Aim to grab the reader from the very start, but don’t sweat this too much. In guiding you through writing your memoir’s first sentence, in the previous post I gave examples of openings from the celebrity memoirs I’ve read. That list contained memoirs of actors, and I left musicians and comedians for this post. So
Let’s look at some openings from published memoirs. Last time, I threw out a few ideas to get you started on your memoir’s first sentence or couple of sentences. The beginning of your book will provide the hook to keep readers interested in finishing Chapter One and, you hope, beyond. But how critical is that
Your opening introduces your readers to your world. You’re in good company if you’re stuck on how to craft your memoir’s first sentence. Understandably, the opening line and paragraph of a memoir are important to every memoir author who wants to capture the reader’s interest right away. You Don’t Have to Write the First Sentence
Without making it a “travel memoir.” To be fully transparent, I’ll mention that I selected today’s topic of including travel in your memoir as a way to relive my own recent visit to Italy—I even rapped about it. Perhaps you feel the same about trips you’ve taken—that as long as you’re writing about yourself, you
When writing about your past, how can you keep it relevant for current and future readers? You probably want to make your memoir timeless, but you can’t expect readers to understand the fine points of, for example, current pop culture or past technologies. How much should you explain, and when should you trust the reader
This is your truth, so does it have to also be THE truth? One motivating factor for writing your memoir is that you finally get to tell your story from your perspective—the way you want people to hear it. You’re not thinking about objectivity in memoir, and why should you be? By definition, this is
Originality and a twist on clichés will help make your memoir memorable. For the third post in this three-part series about editing your memoir for word choice, I want to discuss originality and ways to use clichés to your advantage. I remind you that this is your memoir. It’s not a famous writer’s story, and
Give your memoir a professional touch by avoiding too much word repetition. My last post focused on editing your memoir to fix any incorrect word usage and also to take the effort to find the most precise word to convey your thought. What else goes into editing your memoir for word choice? Repetition is a
Now that you’ve written your story, make sure you’ve worded it for impact. If you’re like me, you go over your manuscript countless times—literally so often you lost count long ago—and one thing this process covers is editing your memoir for word choice. For your first draft, you likely followed the advice to just write
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!