To ensure that your memoir is a tight one, it will probably be necessary to cut some of your text.

Having finished my childhood memoir, French Boy / A 1950s Franco-American Childhood, of course, I have been thinking of all the things that I did not put into the memoir. Some of these omissions, I would say, were interesting and might have contributed to my story’s theme and plot line. However, the memoir had reached 350 pages, and I knew it was imperative to limit any further lengthening of the story.

Many writers have said—and I paraphrase—”a work of art is never finished. It is merely abandoned.”

Keeping this observation in mind, I understood, as every writer must, that I needed to choose the point of abandonment carefully. Cut back too early, and you don’t make your point—establish the importance of your theme—in your memoir. Abandon too late, and you risk having too much in your memoir and turning your reader off.

Cut memoir text

As I revised my book, deciding what to leave in or what to take out, I was always considering this: “Is this incident, this vignette, contributing to the themes—there are three—that I am developing in French Boy? If the piece of writing did, then there had to be a way to keep it in. If it did not clearly contribute to my theme, then I had to rethink its possible role in my memoir and justify its continued conclusion—sometimes done via rewriting. A second option, and often the better one, was to eliminate this vignette.

It is my contention that theme is the most important element in the structuring of your memoir. The basic elements of storytelling—character action and setting—have to be carefully nurtured, of course, but that nurturing has to be subservient to the development of the theme. The theme is the soul of your memoir. It is ultimately the reason you are writing your story. Even if you were to say “But I want to portray my mother and show the world what a wonderful person she is” you would develop her character through action but you would also have in mind developing the theme. This might be how this “wonderful mother” nurtured you and how important nurturing is to the development of a person.

Kill Your “Little Darlings”: Another Way to Say “Cut Memoir Text”

There is in writing circles the concept of “kill your little darlings.” This has been attributed to many writers but like the saying that “a work of art is never finished but merely abandoned,” this one has been frequently attributed to various writers. “Little darlings” refers to your favorite stories and vignettes. They’re special to you and you want to include them. But when you consider them carefully you grasp that they do not contribute to the development of your story, to the support of your theme. When you keep a “little darling” in your story, it often comes across as a conspicuous addition, a bit too much.

The reader will ask, “Why is this piece in the story?” A better choice is to extract that “little darling” from your memoir and put it in your files to be developed later in another piece. At some point, the excised writing can find its own theme and be developed into a longer piece of writing—perhaps.

As I considered my theme in French Boy, I concluded I had to eliminate many of my “little darlings.” I also eliminated text that had somehow been in the forefront of my mind at the moment that I was writing, but in revising, I did not find them so important anymore.

In Conclusion

As you finish your memoir—that is, when you are at the stage before you complete your memoir, evaluate the role of all your stories and all your vignettes. If they prove to be cherished “little darlings’ that do not push the story forward, you must cut memoir text. This will ensure that your story is a tight story.

Your reader will thank you for this.

Remember: “inch by inch, it’s a cinch; yard by yard, it’s hard.”

Good luck writing your stories!

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