to Be a Freelance Writer & More, with Author Gloria L. Huang

Footer

SITEWIDE SEARCH

JOIN ME ON INSTAGRAM

mroachsmith

I teach & coach memoir to inspire the writing life you want.
Author of 4 books. Work w/ me to write yours.
Tap link to connect.

No writer ever has it all “figured out”. Join No writer ever has it all “figured out”. Join @arkansaswrites and I as we discuss how to keep writing on the QWERTY podcast. Available on all major podcast platforms. 

#writingcommunity #memoirwriting #memoirauthor #memoircoach #booktok
Join Joan Wickersham and I as we discuss how to fi Join Joan Wickersham and I as we discuss how to figure things out as a writer on the QWERTY podcast. Available to listen on all major podcast platforms. 

#writingcommunity #memoirauthor #memoirwriting #writingmemoir #memoir
Happy Mother’s Day. Happy Mother’s Day.
Join @lailaswrites and I as we discuss how to beco Join @lailaswrites and I as we discuss how to become a freelance writer on the QWERTY podcast. Link in my bio to listen in. 

#writingcommunity #memoirauthor #memoirwriting #memoircoach #booktok #memoir
You’ve heard about the importance of the first l You’ve heard about the importance of the first line in a novel, but how about the first scene for memoir? Join @brookerandel and I on the QWERTY podcast as we discuss. 

#writingcommunity #memoirauthor #memoirwriting #writingmemoir #booktok
Join Julie Kabat and I on the podcast as we discus Join Julie Kabat and I on the podcast as we discuss how to write memoir using letters from family. Available now on all major podcast platforms. 

#writingcommunity #memoirauthor #memoirwriting #writingmemoir #booktok #memoir

Copyright © 2025 Marion Roach · contact