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Writing a Memoir: Creative Ways to Convey a Gripping Personal Story
Author:
Dallas Hardwick
Dec 4, 2024
10 min
Table of contents
What is a memoir?
Memoirs have the amazing ability to take you on an exhilarating ride down the author's personal story. It’s a riveting read for its intimacy, offering an up-close view of the author’s experiences which one can learn from and relate to.
It certainly makes you want to try writing your memoir and sharing your story. But before you sit down and start writing, learning more about memoirs and how to write one is a good idea.
First off, not all memoirs are the same. Each one is unique but with some elements they all share. With that said, let’s delve into what memoirs are, how to write them, and one of the tools that can help you write your own.
Memoir vs. autobiography
The word “memoir” means memory. It also means remembrance. This can already tell what kind of literature it is, a collection of events in your (as the author) life. However, it’s not just a simple collection—it’s written around a certain theme.
What makes a successful memoir? Several things do, but the two most important elements are that it must be dramatic and relatable. The best memoirs bring out your feelings and emotions while teaching you a lesson through the story.
So it goes to say it’s written not in such a way that the tone and style are too matter-of-fact. It’s written to evoke human emotions and teach a universal truth. Remember that memoirs are not just about the author but the readers as well.
Here’s one thing that a memoir is not—it’s not the story of your whole life. It’s not an autobiography. It’s only a piece of your life to be shared with others to inspire, teach, or make them understand.
Of course, it also narrates certain events in your life. Typically, an aspiring memoirist like you has a lot of stories to share. This will have to be pared down once you have a clear theme for what you want the memoir to be.
Another difference between a memoir and an autobiography is the latter is a chronological account. Everything that took place in the author’s life is written from the day they were born up to the time of their death.
In a memoir, not everything that happened in the author’s life has to be narrated or included. Most of the time, the literature focuses only on the parts related to the memoir’s theme. These don’t even have to be written in chronological order.
When asked, “What are memoirs?” and “What makes it different from autobiographies?” Well, it involves fiction and creative writing. The reader experience is enhanced in memoirs through dialogues, descriptions, foreshadowing, tension, figures of speech, and more.
Types of Memoirs
Before you start writing, it’s good to know the different types of memoirs:
Personal memoirs
Personal memoirs are the most common type, which lets you glimpse at a slice of the writer's personal life. It usually focuses on a specific event or experience of the writer.
Portrait memoirs
This is a type of memoir written by someone other than the subject. Often, this memoir is based on documentation of events or experiences of a person, like that of a diary writer.
Professional memoirs
This is a memoir written about the author’s professional life. If you’re a politician, then you might want to write a memoir about your time as a public servant.
Public memoirs
If you’re a celebrity or someone who lives in a public way, you might want to write a public memoir. This will let your readers know about you more personally other than what the public sees.
Confessional memoirs
Confessional memoirs are unique in narrating what the author feels they did wrong. As the name suggests, it’s like the writer is confessing about their bad decisions or actions, expressing remorse, and telling the readers how they made amends."
How to write a memoir?
If you’ve decided you’re writing a memoir, let’s talk about how to do it with the following tips:
Focus on a specific area
Like we said before, a memoir isn’t your whole life story. It’s only one part of it, which means you first need to find one particular point in your life to write about. Which moment in your life do you think will let your reader get to know you on a much deeper level?
With a narrower focus, you can write a memoir to better resonate with your readers. For this, it’s good to brainstorm some memoir ideas. You can read up on some successful memoirs with examples of what to write. Here are also some ideas that might unleash your creativity:
- High school chronicles – talk about meaningful memories during high school
- Lessons learned – write a personal story about lessons you’ve learned in life
- Heartbreak – talk about the time you were heartbroken and how you overcame it
- Loss of family – share a major loss that changed your life
- Fist loves – a memoir about the sweetness and perhaps bitterness of first loves
- Brush with death – share what death or life has taught you
- The worst day in your life – write about the worst thing that happened in your life
Include more than just your story
While your memoir is about you, it’s wise to include other details. For instance, if you write about a major loss in your life and how it affected you, it helps readers relate to you better when you include how the loss affected other people in your life.
It’s also great to describe your surroundings, like how your home feels dull and dreary after losing a loved one. Add some backstory as well, such as things about yourself. Include vivid details and observations that enrich your story.
Be honest and genuine in conveying your story
One of the best tips of memoir writing is to tell your truth. When you narrate your story, stay genuine and honest even when you’re afraid to upset some people somehow. Write it with brutal honesty as that will make people pay attention to what you have to say.
A memoir is an exploration of a truth through your eyes. So remember not to contort it or exaggerate it for some agenda like revenge or forgiveness. Simply share the unique experience you cherish and hold for everyone who might learn from it.
Apply elements of fiction to give life to your memoir
Adding elements of fiction is one way to bring your story to life. A memoir is based on facts that happened in your life, but writing it down without vivid descriptions is boring.
Incorporating literary techniques can make your memoir more exciting to read.
Here are some of the elements of fiction you can use:
Plot
This is the sequence of events, from introduction to resolution, that make up the story in your memoir.
Characters
The individuals or people that move the story. They include the protagonists, antagonists, and supporting characters.
Setting
It’s where and when the story takes place which creates a backdrop for the plot. The setting also influences the overall mood and atmosphere of the story.
Conflict
This is the problem or conflict that your characters face. It drives the plot and creates the tension in the narrative.
Theme
You want to convey this message through your memoir. It can be universal truths or concepts like death and life that you want to explore in your story.
Point of view
This is the perspective the narrative is told from, which can be first-person, third-person, or omniscient.
Tone
Like the theme, the tone influences the overall mood and atmosphere of the story. But this element refers to your emotional stance towards the story.
Style
This refers to your unique way of expressing the ideas of the story through language. It includes your choices regarding syntax, diction, literary devices, etc.
All these elements help make up a cohesive narrative by providing an outline for storytelling. With these, you’ll be able to make a more powerful and gripping story that your readers will enjoy.
Take your readers on an emotional journey
Write in a way that evokes emotions and motivates our readers to move on to the next chapter. You want them to wonder what happens next, what more you have to say, and how your story ends.
There are various techniques to evoke feelings in your readers, such as connecting your emotions to vital events in the story. It also helps to use language that plays on the five senses, which create vivid images in the minds of your readers.
Show personal change or growth
Towards the end of your memoir, the most important part is to show your personal growth. Show how you’ve changed or overcome whatever experiences you had to go through, whether heartbreak, personal loss, or death.
This part of writing a memoir involves introspection. It is a self-reflection of sorts, requiring you to deeply understand the story's character (the author). This is the stage where you find meaning to your story, which, ideally, your readers will find as well.
How to start a memoir
Starting is one of the hardest parts of memoir writing. Do you start at your birth? At which moment? Let us help you with the following helpful tips:
Start at the end
One way to make a powerful opening paragraph is to start with the end of the story. Telling your readers the story's ending can be a great way of intriguing them to find out more. With that said, you need a compelling first paragraph.
Write the opening last
Writing the opening paragraph is typically the hardest to write. Well, it’s good that you don’t have to write a perfect introduction from the start—you can do it last. You can start writing with whatever scene or part of the story inspires you. That would be your draft, which you’ll return to and fix later, including the opening.
Open the scene in an important moment
Opening the story in an important moment is such a great way to create momentum. You can open the memoir by writing a vivid scene of a dramatic event that sets the story's theme. It’ll be the hook that wins your readers over and keeps them reading.
Make the reader laugh from the start
Laughter is a great way to keep your audience reading your memoir up to the last word. It’s especially helpful with the darker events in the story, bringing them a lighter side that calms people. Leading your memoir with some humor will keep your readers engaged.
What are memoirs? Benefits of using WriterEssay
Memoirs are a kind of autobiography but not your whole life story. It also employs elements of fiction to convey the lesson or the central theme of the narrative. It’s also one of the literary pieces we can help write for you at WriterEssay.
Highly unique work
Actual humans write the memoirs provided by WriterEssay with up to 98% uniqueness percentage. These are thought-provoking, emotion-evoking literary pieces based on the client’s life story and focused on originality.
Saves your time and effort
The benefits of using WriterEssay include saving your time and effort. You won’t have to spend long hours outlining, writing a draft, and writing your memoir. Use our services to have a completely fleshed-out memoir before your deadline.
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