How to Finish Writing Your Memoir
I’ve noticed that many people who come to The Memoir Network have already been writing a while. They are not people who are just starting out on the memoir journey. Many have already written 5, 10, 15 or more stories or vignettes. They have been writing for a number of months—sometimes even years—and are concluding that they are spinning their wheels, that they are not producing a book as they so want to do. They realize they are not on the path to bringing their memoirs to a finish. What they are doing is writing stand-along piece after stand-alone piece. Well, a stand-alone piece is not a bad goal really—wouldn’t you love to have stand-alone stories from your grandparents? It’s just that stand-alones are really just not what they want to leave as a legacy. So, how do you finish writing your memoir?
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Sell Your Memoir to Your Intended Audience: 4 Tips
An important step to sell your memoir is to identify your intended audience early in the process. Your buying audience will affect what you include in your memoir and the manner in which you write it. You will likely include different material in your memoir depending on who you believe will purchase it.
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5 Better Ways to Describe The People in Your Memoir
Without other people, our lives and our memoirs risk becoming dull. Although ideas are pivotal for many individuals, relationships are even more commanding. We are intrigued with who other people are and how they function. “Who’s that? What are they doing? Where did they come from?” These are question we want answered. To write a strong story, capitalize on this interest. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
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Show Don’t Tell, or Don’t Describe Your Characters–Show Them!
The old adage “Show, don’t tell!” is as true as ever. It is one technique that will always improve your writing. I admit that there is some great writing that makes a precedent for “tell,” but as a rule, “show” is more effective.
1. Your pen is your movie camera.
In a film, a director ( that’s you!) doesn’t have an actor go on screen to tell the audience that someone is angry. Instead, he shows the character in a scene where anger is in action. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
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Launching Your Memoir Teaching – 6 Steps To More Success
Many memoir writers secretly, or not so secretly, want to help other people to write their memoirs. Sometimes they do this informally with a friend or two, and at other times, they get a bit more organized and offer a class at a library or other institution. One thing is certain, launching your memoir teaching will take some attention.
I have taught workshops for decades and can attest to the deep satisfaction I have derived from working with writers. I have formed friendships that have lasted these many years.
If you would like to offer a memoir class here are a few tips to do so more successfully. They are garnered from sound business practices, but don’t worry as they are easy for anyone to implement.
(I have written about the curriculum elsewhere.)
1. Reconnect with people who told you they want to be in a workshop within a few days of having first spoken to them.
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What everyone ought to do to create vivid characters
Five easy, proven tips for adding feelings to a memoir and creating vivid characters
As a memoirist, do you accept that your family, your friends and your acquaintances are characters in your story? This is a first step in creating vivid characters.
“But, I’m writing about my mother, not about a character,” you say.
Yes, you are writing about your mother and she is a character in your story. If you can’t incorporate that notion into your approach to writing, your memoir will not soar and you wil not create vivid characters—not of your mother or of anyone else.
Without the interactions of and with other people, our lives and memoirs risk becoming dull. Although ideas are pivotal for many individuals, relationships are even more commanding.
We are intrigued with who other people are and how they function. “Who’s that? What are they doing? Where did they come from?” These are questions we want answered.
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Book Launch Tips: Business Boy to Business Man, by Robert Verreault
The book launch party was a lovely experience—one that brought to those of us who were involved in creating the book a strong sense of (forgive the overused term!) closure. Writing a memoir is a long haul and it is refreshing to have an event as one might a wedding or a funeral to gather […]
How to write a memoir: our 21 Best Memoir-Writing Tips to get you writing your memoir—quickly and well—and getting it into the hands of your public.
It’s later than you think. Don’t put off writing your memoir any longer.
Our 21 in-depth, best memoir-writing tips below will help you to start memoir writing today.
You’ll find these guides will see you through the process of how to write a memoir—an interesting and meaningful memoir—more easily and quickly than you may now think possible.
One day soon, you will have written your book.
The Memoir Network’s 21 Top Best Memoir-Writing Tips to get you to memoir success.
1. What is a memoir? Hint: it’s not an autobiography!
Is the difference important to the memoir writer? Somewhat! Knowing what you are writing will orient you from the start! It can be discouraging to realize that you have been headed in the wrong direction when you could have saved yourself time and energy by understanding the difference between memoir and autobiography as you launched yourself. While it’s not huge, but it can be significant.
An autobiography is about a whole life: from birth to the present. A memoir is a part of your life that is characterized by a theme. It might be about the first years of your marriage during which you realized what an immature and selfish person you were and earned to be a giving souse. This may interest many people as it is a struggle many are waging.
The fact is that, while it is totally possible to write a memoir that will interest the public and draw an audience to you, the same is not true of a autobiography. If you are famous: possibly. If you are not, it is not likely that people will be interested in what grade school you went to and how much your grandmother loved you.
(This statement about autobiography is not applicable if you are writing for a family audience. Your children and grandchildren will definitely be interested in an autobiography.)
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Not Telling the Truth in a Memoir Can Stop Your Writing
Not telling the truth in a memoir is a great way to block your writing
Many writers say they suffer from writer’s block, yet few understand that they are unable to write easily because they are is not telling the truth in a memoir. Good memoir writing depends on telling the truth.
There are a number of reasons that create difficulty in writing. I don’t want to overuse the term writer’s block because I don’t believe much in it and have seen that the famous writer’s block has been made to answer to too many problems.
1. Dealing with uncomfortable material by not telling the truth in a memoir
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3 Great Tips to Keep You Writing on Your Memoir—Day After Day!
Recently, someone asked me what are the biggest barriers memoir writers face to being successful. Three came to mind right away…