How to Choose Scenes When Writing Memoir

ONE OF MY FAVORITE questions to get when working with online memoir classes or memoir coaching clients is how to choose scenes when writing memoir. I love when this is asked because it gives me the chance to introduce you to yet another of my metaphors, this one using bunions.

Think of your piece of memoir as a dinner party you are planning. And not just any dinner party. Consider succeeding at the perfect dinner party, where you choose the food from those recipes you’ve been saving from that lavish Instagram feed you adore, and where clever and interesting guests come prepared with their very best conversation and delight one another with their insights. The food is special and those guests tell engaging tales, listen when others do the same and contribute witty repartee throughout the meal. They share, they listen, they enhance the night.

Now image that friend of yours who, whenever you see her, speaks only about her health. More to the point, she complains incessantly about her bunions or her back pain. She does not listen. She shows little or no interest in others. She just talks. And talks. And talks. You know her. We all have this friend. In this metaphor, it’s what we do about her that holds the key to your success.

How to Choose Scenes for Your Piece of Memoir

Do you just keep inviting that tiresome friend to your table, putting up with this kind of monopolization of what was to be your stellar party? Maybe you do. And that’s your decision. But you have noticed how the whole night comes to a screeching halt when she starts in, haven’t you, and how no one else can get in a word and no one else really wants to talk – or listen – about her bunions?

The plain truth is that there just isn’t room for her at the table. Nope. Sorry. Not for this party that is Pinterest-pretty and clever as a cat. You need to do other things with that particular friend. Movies dates are good with someone like this, as is theater, where the talking is done by others. But that dinner party? That’s not where you want her, taking up the story and controlling the mood of the evening.

What is the standard to use when learning how to choose scenes when writing memoir? It’s the same as planning such a party. Scenes in your piece of memoir must be assigned only to those most clever of your dinner guests. That’s right: This isn’t a family Thanksgiving, where you serve the fare you’ve always served and seat all comers. This is where you get to choose who is allowed at the table. And choose you must, since if you simply let everyone in your family and friend group come to the table you are bound to have a bunion tale in the lot.

What do you do if you do invite her and she tells that endless tale of toe woe? You do not invite her again. Period. Same with those scenes from your book. Once you spot them, you uninvite them from the grown-up table. You edit them out, whether in the planning stages of your memoir, or after you read your first draft.

When I use this analogy in person I always notice the wide-open mouths, the literal jaw-dropping at the very idea of making the comparison between bunions and story. And then I watch as those slack-jaws turns into smiles. This is your story to control, writers, and nothing comes to that table unless it plans to do the hard work of carrying your special night along. Why else would you serve it or invite her, after all? To bore us? To stop your story cold? Because you owe them? Because they are hungry?

What is Memoir?

At first, everyone who sets out to write memoir confuses the genre as being like one, big family potluck meal where you take what you get with great gratitude: You accept another casserole, even though you already have ten; you take delivery on a Jell-O mold, even though you abhor them, and you serve up every single brownie or blondie and smile, though you’d really prefer to serve that astonishing desert you perfected after seeing it on Zöe François’ Instagram feed.

But what about that meal you’d prefer to serve?

That’s your piece of memoir. It’s yours for the planning, and yours for the delighting in, so do not let the soggy food of your family of origin, nor your friend with the bunions take over that vision you have of a fun, clever, delicious night where everyone leaves hungry for more.

How do you do this? In a word: discernment. Right from the start of a piece begin to think about which of your scenes might be best in your piece of memoir. How? By asking what the scene does.

Begin by considering all the scenes you have that show and say the same thing. If, for instance, your memoir covers your alcoholism recovery, what scenes do you have of your substance abuse and recovery? Which are the top three that show us the control the addiction had over you?

How Many Scenes Do We Need?

We don’t need twenty-five scenes in Act One of your memoir that show us that alcohol ransacked your life. We need to see where you learned to drink – your family of origin, perhaps – the friends you chose as your community of drinkers and how bad it got. And that’s about it. That’s right. Three clever friends who show up and share a good story at the table. More than that and the reader begins to say, “Yeah, uh huh. I’ve heard this story already,” just the same as they would if someone told the same story twice at your gorgeous dinner.

What new writers of memoir forget all the time is that every scene has both a plot as well as a plot point in a book-length piece of memoir. In other words, each scene shows us some piece of action but also is about something on its own.

Let me break that down. Using the alcoholism memoir example from above, for instance, the plot of that scene depicting learning to drink in your family of origin might involve another night at home listening to Frank Sinatra on the stereo, watching your parents get out the olive dishes and the martini glasses, seeing them get smoochy with one another and do a little dance as they wave the vermouth over the cooled gin, dropping just a smidge of that vermouth into the chilled glasses. That’s the scene’s plot. It’s its action. But the plot point of that scene is to show us the romance of alcohol. With an upbringing like that, you are bound to grow up romancing alcohol and hold it to your heart like a cultural touchstone.

What Scenes Do We Cut?

We don’t need another scene to tell us that same thing. Instead, if you write it well, we’ll feel the full force of that romantic ideal of alcohol on your psyche and realize that among the many toxic influences of alcohol, you are also being oppressed by the sheer romance your family brought to its consumption, something that makes it even harder to kick.

Be a discerning host, writers, and banish any bunion-telling tale-tellers from the feast. Knowing how to choose scenes when writing memoir is all about being discerning. Do so, and we can all enjoy what you’ve laid out for us.

I hope this analogy serves you well. My work is full of similarly zany comparisons. For the story of Galileo in Walmart, see my little book, The Memoir Project, A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life. For my Thanksgiving cupboard tale, see here.

Want even more? Come take a class with me. And if you have not done so already, listen in to QWERTY, my podcast by, for and about writers. 

Photo by Kyle Head on Unsplash