You can now access our best memoir-writing blog articles as YouTube videos. These videos bring you the most read and the most important posts on our site’s blog archives.
A different medium
Many people learn well—and perhaps best—when accessing information both in writing and by listening. For these writers, our the Memoir Channel is an excellent learning vehicle.
Others find that using YouTube videos as a review is what works well for them. Each of us has to review material many times before we really master it. Our YouTube channel not only contains videos and the spoken word but also contains links to the print article. Now that’s an opportunity to review material many times.
Still others listen to posts of YouTube as their primary source of information as they do mindless chores at home or while driving. It’s part of their Automobile University curriculum—and it can be part of yours, too!
What we have included so far
In this “YouTube Videos” category, we include a number of our best blog articles—that is, the most read. (As far as we are concerned, all our posts are “best blog articles!”)
These videos we feature do not have an organizing theme other than they are among the most read and the most important to helping people. It’s reasonable to presume, moreover, that you, as our other readers, will find these YouTube videos very useful.
In conclusion
Once you are on YouTube, please “like” the post. This will give both the post and the YouTube Memoir Channel ranking. This ranking will lead to more people viewing the posts as YouTube moves them up in its listing.
12 Reasons People Quit Writing a Memoir
I have been asking myself what are the reasons people quit writing a memoir and how to help them persevere. I have drawn the following list from my experience with the people who have begun to work with me and then stopped writing.
The answers to why people quit are so varied! Here are some I have come up with as I have pondered the topic. Below is a list that contains both very valid reasons and some that I consider simply wimpy. If you find yourself harboring feelings that I bring up as triggers for quitting, I hope you will address them before they take hold of you.
Reasons people quit writing a memoir
[Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
We'd love to have you access this content. It's in our members-only area, but you're in luck: becoming a member is easy and it's free.
Already a Member?
Not a Member Yet?
Writing Hooks to Open a Paragraph or Chapter
“How do I start a chapter so that it has writing hooks that capture the reader’s interest?” you ask.
In this post, I give you three surefire ways to open a chapter or even the whole of your memoir. You’ll use one of these writing hooks time after time.
These three methods involve creating curiosity in your reader. This curiosity via writing hooks is easy for you to ignite so that your reader will want to read your story.
The first of the writing hooks
The first technique is to start with a conversation, but you must start with the second half of that conversation and not the first part.
[Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
We'd love to have you access this content. It's in our members-only area, but you're in luck: becoming a member is easy and it's free.
Already a Member?
Not a Member Yet?
Start to Write Your Memoir
Below, I have organized a video writing course on how to start to write your memoir. These six videos (admittedly an arbitrary number), once mastered, will guide you well through the start of your memoir writing experience.
Already started? This can be a great review to recharge your energy
There are so many great videos on the channel on how to launch your writing! How can I limit myself to 6 to help you to start to write your memoir! [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
We'd love to have you access this content. It's in our members-only area, but you're in luck: becoming a member is easy and it's free.
Already a Member?
Not a Member Yet?
Memoir is Long Form Writing.
One challenge many first-time and only-time writers of memoir face is understanding that long-form and short-form writing are not the same. That is, long form is not just longer short form. Long form has its requirements.
Let me explain how memoir is long form
Many of the writers who come to me for coaching and editing are already fine writers—of short form. They can write coherent and clear sentences and their paragraphs convey meaning. There is no problem with their ability to write short form—the essay or blog post. This may lead them to overestimate their ability to produce long form.
[Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]We'd love to have you access this content. It's in our members-only area, but you're in luck: becoming a member is easy and it's free.
Already a Member?
Not a Member Yet?
Too Much Backstory–Are you making memoir writing more difficult than necessary?
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.
Before Sending Your Manuscript To An Editor / Part 2: Use of Time
Note from the Editor: This second installment of Before Sending a Manuscript to an Editor series offers basic editing tips around time use of time. For Part 1: Self-Editing Techniques Click here. For Part 3: Time Sequencing and Flashbacks Click here
Clean Up Your Use of Time
This second post on self-editing revolves around the use of time. In the next post, I will write about time sequencing and flashbacks.
1. The historical present looks like the past, but it isn’t.
What tense are you going to use to narrate your story?
[Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
We'd love to have you access this content. It's in our members-only area, but you're in luck: becoming a member is easy and it's free.
Already a Member?
Not a Member Yet?
Better Self-Editing: 3 Easy Techniques
In today’s post, we look deeply into 3 techniques for better self-editing—obviously there are many more but these three are a start for a short post.
I have been a memoir editor since 1990. In that time, I have worked with hundreds and perhaps thousands of memoir manuscripts.
A few manuscripts have come to me requiring only slight tweaking. The texts are clear, coherent and concise. They are nearly ready for publication. Their authors have created an interesting and well-crafted piece of writing. They have clearly mastered better self-editing.
Too many other manuscripts, however, have come to me at a stage that reflects tired or exasperated writers. They seem to be saying I’m-ready-to-have-this-writing-over-with!
The challenge of self-editing
[Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
We'd love to have you access this content. It's in our members-only area, but you're in luck: becoming a member is easy and it's free.
Already a Member?
Not a Member Yet?
Who is Your Memoir Narrator?
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.
Your choice of memoir narrator and the consequences of this choice.
[Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
We'd love to have you access this content. It's in our members-only area, but you're in luck: becoming a member is easy and it's free.
Already a Member?
Not a Member Yet?
Have you ever succumbed to this memoir shortcut?
“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 as much dialog as he tries to tell us he does years later from when he was six.)
[Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]