When you include feelings in your memoir, your reader’s interest is heightened and they are drawn into the story. It is helpful to make a list of different words to describe the feelings that you will use in your memoir. Put these words in your memory list to draw from as you write. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
It’s important to gather details for a memoir and use them effectively to draw your readers in. The use of vivid sensory details helps your reader not only “see” but engage all of their senses to be fully immersed in the story. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
The bigger picture in a memoir is essential for your reader (and you!) to better understand the period of your life you are writing about. A memoir that is set in the historical context of your time, even with just a few references to events, broadens your personal story into a larger story for your readers. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
Writing the setting as a character of your memoir will tell us a lot about you and the people who were in your life. Many fiction writers give setting the prime role of character in their novels. As a memoir writer, you can also think of setting as a character in your memoir. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
What you will do today is travel to the place that figures in your story. This is the setting of your memoir. If you can do so physically, that is great.
If however, you need to travel to the setting of your memoir in your mind – because it is too far away or because somehow it no longer exists, you can always get there in your imagination. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
Writing a memoir is like making a movie, and in many ways, a good memoir writer treats the story the way a filmmaker treats a movie. Too often, as we write memoir, we tell the reader what is happening in the story rather than show it. Fortunately, a filmmaker does not have this luxury—or is it curse?—of telling. The only way the filmmaker can let us know what is happening is to show something on the screen—whether that is a setting, an action or a feature of characterization such as a frown. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
Use sense details in your stories to engage and hook your readers. A successful memoir needs sensory details to bring your story to life and make the reader feel as if it is unfolding in front of him. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
Write about a conflict in your memoir to engage your reader. There needs to be action in your story. There needs to be something happening. One way to explore plot is to explore action.
When you use action in writing your story, it is called plot. Something must happen in your story to retain the interest of your reader. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
Writing plot into a memoir is something people are sometimes surprised to learn that a memoir needs. For some writers, this technique of writing plot into a memoir screams of twisting the memoir into a fiction piece. But, all of us need to be kept reading by some mechanism. This mechanism is often called plot. A plot is an action. Plot is the something that happens in a memoir. Today, we explore how to create a plot that is true to the memoir. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
When you learn to use journals in memoir writing, you will produce more accurate and detailed stories. Your journal is a kind of writing laboratory, where you can experiment with techniques to record your feelings and perceptions. It’s also a great tool to get around writer’s block!
If you are fortunate enough to have recorded your life in a journal, you can use your entries to refresh your memory and get access to salient facts or verify what you remember. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]