Is It a Memoir or Autobiographical Fiction ?
What Makes It Memoir or Autobiographical Fiction?
I read a memoir that did well here in Maine (it’s by an excellent Maine writer)—I can’t vouch for its reach in the rest of the country. I’m left wondering whether the author was writing memoir or autobiographical fiction.
It’s an interesting book, very well-written in terms of style and organization, but my nagging doubt is that it is autobiographical fiction and not memoir. I will choose to leave the book nameless as my intent is not to be negative about it but only to use it to elucidate a point about memoir writing which I think is important to keep in mind as we write.
I have frequently spoken about using fiction techniques to make a memoir more interesting. Dialog, for instance, can be marvelous. The trick, as I have offered frequently, is to use only a few words in direct dialog (“I won’t,” she said) and then put the rest in indirect dialog (She said that was because blah, blah, blah…)
Fiction Techniques in a Memoir
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Don’t Talk Your Stories Away
Don’t Talk Your Stories Away
When a writer talks too much and too revealingly about a work-in-progress—especially at the early stage before the writing has taken shape—the energy to get the story written is often scattered. Sometimes what passes for a writer’s block is only a failure to relate to your stories in a way that’s conducive to getting them written. This may seem like a writer’s block but it’s not. It’s really poor writing discipline!
People have an urge to make their stories public—in any format that will satisfy the impulse. Talking over a cup of tea may be just as satisfying a release as shaping a memorable poem or novel or life story.
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4 More Steps to Reaching a Larger Book Audience for Your Memoir
Reaching a Larger Book Audience for Your Memoir
It is possible to reach a larger book audience than family and friends with your memoir. Here are four suggestions to enable your story to appeal to a larger public.
1) Write a story that is truly well-written and whose reading—the prose itself—will bring joy to your reader.
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Where Do You Start Writing Your Memoir?
Where Do You Start Writing Your Memoir?
It’s a quandary: where do you start writing your memoir? Many people may say: from the beginning. So? Does that mean you start from the first thing you can remember in the sequence of the story? I suppose you could do that, but, I don’t think that is the best place to start your memoir. So where is the best place to start your memoir?
1. The answer is actually quite simple: Start your memoir anywhere in the story.
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Authority/Author: words with the same roots
A Few Steps to Assuming Writing Authority To those who struggle with whether they should write or continue to write a memoir, let me be clear: no one can give you the authority to write your story, to tell the truth about your life. You are the only person who can do that (Of course, […]
5 Reasons to Undertake Ebook Publishing
Are you making a mistake not planning to include ebook publishing in your publication schedule? People interested in independent publication ask me if they should publish their manuscript as an ebook, a hard copy book or both. The honest answer on my part is I don’t know. The decision is individual and unique to you. […]
Shaping your memoir: The mythic journey of your life
We read memoirs for many reasons. These reasons can perhaps be summarized into two: we want to be entertained and we need to be informed.
In this post on the mythic journey of your life, I want to write about the second of those reasons: our need to be informed.
Whether they articulate it or not, many people read memoirs because they want to understand something about the lived experience of life. Life is not easy. It is full of challenges, defeats and conundrums.
“What to do?”
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Why You Need an Ebook
While in the past I had published only hard-copy versions of my books, I have increasingly included a digital version. It just makes sense, and I would advise writers that they need an ebook.
Ebooks are on the ascendancy are more and more a viable publication option. Every year, their share of the book-reading audience grows. Granted you can’t experience the ebook as a satisfying weight in your hand (unless it’s the weight of the e-reader) nor can you feel the page turning, but the ebook has become a good choice at many levels.
A Good Buy for the Reader
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Why Use Precise Speech?
Many memoir writers are under the impression that you need to have an extensive vocabulary to write. An extensive vocabulary can only help you—if by “extensive” you mean many precise language, not just big words.
Precise words are specific and not vague and ineffective like nice, awful, big, OK. “She was nice” is vague. “She understood different points of view” is specific and precise language.
“He was awfully big” is vague. You might write instead: “My father measured six foot five and weighed 275 pounds.”
Don’t write: “The job was OK.” Write: “The job was in my field of competence, but its salary was inadequate and its requirements did not challenge me.”
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