Thinking Like a Memoirist: 5 Ways to Get Into Your Real-Life Story

Our newest track for July’s Camp NaNoWriMo session is full of fantastic resources for anyone who wants to write about their own life! Today, Lindsey Grant, Camp Counselor and author of the new book Ready, Set, Memoir! shares a few ways that writing a memoir can be fun and creative:

1. Memoir is not autobiography. 

A memoir is the intersection between your life and a specific subject. It’s not your whole life from birth to the present moment, (though select moments spanning that timeframe will surely be included). Instead, it’s those places where your life has intersected or been defined by the subject of your memoir. And the possibilities for what that subject might be are truly endless. One way to think about how to focus your memoir is to think about something in your life that forever changed you, creating a “before” you and an “after” you. Bonus good news: No two memoirs could ever be the same, either, because that combination of topics, your life plus your memoir-worthy experience, is singular to you.

2. Trust your truth. 

Because memoirs are nonfiction, they must be true. Thus, the subject of your memoir will cover an experience or relationship you had, something you’re passionate about, or a pivotal life-changing event, for example. Many people wonder how they are expected to remember events, conversations, and feelings exactly as they happened (especially if this was a really long time ago) and that’s a valid question. 

The answer is that your reader knows you can’t possibly remember every detail; instead, you’re sharing your recollections. How you remember feeling, what the sequence of events was, and the impressions you have of that time and place and the people in it. That’s your truth, and it’s yours and yours alone to recount as it exists in your mind’s eye.

3. Research your life. 

Since memory is so imperfect and incomplete, sometimes it’s helpful to do a deep dive into the past to help you remember details you’ve long since forgotten. Depending on what you’re writing about, such research could include family photo albums, a tour through your hometown, paging through old yearbooks or journals or memory boxes, reading news archives from the timeframe you’re writing about, or even watching favorite films and listening to favorite music from that time. Think of it as a field trip into your past!

4. Get your story straight. 

There are two timelines you’ll want to reference when writing a memoir: the order of events as they happened in real life, and then the order in which you include events in your memoir. Of course, your memoir can be written chronologically, but if you do choose to jump through time in achronological fashion, it’s helpful to first establish the order of events you’re including as they really occurred, and then craft your story’s timeline. For you pantsers out there, this will probably be most useful to you after your first draft is complete and you start to stare down the editing process. For you plotters, this is a terrific way to help structure your writing! And plantsers, I trust you’ll find the perfect middle ground in which to write your somewhat-outlined-but-not-set-in-stone story.

5. Utilize fictional story elements. 

Even though memoirs are nonfiction, they contain the same building blocks as most novels: characters, story arc, conflict, a central theme, dialogue, setting, and so on. If you feel lost in what to write or how to write it, fall back on the approach you’d take to writing these story fundamentals when noveling. What does your main character want more than anything else? What will they do to get it? How do they change over the course of the story? What makes them likeable? What is their greatest weakness? Who are their friends and why? Any enemies? You get the idea. These familiar story components will make memoir-writing feel less strange and new and hopefully trigger all kinds of inspiration and realizations about your true-life tale.

Write on, memoirists!

Check out NaNoWriMo’s Camp Memoir resources.

Take a look at Lindsey’s new book, Ready, Set, Memoir!

Lindsey Grant is the former Program Director for NaNoWriMo. She holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction and English from Mills College in Oakland, California. Though she lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for nine glorious, sun-drenched years, she originally hails from Atlanta, Georgia. You’d know she’s a Southerner at heart by her liberal use of the word “y’all” and her belief in casseroles as a form of damage control. She currently lives in Zurich, Switzerland with her husband and their cats, where she cooks often, tries to speak German, and blogs about her attempts to assimilate.

Top photo by Kiwihug on Unsplash.