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Archive | Technique: the tools of your memoir writing “trade”

Memoir writing techniques refer to the “tools” of writing. Tools are instruments people use to make or facilitate fashioning something. Often, we cannot make what we want to make without the proper tools. So tools are not only helpful, they are often necessary to our success.

If you were a carpenter, you would use hammers and saws and levels, etc., to create solid, beautiful objects. The carpenter who uses stones and tree branches and kicks materials together with his feet, however, is not likely to  produce a solid, beautiful result. (Not that I would know from personal building experience!)

A range of tools is also true with writing. There are “tools” which we call memoir-writing techniques. If you use them, they will help you to write a more elegant, more interesting and more impactful memoir. Other tools—or lack of them—will produce crude, uninteresting pieces of writing.

How to Use this Category

This section on memoir-writing techniques is our most visited category on the Memoir Writer’s Blog. Rightfully so as it contains a  cornucopia of suggestions for better writing—or should I say “tools” for better writing.

If you have a specific inquiry—for instance, “which point of view should I write my mother’s memoir in?”—go directly to that subcategory in the right hand menu of “Blog Categories” under “Techniques.” In most subcategories, you will receive plenty of insights to help you with your issue. (Beyond this, you ought to consider coaching. Coaching has helped many writers break through impasses—of technique, motivation, insight.)

There are other visitors who may not have a specific need and so may prefer to read through the different titles to select one to learn about various memoir-writing techniques they may eventually need.

Consider this category as a university-level reading list for you to inform yourself on the possibilities of memoir writing.

Below are articles which present many different memoir writing techniques. This list does not, by any means, exhaust the possibilities of techniques. Learn to use these and other tools of writing.

One more thing…

One article in this category, 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, ought to be bookmarked for continuing reference. It’s that good.

In conclusion

The posts below ought to be persuasive in getting you beyond spontaneous writing into writing that helps a reader understand what you have written.

best memoir writing practice

A Best Memoir Writing Practice

When learning to write memoir, it can feel awkward and uncomfortable as you learn the process, just like in learning to swim. We often see people who are not comfortable swimming flail about in the water, their heads reaching up high, desperately, to catch a breath of air. They usually execute strokes too fast. This […]

smiles and metaphors

Similes and Metaphors: A Deeper Emotional Dive

Since memoirs appeal to the heart rather than to the mind of the reader—one might say, it is developmentally important to create a reading experience that addresses the reader’s emotions. One effective way of doing this is to use images. The images I want to present today are similes and metaphors.

While we’ve all studied these in high school and/or college, I have new thoughts this week as to how they apply to memoir writing.

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time for writing

Your writing is your work–Schedule first your time for writing

To make time for writing, you have to be serious about the principle that your writing is your work. You must act on it and take it as seriously as your paying job.

This is low-hanging fruit for time management: honor your writing schedule!

You do not show up at your work when you feel like it—nor do you write only when the feeling comes over you!

If you are working as a nurse or a therapist or a business office administrator or whatnot, you do not show up at your work when you feel like it or when you are inspired. You have certain hours whether you work full-time or part-time during which you are expected to show up at the job. The same is true of your writing. You show up for your writing schedule.

If you write when you “get to it,” when you “feel like it,” when inspiration moves you, you will likely do little writing and almost certainly not complete a book of memoirs. If you were being paid for this memoir “job,” your boss would fire you. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]

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setting writing goals

Setting Writing Goals That Work For You: Better Time Management

I have a goal for this post. I want to help you to develop and articulate your writing goals for the next three months—that is, 90 days. You can start your three months today, at the beginning of the next week or at the first day of the next month, but don’t put off setting writing goals. It is a prime tim management skill.

Three months is taken from the business model which uses quarters—three months—to implement plans. It is a useful way to set goals for three months. Three months both give you time to accomplish something and is not too long that you get distracted or discouraged.

What exactly is a goal?

A goal is a wish with a schedule and a deadline. If you don’t have a schedule and a deadline, what you have is a wish and not a goal. You are free to dawdle and pine away that your memoir is not getting written!

Let’s work at setting memoir-writing goals and planning to achieve one of these in the next three months.

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successful memoir interview

8 Tips: How to Have a Successful Memoir Interview

A successful memoir interview will add depth to your memoir.

While you know much about your story, it is always beneficial to gather information from other sources to fill in the gaps. These sources can be formal research on the net or in a library or it can be reviewing letters and journals or talking with people who know parts of your story.

Here is some guidance on an important step that will ground your memoir. This step involves interviewing people.

In this post, I offer eight tips for making a successful memoir interview as part of your research.

1) For a successful memoir interview, plan enough time to be with your subject. 

 

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pillars of a powerful memoir

Three Pillars of a Powerful Memoir

There is power in writing your story. Your memoir can transform you as it leads to understanding the energy in your life and ultimately making that energy work for you.

The three pillars of a powerful memoir I want to talk about are the old stand-bys of character, action, and setting. A story is not a journal entry. Unlike a journal, a memoir needs development.  Ranting and raving fit into a journal but not into a story—unless ranting and raving are in the dialog. Story has its own dynamics which in turn lead to their own conclusions. In writing your memoir, connect to your story as a literary form—literary here refers to in writing. There are requirements that go into the creation of an effective story—whether written or spoken. As mentioned before these are character, action, and setting.

Be Guided by These 3 Pillars of a Powerful Memoir When Writing Your Story

1. Your characters are the people in your story

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avoiding vaugueness

Five Tips for Avoiding Vagueness in Your Memoir

Avoiding vagueness in writing is something many writers struggle with.

When writing slips into vagueness, the reader reads and rereads the text and does not quite “get it.”

I’m sure this has happened to you. You are reading something and you find yourself wondering: “What’s the author trying to say? What’s going on here?”

Not a good place for an author to land a reader.

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how to write vividly

How to write vividly–Avoiding vagueness in writing

If you want to learn how to write vividly, use the following tips for avoiding vagueness in writing your memoir.

When a manuscript slips into a vagueness, the reader reads and rereads and does not quite “get it.”

“What’s the author trying to say here?” we ask ourselves. “What am I missing?”

Here are a few of my ideas as to why this may happen.

1. The author is not sure herself what she is trying to say. She has not lingered with this part of the story to extract from it the essence of her meaning. Once she has meaning, finding prose that might do justice to the expression of her feeling becomes easier.

Solution if this is you: journal around the story, look at your photos, take a walk to ruminate about the events you have written about, ask yourself, “What exactly am I trying to convey here? What do I really mean to say?”

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writing precise words

Sweetheart, Are You Using Precise Words for Your Memoir?

Is writing precise words really important in a memoir?

Over the years, I have written energetically about the importance of writing precise words instead of generic ones.

I was dropping someone off at the bus station (aka the Intermodal Transportation Center) when I overheard an exchange that purported to be a dialog that convinced me once again of the necessity for precision in speech–and, by extension, in our memoir writing. It was proof that generic words really do miss the mark and lead to confusing messages.

A grandmother was seeing her daughter (I presumed from the similarity of looks) and three grandchildren off—or perhaps it was the other way. The grandmother had said goodbye to the two girls and there was a boy of about 10 whom she had not yet bid her fond farewell to. He was looking around the space, distracted by this and that and not paying much attention to what was going on.

“Sweetheart,” the grandmother said, holding her arms out to hug him. The boy continued to look around elsewhere.

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