3 Ways to Organize Your Memoir
Your life is full of memories, stories, lessons, and ideas. Some impart these stories and lessons aloud to friends, children, and grandchildren. Others may keep these memories locked away. Then, there are those who choose to put pen to paper and record their lives in a memoir, to be read and re-read across the future generations.
Who Can Write a Memoir?
Anyone with a story about their life to tell can write a memoir! A quick browse through the memoir section of Amazon or Barnes and Noble will show you that, although many memoirs are from celebrities like Billy Porter (Unprotected: A Memoir) or famed writers such as Stephen King (On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft), others are simple yet meaningful stories of ordinary people: an adopted child (Running with Scissors: A Memoir by Augusten Burroughs), a hiker (Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed), a woman wondering if she can love again (Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle Melton).
Who Will Read My Memoir?
Memoirs are powerful mediums. They are very human stories that resonate deeply with a variety of readers. People might pick up your memoir because they identify with your story, they are curious about your life, or they seek to learn from or connect with another person. Many book groups, book clubs, or average readers will pick up your memoir if you’re brave enough to publish it.
How Can I Get Started Writing My Memoir?
The first key to writing a memoir is to write—get down as many memories, thoughts, and life lessons on paper as possible. The more material you have to shape and pull from, the better!
Next, figure out the key theme or question of your memoir. Perhaps your main theme is “learning how to have faith” (Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott), “finding the humor in my absurd family situation” (Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel), or “literature can change lives” (Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi).
Finally, whittle down the material. Not everything from your life will fit in this memoir. Cut out what doesn’t build towards your main theme but save it for another project.
How Can I Organize My Ideas?
1. Chronologically: The first, and perhaps most obvious, organization pattern is chronological, from beginning to end. Start with your earliest relevant memories and tell your journey of change or discovery as the years pass by. Find the beats of your life, the different arcs of growth, and separate the parts and chapters according to these beats:
My Childhood
Growing Up Overnight
Missing College
My Job is the Hospital
2. Idea-by-Idea: If your memoir is more a series of vignettes than a chronological tale, you might choose to organize your memoir into different parts or ideas. These memories could all be happening simultaneously, or could be related to different aspects of your overall “theme,” so you could organize it in this way:
Finding My Family
Finding Love
Finding Faith
Finding Myself
3. Topic: Your memoir might be less about you and more about things you’ve seen or people you’ve known in your life. If this is the case, you might choose to organize your memoir by topic or subject. Determine the people or places you think would work well in your memoir, and choose an order to place them in:
My Mother the Therapist
My Brother the Priest
The Battle for Paris
The Ocean and Peace
So, what are you waiting for? You can get started writing your memoir right away, by getting out a pen and notebook, or your computer, and jotting down some of your important or interesting memories. You can find more resources to help you on your memoir-writing journey here on my blog, looking on The Write Life website, or emailing me with your questions!
Happy writing!
