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.
Avoid Writing a Chronology: 4 Tips
Is writing a chronology of a life ever enough?
Dates and facts are necessary to life writing in the same way route numbers are necessary to maps. It’s not only that dates and facts provide interesting information but that they keep your readers on the right path as they make their way through your life story. So…
Writing a chronology is already a great contribution to your family story, but you can do so much more than just include the dates and facts. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
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Do you need action in a memoir?
Action in a memoir is essential—even if internalized!
Action in a memoir usually happens in the usual place—outside the memoir narrator. That is easy to grasp: “The boy ran by.”
When you use flashback scenes in which you remember someone and what they did way back then—these are not interiorized actions, these are memories of actual actions.
What can be less easy to grasp is that action in a memoir can be internal to the character, happening in the character’s mind. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
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The Role of Passion in Your Memoir
Understanding the role of passion in your memoir will help you to access the emotional side of your writing more easily and enable you to stay longer and more deeply in the memoir conversation. Understanding will add balance between your will to write and the passion that prompted you to write in the first place.
For a long time, passion—or or even mere feeling—was not thought to be necessary for good writing. As an extreme example, recall the works of John Dryden and of Alexander Pope. Not only were these writers not passionate in their writing, but were proud to have expunge all feelings from their texts. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
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Fiction and memoir writing: When Is It not a Memoir?
Fiction and memoir writing—what’s the difference? I have been reading a memoir that has been doing well here in Maine (it’s by an excellent Maine writer)–I can’t vouch for its reach in the rest of the country. It was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt so I can only presume it is receiving support elsewhere.
It’s an interesting book, very well-written in terms of style and organization, but my nagging doubt [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
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Three Tips For Using Fiction Techniques in a Memoir
Why Insert Fiction Techniques in a Memoir?
We all love well-told stories. We love the entertainment, the sound effects, the punchy plot built around solid characterization. As we share stories in our everyday conversations, we inevitably use fiction techniques to keep our listeners’ attention and interest. When we say “And then she said…,” we are using dialogue – that’s using fiction techniques in a memoir.
In our memoir writing, we will often veer toward the same techniques fiction writers use. In fact, we don’t seem to need urging at all to adapt our stories to make them more compelling or to ensure that they drive our point home. We make spontaneous use of fiction techniques in a memoir.
Are Fiction Techniques in a Memoir Valid?
Many life writers ask, “But, am I twisting things when I use fiction techniques in a memoir? Is it really okay?”
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Not Being Preachy: Four Tips
The theme is the soul of the story. Every story needs a theme. The negative underside of theme, however, is being preachy. You are preaching when you insist that your reader endorse your theme, message or point of view.
1) Here’s a way to distinguish between being preachy and the right use of theme.
Read your text out loud to yourself. If you have been preachy, your grand, all-inclusive phrases will jump out at you. Sometimes people laugh aloud with awareness as they read aloud such phrases as:
“I’d like to see how many kids today would…” [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
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Writing a memoir: how to
Writing a memoir is not easy.
Writing a memoir requires a lot of time and energy—but you can do it. You can succeed in writing a memoir. Many people just like you have succeeded in doing so already.
I want to share a system with you for getting started on writing a memoir.
As with so many projects you might undertake, you can reinvent the wheel or you can plug into a system that has been shown to work. My Memoir Network has been helping people just like you to write personal and family stories since 1988 and our proven system can help you, too, to write a memoir.
The system that I have found to be best for launching new writers—and many practiced writers, too—has three parts to it.
1. When writing a memoir, create a memory list.
A Memory List is a list of everything you remember either in your life or in the life of the person you are writing about or, instead of memory listing an entire life, you can choose a part of a life—the period you are currently writing about. In fact, I usually ask people to chose some small period of their intended memoir and To make a Memory List of that time.
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Writing Effective and Interesting Dialog
Dialog allows the reader to hear the voice of the character. It is an opportunity to use regionalisms and particularities of speech. Even to write in pauses if that was typical of the person. “Ain’t much wrong with it,” my grandfather would say…
Commitment to writing vs. Interest in writing
There’s a big difference between your commitment to writing your memoir and being interested. “But I do want to write my memoir,” I can hear some hypothetical person insisting. No, this is not about wanting to write a memoir, not about trying to write one, not about being interested in writing… What I am writing […]