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Every ordinary life story is extraordinary!

Rosanne Ullman

Rosanne Ullman owns Write My Memoirs (writemymemoirs.com) to help people write and self-publish their life stories and co-owns Home Memoir (homememoir.com) to help people capture, in a coffee-table book, the love they have for their home. For 20 years, Rosanne taught grammar at a local adult education program, New Trier eXtention, and that well-received course is the basis for the Write My Memoirs Grammar and Writing Course. Rosanne has a long freelance career writing for and about various industries, particularly the professional beauty industry. Her observations about life appear frequently on various blog sites and include regular contributions to Sixty and Me (sixtyandme.com) and Boomer Cafe (boomercafe.com). Rosanne also is the author of the children’s picture book The Case of the Disappearing Kisses. She holds a Master’s degree in Journalism (MSJ) from Northwestern University’s famed Medill School of Journalism.

Read This Online Autobiography to Study Memoir Style

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Many of you trying to write your memoirs may never have written anything of length before now. While you’ve probably read enough—both fiction and non-fiction—as you try to craft your own autobiography it can be helpful to read passages specifically of others’ life stories. If you can read them online at no charge, that makes it even easier for you.

A classic memoir, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, is a good place to start. Click here for the online version, which lets you pull up one chapter at a time. Certainly language has evolved since Ben Franklin’s time, so you won’t want to imitate the wording. But there’s an elegance to the way he writes that you can aspire to assume for your own work. Also, these chapters give you an idea of how to structure your memoir, which topics are important enough to cover, how to introduce dialogue and how candid to be as you describe your friends and relatives.

According to the website, Franklin’s is considered to be the most acclaimed autobiography to come out of colonial America. It covers his early life, travel, professional training, romantic encounters and all sorts of details of his days from his own perspective. Although Franklin lived to be 84 years old, he ends this account at age 51. This illustrates that you can create a compelling memoir by recording what you’ve accomplished so far before without necessarily waiting until you’re in your senior years.

Lying or Laying? Learn to Tell the Difference When You Write Your Memoirs

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You don’t have to become an English professor to write a good memoir, but certainly some knowledge of grammar can’t hurt so that you avoid common slip-ups. The lie/lay confusion represents one of the most frequently made errors.

When people or things do the action on their own, use the word lie or, as a participle, lying: the cat just lies there in the sun; the book is lying on the table; the girl likes to lie on the sofa; I was lying on the beach one day. When someone or something causes the action to occur, use the word lay or the participle laying: she should lay down the law; I am laying the book on the table; he always lays a mat on the floor to keep people from tracking in mud.

The error on this is that people tend to use lay when they should use lie. The error rarely goes the reverse way. Once you get accustomed to using both words correctly, the usage will come easy to you. Part of the problem is that lay is used so often that the correct word lie doesn’t sound right to most people even when it is. These two words cause even more confusion in the past tense, which I’ll talk about next time. Now go back to writing your memoirs!

Your Memoirs Can Document Property Ownership

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I spent part of the July 4 weekend at a friend’s summer home on property that has been in his family for four generations—five generations if you count his grown children. There’s the original house, a second house built by a sibling of the original homeowner plus my friend’s house, built by his grandparents and still owned by his mother.

It seemed that everyone there was “a cousin.??? One of the cousins by marriage gave me the rundown on the ownership of each house and how the descendants are all related. It was really interesting. I saw that this summer property by a beautiful lake offered a way to keep family together. Even the fifth-generation cousins knew each other—and I suspect the little kids in attendance might have been sixth generation. Are you acquainted with cousins who are that far “removed????

I wonder how many details of the ownership and activities that went on there for more than a century are forgotten by now. Even my own house was built in 1929 and had at least three owners before we bought it. I know a little about them, but some research could turn up interesting particulars. In your memoir, you might want to trace factual details like the lineage of property ownership. You may not think it’s that interesting to the reader or pertinent to your life, but your memoir provides a written record of information that otherwise may be forever lost to the ages.

War Memoirs May Skew Details

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A fellow blogger lists nine topics he finds that authors exclude form their war memoirs. I won’t repeat the topics here; click through to his blog On Violence if you’re curious. But I will take issue with his claim that writers who avoid topics they think readers may find unpleasant or boring compromise the integrity of their book.

I distinguish between “the truth??? and “the whole truth.??? I don’t think that you, as the writer of the story that by definition you own, are obligated to mention every last detail of what’s going on in the setting of that story. Number five on the blogger’s list is civilian deaths. “An honest memoir,??? the blogger writes, “will deal with this messy truth about any war.??? I disagree. If you’re writing a non-fiction account of the war, then I believe you should include the facts surrounding civilian deaths. But in your memoir? The war is just one more player in your story. You can write about as much or as little of it as you like, even if it becomes such a main character that you’re really writing a war memoir.

I am all for rich detail in a memoir. But the On Violence blogger calls his nine points a litmus test that must be passed for him to respect a war memoir. While I support writing only the truth in your autobiography, I  disagree that you must include the whole truth for your story to be compelling.

Use Description to Communicate Opinion in Your Memoirs

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The whole point of writing a memoir is to tell the story of your life from your unique point of view. But, as with other types of writing, it can be most effective to let readers draw their own conclusions. This subtle difference lies in your style of description.

Let’s say you’re recalling how your met your childhood best friend. He was a teammate in Little League, but you didn’t know each other because you attended different schools. You could write: Tommy was a very good player, much more skilled than I was, so I was surprised when he seemed friendly to me right from the beginning. You’ve evaluated his ability, your ability and his friendliness, and you deliver to the reader no interesting details—just your conclusions.

Try it this way instead, more like a reporter: Tommy hit at least one home run every game, and as a short stop he could catch the wildest throws, then propel the ball like a bullet to the appropriate plate. I was thrilled to get on base at all, and out in center field I just prayed for pop flies to the infield. So I didn’t see it coming when Tommy patted me on the back after the first day of practice and challenged, “Race you to the Good Humor truck!??? Readers still conclude that Tommy was friendly and the better player, but this style engages them and makes them want to continue reading your memoir!

Keep Your Memoirs Free of Dangling Modifiers

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Today I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I’ll never know. That old Groucho Marx joke perfectly illustrates what a dangling or misplaced modifier is. Many of you memoir writers have never written professionally or formally studied writing. To help you with your writing challenges, I promised this blog would address tricky grammar issues from time to time. So welcome to English class!

How could you rephrase Groucho’s statement to make it less ambiguous? Today, while still in my pajamas, I shot an elephant. That removes the ambiguity. While writing your memoirs, you might have a sentence like this: Not yet 10 years old, my parents’ divorce hit me hard. Do you see why that opening phrase dangles? The word you need after the comma must be “I??? to explain who was not yet 10 years old. The way it’s written, the divorce is what’s 10 years old.

Here’s another example: Walking through the dirty puddles, our shorts were splashed with clumps of mud. That indicates that your shorts were walking through the puddles, when really you were the ones walking. To fix it, you’d say: Walking through the dirty puddles, we splashed clumps of mud on our shorts. Learning this rule will help you to make your memoirs clear for the reader. For more on misplaced modifiers, check this link at infoplease.com.

Summertime Inspires Writers!

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You may be reading this from Australia, South America or some other southern hemisphere location, in which case you’re in the middle of winter. But I’m figuring that for most of you, June brings warm weather. The sun is shining and nature’s colors are popping in fruits, flowers and greenery. Summertime is a temptress, always beckoning you outdoors. When will you find time to work on your memoirs?

Early morning is wonderful during the summer months. I hope you have a window that you can open in the room where you write. With just a screen separating you from the entering breeze, you can write in solitude until you’re hungry or you need to be somewhere. The earlier you start, the quieter it will be. Perhaps you can hear birds waking up or the first sounds of a city coming back to life. Maybe the aroma of a bakery’s bread or a honeysuckle vine will find its way into your writing space.

Today’s sights, sounds and fragrances can remind you of what you saw, heard and smelled in an earlier time of your life. That will help you to create vibrant descriptions as you write your memoirs. Think about how an early morning was different for you 20 or 40 years ago. A rush of feeling can return when you let your senses be your guide.

“American Idol??? Connection Reported to be Contemplating Memoirs

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It’s always fun to see which celebrities are planning to write their memoirs. The latest, as reported by digitalspy.com, is Mezhgan Hussainy, whose fiancé is longtime “American Idol??? judge Simon Cowell. Hussainy, 36, was the make-up artist on the set of the show when she started dating the notoriously contrary Cowell.

You might be wondering what a 36-year-old might find so compelling about her life that she already would want to pen an autobiography. Her famous boyfriend, known to closely guard the details of his private life, is not the major focus. Speculation is that Hussainy hopes to share the story of how she and her family fled Afghanistan 20 years ago and immigrated to America.

The digitalspy report quotes a source saying, “Mezhgan really is an amazing woman. She went through so much as a child but she remains full of optimism and positivity. She wants to get her story out in her own words to give hope to others.??? At WriteMyMemoirs, we hear from some of our members who have similar experiences of escaping brutal lives either because of oppressive governments or abusive parents and caretakers. Like Hussainy, they want to get their story out there. Apparently traumatic experiences and wanting to help others are powerful motivators for writing memoirs.

Another Website Offers a “Memoirs??? Type of Catharsis

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Writing your memoirs can be a way to give yourself closure regarding an episode in your life and finally get something “off your chest.??? When you do, are you directing any of that explanation to a specific person?

Yesterday, a column by Barbara Brotman in my hometown’s Chicago Tribune alerted readers to wouldhavesaid.com, a website that invites everyone to post anything they want to put out there, really. Some contributors write to someone who has died, to someone with whom they’ve lost contact or even to themselves or their “younger selves???; others express a thought they cannot bring themselves to say face-to-face to someone; still others write something they wish the world in general to know.

The contributors say that putting their long-held sentiments into words feels cathartic. As you write your memoirs, you may experience a similar catharsis when you picture various people reading your words. Perhaps you’ll express your regret about something you said or did, or you’ll want someone to see how life turned out for you. The writing process itself may bring you all sorts of surprises, relief and, of course, a sense of accomplishment. What I love about setting a goal to write your memoirs is that the benefit comes not only from the wonderful product you’ll have for your friends and relatives, but also from the process of remembering your life and recording it precisely as you want to present it. It just feels so good.

Daughters Persuade a Dad to Write His Memoirs

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While at some point many of us think about writing our memoirs, fewer actually commit to it. I wonder whether a little coaxing from family members is what makes the difference between just thinking about it and actually writing our life story.

Recently I came across a blog called “My Dad’s Memoirs,??? posted nearly three years ago by the daughters of an aging father. The preface begins: “From time to time since my retirement in 1977 (at the age of 60 years) it has been suggested to me by family and friends that I might commit to paper some of the stories of my life. This I have now decided to do, so that my grandchildren, at least, may be given an insight into a few of the many interesting experiences which have come my way over the years.???

The writer, a Scottish gentleman, proceeds to write 15 chapters detailing his early life and his war experiences before wrapping up with some more current tales. He skips much of what came in between; it’s not necessary to write parts of your life you find uninteresting or don’t care to share with readers. In this case, the author stuck to those memories that provided enjoyment in the process of retelling. I think that’s valid. If you’ve had a rocky marriage, a distasteful job or a difficult illness, for example, you can write a memoir that simply omits the unpleasant chapters of your life. Write about whatever you want. This is your story to tell, no one else’s.

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Then just set up a chapter and start writing your memoir. Don’t worry about rules. There are no rules to writing your memoir; there are only trends. These trends are based on techniques and features identified in current top-selling memoirs. At best, they’re the flavor of the month. If you’re capturing your life in print for your family, for your own gratification or to inspire readers, rather than aiming to set off Hollywood screenplay bidding wars, these trends don’t even apply to you. You’ll write the memoir that suits you best, and it will be timeless, not trend-driven.There are no rules, but there are four steps:

1. Theme/framework
2. Writing
3. Editing/polishing
4. Self-publishing

You’ve researched this, too, and you’ve been shocked at the price for getting help with any one of those steps, much less all four. That’s because most memoir sites promise to commercialize your work. They’ll follow a formula based on current memoir trends, because they want to convince you that they can turn your memoir into a best-seller. These sites overwhelm you with unnecessary information not to help you, the memoir author, but to address Search Engine Optimization (SEO) algorithms so they can sell more.

That’s not what we do at Write My Memoirs. Our small community of coaches, writers and editors are every bit as skilled as any you’ll find, and we charge appropriately for their expertise and the time they’ll spend helping you craft a compelling, enjoyable read. But you won’t pay an upcharge for other websites’ commercialization, the marketing that follows, and the pages of intimidating “advice.” You can sell your book if you like—we have ISBNs available for you—but our organic process of capturing your story takes a noncommercial path.

If you want help with any or all of the four steps above, choose from our services or save money by selecting one of our packages. If you’d like to talk about what’s right for you, schedule a call. One year from now, you can be holding your published memoir in your hand. And at that point, it will be a big deal!

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