Some New Insights on The Memoir Project Algorithm

ONCE YOU’VE WRITTEN AND PUBLISHED hundreds of thousands of words, chances are good that you’ll sometimes experience the great delight of someone quoting you back to you. It used to be that the quote from me that I heard back most often came from my first book: “Grief is a mute sense of panic.” It seemed to resonate with readers, so much so that it made it into a book of quotations. I consider that one of my greatest honors. But that little phrase has been supplanted as the one that gets the fan mail. Maybe you know the one that shoved it off first place. It’s called The Memoir Project algorithm. 

That little sentence brings me more email than anything else. And it’s not always happy email, since everyone struggles with the algorithm — struggles, that is, until they don’t. What does The Memoir Project Algorithm do? It elevates your story idea from the deeply personal to the universal, which makes your tale not only interesting to you, but also of interest to others. Is it worth the work? Only if you want anybody else to care about what you write.

But everyone struggles with it. That’s kind of the point of the device, since it forces a shift in thinking from a wildly limiting perspective — that is, “It’s a story about me” — to a wildly inclusive sense: “It’s a story about something everyone might be interested in, as illustrated by a tale from my life.” It’s a heavy lift, but it’s certainly one you must make if you want to be published, and one you should consider making even if you intend your story, essay or book for your close family.

The Memoir Project Algorithm can help you make that shift in your thinking, and thereby transpose your work into either a higher or a deeper, richer key. It goes like this:

It’s about x as illustrated by y to be told in a z

It’s about something universal as illustrated by something deeply personal to be told in some length of a piece of memoir. The z is always the form — blog post, essay, op-ed, long-form essay or book.

I’ve written about the algorithm before, but today, while reading through the algorithms and arguments sent for a class I teach, a new thought dropped into place, and it’s one from which you might benefit. Let me explain.

First, a quick review of memoir structure. I teach all of memoir as a three-act structure, and divide those three acts to be:

• Act One: What’s at Stake
• Act Two: What I tried
• Act Three: What worked

Looked at this way, a piece of memoir of any length covers the motion through your transcendence from here to there – from when you did not know something to when you did; from when you were in one place to when you were in another, or from when you could not do something to when you could, in fact, do that thing.

That being the case, first acts of memoirs of any length chronicle what someone endured, whether that was a form of abuse, the inability to meditate or, perhaps, some form of addiction. By the end of that first act we know that what’s at stake is your transcendence from that challenge.

So that’s the basic structure. Now, here’s the deeper insight that somehow popped into my head this morning:

What did you endure? Maybe your family has a long history of political ideas from which you have broken. Perhaps your family passes along both violence and alcoholism. You might have come to think of yourself as worthless after a string of demeaning early-in-life experiences at home followed by a long history of belittling romantic attachments. Or you might be someone who cannot love dogs, struggles to meditate or to master the piano, all of which had you enduring life without those pleasures.

How does this question about what you endured help shape your algorithm? Looking up the word “endure” in the dictionary today yielded some synonyms: stand, support, suffer, brook. Looking up “endure” in the Thesaurus allows me to see shades of meaning, reminding me that when something is enduring, it can be either good or bad. So, let’s settle in on this word, “endure,” and simply flip it from its bad connotation in Act One to its good aspects in Act Three. What we are looking for in that algorithm is the lesson of that flip: From what we endured so that we could endure, what did we learn?

Here’s an example: What did you learn in the transition from addiction to your independence from alcohol? Perhaps you learned that recovery from alcoholism is as much about changing culture as it is giving up the drink. That’s your x factor.

Let’s keep going, with another: Maybe your sister is about to be deployed to Afghanistan and trusts only you to foster her beloved dog while she is away. But you endured a childhood fear of dogs. She, of course, knows what this dog will do for you. You do not. And in doing this for your sibling, you undergo the transcendence that only dogs can bring when you realize that dogs do things for people that people cannot do for themselves. That’s your x factor.

And the good news? Look back in those two paragraphs above. See the bold-faced phrases? Those are also your arguments for either piece. Your argument is also a universal, and also never a personal statement. It’s the reason someone reads your book. It’s what you know after what you have endured. A well-written algorithm reveals what you are arguing every single time.

So, what did you endure and how does it flip to reveal what your book is about? Remember, what it is about is why it matters to anybody. Find that, and you give people a reason to read.

I ran this by my husband this morning as we were eating breakfast together, to which he (a longtime newspaper editor) replied, “Yup. Just like journalism: Your story doesn’t amount to much if it’s not accessible to readers.” Ah, yes. He’s right, and it goes for what we’re doing here, too: We cannot make a reader care unless we make the story accessible to her in some way.

So, give The Memoir Project Algorithm a try. I promise: It works for all pieces of any length, from personal essay to a book.

Want more help? Come see me in any one of my online classes.

Memoirama: Live, 90 minutes. Everything you need to write what you know.

Memoirama 2. Live, two hours. Limited to seven writers. What you need to know to structure a book.

How to Write Opinion Pieces: Op-eds, Radio Essays and Digital Commentary: Live, 90 minutes. Get your voice out into the world.

And keep in mind that we are always keeping a list of those who want to get in the next  Master Class, the prerequisites for which are Memoirama and Memoirama 2. Live, once a month. Limited to seven writers who are determined to get a first draft of their memoir finished in six months.