How to Cut Memoir Text
To ensure that your memoir is a tight one, it will probably be necessary to cut some of your text.
Having finished my childhood memoir, French Boy / A 1950s Franco-American Childhood, of course, I have been thinking of all the things that I did not put into the memoir. Some of these omissions, I would say, were interesting and might have contributed to my story’s theme and plot line. However, the memoir had reached 350 pages, and I knew it was imperative to limit any further lengthening of the story.
Many writers have said—and I paraphrase—”a work of art is never finished. It is merely abandoned.”
Keeping this observation in mind, I understood, as every writer must, that I needed to choose the point of abandonment carefully. Cut back too early, and you don’t make your point—establish the importance of your theme—in your memoir. Abandon too late, and you risk having too much in your memoir and turning your reader off.
Cut memoir text
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Is Your Memoir Silenced by the Fear of Insignificance?
From my own memoir-writing experience and from witnessing memoir writers I have coached, taught and edited, I have found it useful to work with a subcategory of fear as a writing block. This subcategory is, of course, fear of insignificance. Many of us have been silenced by the FEAR OF INSIGNIFICANCE. I have myself and I am fairly sure you have also been on occasion.
If you are writing only for family and friends, you need not fret about your story being insignificant. Your audience will appreciate your memoir. However, if you are writing for a larger audience, fear of insignificance can paralyze you.
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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.
Note from the editor: This post is a memoir-writing course. I suggest that you glance through the whole of it, and pick those best memoir-writing tips that you most need to read at this time. Later, bit by bit, you will read the rest.
Click on the links that interest you and study the posts where you land. The links in even just a few of the tips below will uncover articles that pertain to the topic(s).
Following these best memoir-writing tips, your knowledge of memoir writing will grow more certain, and you will write with more confidence. One day, sooner than you think possible, your memoir will be published and in hand.
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It’s later than you think. Don’t put off writing your memoir any longer.
Our 21 in-depth, best memoir-writing tips below will help you to start memoir writing today.
You’ll find these guides will see you through the process of how to write a memoir—an interesting and meaningful memoir—more easily and quickly than you may now think possible.
One day soon, you will have written your book.
The Memoir Network’s 21 Top Best Memoir-Writing Tips to get you to memoir success.
1. What is a memoir? Hint: it’s not an autobiography!
Is the difference important to the memoir writer? Somewhat! Knowing what you are writing will orient you from the start! It can be discouraging to realize that you have been headed in the wrong direction when you could have saved yourself time and energy by understanding the difference between memoir and autobiography as you launched yourself. While it’s not huge, it can be significant.
An autobiography is about a whole life: from birth to the present. A memoir is a part of your life that is characterized by a theme. It might be about the first years of your marriage during which you realized what an immature and selfish person you were and earned to be a giving souse. This may interest many people as it is a struggle many are waging.
The fact is that, while it is totally possible to write a memoir that will interest the public and draw an audience to you, the same is not true of an autobiography. If you are famous: possibly. If you are not, it is not likely that people will be interested in what grade school you went to and how much your grandmother loved you.
(This statement about autobiography is not applicable if you are writing for a family audience. Your children and grandchildren will definitely be interested in an autobiography.)
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Do not waffle in telling the truth
“I have permission [as a memoir writer] not to waffle in my writing,” I was recently informed by a memoir writer.
“Not to waffle” somehow missed the point for me.
Certainly, the memoir writer has permission “not to waffle,” but there is more that is incumbent on the writer. S/he has the obligation not to waffle. As memoir writers, “not to waffle” means to tell our truth about what happened. This is a must. Over the years, I have been amazed at how I can pick up waffling and how, in a workshop setting, others can too. Waffling just comes across waving a “red flag.” So…
Yeah, don’t do it!
But beyond “not to waffle” is telling the truth, the searing truth.
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Is Theme in a Memoir The Driving Force?
How important is theme in a memoir?
Theme in a memoir is absolutely important!
Here’s is a distinction between a family-focused autobiography and a memoir that, I hope, will help you to appreciate the value and the role of theme in your memoir.
First: a reminder of definitions
People are always wanting to know the difference between an autobiography and a memoir. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
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Is theme important in memoir?
Theme influences choices for every element in the story: plot development, characterization, and setting.
Here’s the shell of a plot: your father was laid off; a difficult time followed for the family; your father received additional training and obtained a different job.
Your treatment of this plot will vary according to your theme.
Let’s suppose the following is your theme: “events whose consequences we can’t understand happen gratuitously to us in our lives, but we can always make the best of things.” In the elaboration of this particular theme (message), you will find it natural to set your father’s being laid off not only with his reaction at the time but also with its consequences. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]