About Denis Ledoux

I hope this blog post has been helpful to you to write a better memoir. It is a brief—and, I believe, high quality—assist in a facet of your writing, but there is much better I and my team can provide you. The best ways always come down to a Memoir Network professional coaching and editing your memoir. As your coach or editor, we don't give you just theory as in this blog post (beneficial to you by the way). You and your Memoir Network professional plunge deep into your story and develop it so it "comes alive" for your readers. To explore this option in a free consult, email me at [email protected] for an appointment. Want to try a launcher, do-it-yourself option? Try The Memorable Story / Write Your First Memoir Draft Program. Over the coming weeks, you will learn to write better, deeper memoir and to write more quickly and with more satisfaction. Enroll today. Another option is my classic book Turning Memories Into Memoirs / A Handbook for Writing Lifestories and my many other memoir-writing books. My Start to Write Your Memoir FREE five lesson e-course will help you to calibrate—or recalibrate—your memoir writing. Join our FREE My Memoir Education membership. It's easy to register, and you'll receive tons of free materials.

Author Archive | Denis Ledoux

Too Much Backstory–Are you making memoir writing more difficult than necessary?

By Denis Ledoux

When you overwrite a story by stuffing it with backstory—and many writers seem to want to tell their entire story in what ought to be a vignette—you disrespect chronology and drama and the reader’s patience. (more…)

Before Sending Your Manuscript To An Editor / Part 2: Use of Time

By Denis Ledoux

Clean up your use of time. This second post on self-editing revolves around the use of time. Proper use of time is crucial to understanding a memoir. (more…)

Better Self-Editing: 3 Easy Techniques

By Denis Ledoux

Writing can be a long and tedious task after the initial rush of creativity and enthusiasm. Once the glow fades, Pegasus drops the once-enchanted writer from the skies and—horrors—the writer now has to mount a pack mule to trudge the slopes of rewriting. (more…)

Who is Your Memoir Narrator?

By Denis Ledoux

This may sound like a trick question, but it’s not. In fact, “who is your memoir narrator?” is a very serious question that will determine—or at least greatly influence—the tone and the theme of your narrative and how your reader views your story as being truthful. (more…)

Have you ever succumbed to this memoir shortcut?

By Denis Ledoux

“I just added a little bit of fiction to move the story along,” you say, to explain a memoir shortcut you have just taken, joining the ranks of such pseudo memoirist as James Frey in A Million Pieces? Or, perhaps the ranks of Frank McCourt who fictionalized long dialogs in Angela’s Ashes. (No one remembers […]

Writing Another Person’s Memoir: Can you use the first person pronoun?

By Denis Ledoux

Shouldn’t writing another person’s memoir be called writing biography rather than writing memoir? You the writer are, after all, not the subject. Doesn’t that make it a biography? But, are there occasions when a biography can justly be called a memoir? In one of my books, A Sugary Frosting / Life in a 1960s Parsonage, […]

Writing more Deeply: The pain in telling the truth

By Denis Ledoux

My new memoir, French Boy (due out in the summer of 2023), is about my childhood. Much about this time in my life has a context that is unique and consequently different from that of my contemporaries. This memoir has a place in the world of memoirs, and I want it to find that place, […]

Solving Problems of Telling the Truth in Your Memoir

By Denis Ledoux

Telling the truth is not always easy. How much of what happened do you have to tell in order to tell the truth? At what point does withholding the truth become a lie? For instance, in all her famous diaries, as Anais Nin celebrated the freedoms of her life as an artist, she never once […]

5 Better Ways to Describe The People in Your Memoir

By Denis Ledoux

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 […]