A major obstacle you may face when prodded to devote yourself to “improving your writing” as you contemplate writing a memoir is that you, as do most people, know how to write.
By “know how to write,” I don’t mean to convey people know how to compose a long-form literary work but that they know how to write shopping lists, enotes, social media posts and sometimes even letters.
Most people in the Western World know how to write—that is, to string words together in a semi-legible and semi-literate manner. Unfortunately, we use the same word for the process of composing a memoir.
But, writing a memoir calls for more than spelling and grammar. It calls for the ability, generated by discipline, to both manage one’s reactions to writing—what some people call the “inner game”—and to handle the requirements of writing’s best practices—the “outer game.”
Both are necessary to improving your writing.
Best writing practices
In this category I am presenting best writing practices of the outer game of writing.
Of course, there is clearly a factor of “inspiration” of some sort in mot successful pieces of writing, but I am wary of emphasizing inspiration, which too many people believe is the key to a successful piece of writing, as it is different from enthusiasm.
Most of us start to write with some enthusiasm. That is great. However, what will ultimately sustain your writing and make improving your writing possible, is knowledge and skill of best writing practices.
By best practices, I refer to techniques used by writers to steer and enhance reader reaction and to keep the reader reading.
In conclusion
Work on improving your writing. The posts below—as all the posts on this blog—will help you to do just that.
Find here many tips and theories about improving your craft. You will learn much to make your memoir more meaningful and more interesting.
Your memoir and your readers will thank you.
You can become good at writing!
To create a successful workshop business of helping people to write their memoir, you must become adept with the memoir genre itself. You must learn to write better memoir yourself. Being a good fiction writer or a poet or an essayist is not enough. You must have read many memoirs and have written in the […]
Clichés in your memoir—you need them like you need a hole in the head.
You can avoid cliches and stereotypes. If you do not avoid cliches and stereotypes, you will undermine the unique and personal feel of your memoir. Cliches and stereotypes place people in often erroneous and certainly indefensible categories.
No stick characters allowed!
Your characters are the people in your life, don’t write them as “stick characters” in your memoir. Write them clearly and forcefully.
Writing Process Steps—Linger With Your Story
Many, and perhaps most, people write too fast. I don’t mean that they end up with a text characterized by sloppy grammar, spelling problems and chronology issues. No, what I mean is that they push through the process of writing their stories much too quickly. They end up with only a part of the story […]
Monday Focus: Theme is the soul of your story.
Understanding “theme” and its role in your memoir is another core task that will both simplify and clarify your message—i.e., your theme.
Another memoir finished: what was the writing process?
Writers can doubt their process. This is understandable as writing a memoir is a long undertaking that can—and usually does—have many discouraging moments.
Learning to Write Memoir Is Like 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. This awkward gesture soon tires them. Try as they might there is not enough air for them as they constrict their ribs, twist their heads, contort their jaws. Writing […]
Shaping Your Plot Line Is Important
What should you include in your memoir’s storyline for shaping your plot line? How do you structure your memoir’s story line?
When Writers Lose Interest, It Might Actually Be Healthy
It’s common for a writer to find that she has written much about a period of her life that is now uninteresting to her. Though she wrote with enthusiasm, intending to include this material in her memoir, it doesn’t seem to merit inclusion now. She may be despondent. “I worked so hard! Now I want […]