Use these cornerstones to shape a compelling narrative.
As an author, you want to write well and craft your memoir in a fashion that keeps people reading. That requires attention to both picky rules and broad conventions. It takes talent and practice, and to some degree one can compensate for the other. But telling a story that people want to read entails more than good writing. I suggest you craft your memoir with four descriptors in mind.
Make it Entertaining
You may think of “entertaining” as amusing, but it’s not quite that. If you’re watching your favorite drama or even horror movie, you’re entertained, right? Shakespeare’s tragedies are as entertaining as his comedies. If you’re a history buff, even his histories will entertain you.
So don’t think of an entertaining memoir as a funny memoir or even a happy memoir, but if you’ve had happy moments, include them. There should be some parts that aren’t dismal. Infuse suspense, because a gripping memoir is an entertaining memoir. Weave in little surprises to entertain the reader with something unexpected. Describe something familiar in a new way—that also will entertain readers.
Make it Relatable
Your readers will not have lived your life, and some of your readers’ lives may not resemble your life at all. But if readers feel empathy for you and can relate to your experiences, they will want to see what happens next. They will want to know whether you make the choices they would have made in your place.
You want your readers to feel the same emotions you felt throughout your experiences. That’s the “show, don’t tell” part. Don’t tell them how you felt in the hope that they can relate to those emotions. Just describe what happened, and if your story is relatable they will feel the same emotions on their own. That’s the magic.
Make it Informative
Books educate us on all sorts of things. Sometimes, books spark interest in a topic we didn’t previously care about. When you’re determining how much text to devote to describing a city you’re visiting or your mother’s medical condition or the professional projects that earned you an award, at least on your first draft write it all out. You can always cut paragraphs during the editing process.
Picture a curious reader, because people who read tend to be curious people. When readers finish your book, they want to have learned something about their world, not just your world. They want to have new knowledge that they can carry with them in general, not only in relation to your story. I’m currently reading Andre Agassi’s Open and learning a lot about tennis competition!
Make it (Mostly) Accurate
Relying on memory is a sure way to include inaccuracies. As a memoir author, you should always do your best to tell the truth. But your truth, as you remember it, is not necessarily how things really went down. This is a challenge for every memoir author.
Lucky are the authors who have spent their lives journaling. In those journals can be fine descriptions and details you wouldn’t even think about twenty years later. You have the feelings you’re feeling in real time.
But if you have no diary to draw from, at least do some fact-checking. Make sure you’re using the correct spelling of the names of streets, people, businesses. Check dates! They’re important to your story but elusive in the memory. Ask people involved in your stories to tell you their recollections of what happened, and compare their accounts with what you’ve written. If you can get your hands on transcripts of proceedings, video footage or any other record of events, take the time and trouble to do that.
You might want to include a disclaimer that you are presenting the events as you remember them. But if your memoir is mostly accurate as well as informative, relatable and entertaining, you will have a book worth reading.