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writing tips

Another 10 Writing Tips from Stephen King

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Someone reading notes while sitting at the computer

What memoir authors can learn from the master of horror narratives.

Following up on the previous post, as promised here are the second 10 of the 20 writing tips from Stephen King.

11. There are two secrets to success. “I stayed physically healthy, and I stayed married.”
Assuming King means success in writing and not in life, I think this boils down to: don’t forget to take breaks. Don’t neglect exercise. Go shoot baskets or walk with your friends. If you eat dinner with your spouse at 6 p.m., continue to eat dinner with your spouse at 6 p.m. Don’t let writing your book serve as an excuse that you’re too busy to pick your socks off the floor or attend your workout classes. I think this is great advice, but it will be hard for you if the way you reach a goal is to become obsessed with the process. Balance is important.

12. Write one word at a time. “Whether it’s a vignette of a single page or an epic trilogy like ‘The Lord of the Rings,’ the work is always accomplished one word at a time.”
This is the kind of thing that makes me wonder whether King had 19 tips and a deadline, and he just threw anything in here to round up to 20. I don’t see the profundity in this tip. And in some ways, it’s not even true. Phrases tend to work because of the whole, not because of each word, one at a time. So you can just skip Tip #12.

13. Eliminate distraction. “There should be no telephone in your writing room, certainly no TV or videogames for you to fool around with.”
Sigh. I’m not sure there’s anyone left who’s old school enough to be in this old of a school. I don’t watch TV when I write, but I pause to do Wordle or check Facebook. I keep my telephone right at my side. I could see turning off the sound even though I don’t do that, but I do not believe it’s necessary to eliminate all distraction. When I get into heavy writing, I’m really in the zone. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to be notified of an emergency. We just don’t live in these little isolated pockets anymore, and it’s ok. You’ll still get your book done. Also, this is another sort of cheat on the number of tips, because #9 was “Turn off the TV.”

14. Stick to your own style.
If you’re like me, you arrive home from a visit to London with a decent British accent. Imitation comes easily in writing, too. You may naturally start writing in a voice sounding a lot like that of your favorite author. Stephen King recommends fighting that temptation and, instead, figuring out your own style. The thing is that no one has your voice except you. It’s as big a draw as your plot, so develop your individual voice and treasure it.

15. Dig. “Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered pre-existing world. The writer’s job is to use the tools in his or her toolbox to get as much of each one out of the ground as intact as possible.”
This is a complex instruction. How do you know when you’ve written enough about that one story? It’s not always obvious or intuitive. Even though he’s talking about fiction, I think keeping this in mind will help you with your memoir. Don’t skimp on the details or get lazy with descriptions.

16. Take a break. “You’ll find reading your book over after a six-week layoff to be a strange, often exhilarating experience.”
I don’t know about this. If you have the time to write, take advantage of that. Life has a way of throwing in those layoffs without our help. But then I agree—after you haven’t read it for a while, if you like the way you write you’ll find it satisfying to go through it.

17. Leave out the boring parts and kill your darlings.
Obviously, don’t write boring content or write in a boring manner. But the second part of this statement is said so often that “kill your darlings” is now a cliché. I’m not a big fan of this advice. It would be hypocritical of me to suggest it, since I rarely kill my own darlings. I don’t understand why the parts I love most should be the first on the chopping block. Makes no sense. But don’t be self-indulgent. If you love a story from your life but it really has no place in this book because it’s out of the time frame or off-theme, then kill it. Otherwise, let friends read your book and ask them specifically about stories that you’re unsure whether to include. Or wait until you have an agent or publisher, who will tell you which darlings to murder.

18. The research shouldn’t overshadow the story.
Typically, memoir authors do not face this problem. If anything, they should do more research, not less. Everyone is eager to tell the story and not always so willing to provide background information. But if you do find that you’re writing more of a term paper than a memoir, you’re emphasizing the research over the story and should correct that.

19. You become a writer simply by reading and writing.
I would change this to say you become a better writer by reading and writing. So yes, read and practice writing as much as you can.

20. Writing is about getting happy.
Oh, I hope so. Once you’ve written your book, you should be pleased with yourself. But that’s not what King means. Especially with memoir, writing your book will lift a burden, work out a lot of psychological issues and let you tell your own story in your own voice. King says this shouldn’t be about the money you hope to earn from the work. I agree with that. You have no guarantee about sales, so write your memoir as a way to get happier with your life.

A Look at Stephen King’s 20 Tips for Writers: The First 10

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Photo of Stephen King

Even though you’re probably kidding when you refer to the “horror story” that is your memoir, it’s worth checking out this advice.

When I came across Stephen King’s 20 tips for writers, I thought they’d probably be apt for memoir authors, not just writers of horror and other fiction. Many do apply, although some are just obvious suggestions you’ve heard over and over, which kind of surprised me. Let’s look at them one by one, ten this time and ten the next time. My comments follow each tip.

  1. First write for yourself, and then worry about the audience.
    There’s really no other way to write. Only when you have something tangible can you try to view it as a reader who’s coming to your story for the first time. On a first draft, if you’re not pleasing yourself, or if you don’t feel accomplished after writing it, you’ll never finish this book. Stephen King is right: please yourself first.
  2. Don’t use passive voice.
    Never? That’s an extreme position. There’s plenty of room in your book for a bit of passive voice. Think of ’Twas the night before Christmas….The stockings were hung by the chimney with care. Could you improve the poem by saying The children hung their stockings by the chimney with care? No. Sometimes passive voice is the better voice, even if not all that often.
  3. Avoid adverbs. “The adverb is not your friend.”
    Well, right, more or less. It’s not that you can’t describe the how or when, but using an adverb is kind of lazy and, worse, the adverb reflects your own impression of the action rather than leaving that to the reader to decide. Here’s an example: She graciously offered me some tea. That’s easy! You tell the reader how the gesture was made—graciously—so you’re finished with that image. That’s what I mean when I say it’s lazy. Instead, let the reader get the feel of that gracious gesture: As she offered me some tea, she touched me lightly on my arm. I knew it was long past tea time and appreciated that she would go to the trouble of making me a cup so late in the day. All of that says “gracious.” And I know what you’re thinking—while eliminating “graciously” I added “lightly,” just another unwanted adverb. This is the problem with taking an extreme position and then refusing to break the “rule.” Still, be careful when you do.
  4. Avoid adverbs, especially after “he said” and “she said.”
    Nothing sounds more like high school writing than: “I wish you still lived here,” he said wistfully. Again, instead of giving into the urge to describe how he said it, supply the reader with more information—more show, less tell. “I wish you still lived here,” he said, looking out toward the setting sun. The reader understands the “wistful” aspect.
  5. Don’t obsess over perfect grammar.
    Um, you don’t have to obsess over perfect grammar as long as, eventually, some editor does. We don’t speak with perfect grammar, so it’s not easy to develop your authentic writer’s voice that has, I’ll call it, close-to-perfect grammar. But it will make a better book if the narration—not the dialogue, where anything goes—is grammatically correct. So while I agree that you shouldn’t pay grammar so much attention that it distracts you from writing fluidly, at some point you still have to address the grammar.
  6. The magic is in you.
    About this point, Stephen King says, “I’m convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing.” I’ve edited a lot of work by nonprofessional writers, and if the content is interesting, the writing comes from the heart, and the writer’s voice is consistent, the magic is there. Sometimes it needs digging through some weeds to find it, and it always needs editing, but it’s usually there. So yes, feel confident that the magic is in you.
  7. Read, read, read.
    This is essential. You have to get into a writing rhythm and specifically a memoir writing rhythm. So go read some memoirs! And read fiction, read narrative history, read classic literature. Other authors will influence you. You’ll learn options in structure, patterns of dialogue, and methods in describing scenes and scenery. There’s really no way around it no matter how much talent you have.
  8. Don’t worry about making other people happy.
    No rule applies to memoir authors more than this one. You have to write your truth. You can’t worry about hurting the feelings of people you name or obscurely refer to in your book. As for the general readership, you want readers to recommend your book, but that doesn’t mean you want your book to make them happy. You just want them to enjoy the experience of reading about your life even if “happy” is nowhere in the process.
  9. Turn off the TV.
    I guess so? Who tries to write a memoir while watching TV? If you’re following a football game while writing chapter five, you are not disciplined enough to write a serious book. I think we all know this.
  10. You have three months.
    This is astonishing! We are not all Stephen-King-level writers. Just about no one is. Maybe three months for a rough first draft of fiction is possible for a full-time, professional writer spending at least 40 hours a week on it. But for you? There’s no time limit, really. You may not be watching football while you’re writing, but you probably have a job and maybe a family and other obligations. This is your memoir. Take the time you need to get it right.

Check back in two weeks for the next ten Stephen King tips!

Before You Start Your Memoir

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Man holding a book with the title "This is the first book I've written

This is the one thing you should do.

Authors of memoirs tend to be people who have had something interesting happen in their lives, and many are not writers by profession. If you’ve decided to write a memoir, this may be the first book you’ve written. So before you start your memoir, maybe you should do one little thing—write something else!

Even a gifted singer sounds better with practice and guidance, and writing is the same kind of art. You start out with whatever level of talent you bring to your keyboard, and from there you can improve.

I think the hardest aspects of writing a memoir are, first, just making the commitment and getting started, and then establishing a routine and consistently moving forward. I don’t want to put up a hurdle for you between the stages of commitment and consistent progress. If you feel that you’re “on a roll,” go ahead.

But if you have doubts about your writing and want your memoir to be not just informational but actually also well-written, it makes sense that your memoir should not be your first major piece of writing or the only writing you’ve done outside of school. Block out some weeks or months on your calendar for sharpening your skills.

Taking a class is a great idea, because you’ll have the teacher’s guidance, you’ll have an end date, and you’ll write enough to start feeling comfortable with the process. But you also can do some of this on your own. As you write, hand your work over to someone who could be your target memoir reader. Ask whether the writing flows and feels compelling.

Writing Practice Ideas

What should you write in these practice sessions to prepare you for writing your memoir?

  1. Dialogue. Not every good memoir contains dialogue, but most do because life is full of conversation. When you write dialogue, you bring the reader right into the action and involve the senses of, at minimum, hearing and sight. Dialogue writing is both a skill and an art, so learn the mechanics. Don’t make the rookie mistake of writing more than one sentence before supplying the attribution. Some authors will write an entire paragraph and finish the last sentence with “he said,” as in: “Don’t force my hand. I will tell Mom your big secret if you leave me no other choice,” he said as he looked up to watch a plane flying overhead.” That is not the conventional format. This is: “Don’t force my hand,” he said as he looked up to watch a plane flying overhead. “I will tell Mom your big secret if you leave me no other choice.”
  2. Research. You may think you’ll write your entire book from your own memory. Sure, the stories you relate will rely heavily on what you remember, but you’ll still have to do research. In some cases the research will be general fact-checking and finding out whether it was Sycamore Lane or Sycamore Road. But you may have to dig deeper. Let’s say you want to tell readers about your first job. You were hired in 1980 to sell T-shirts on the Atlantic City boardwalk. Every day, you got off a bus and walked to the shop. What did you pass? You might try to find photos of that era so you can name and describe the jewelry stores, the breakfast spots, the salt water taffy stands. You might relate a scene that takes place on the beach at 5pm. Was the tide coming in or going out? What time did the sun set on the day you’re describing? What was the weather—the temperature, humidity, wind and other conditions? All of those pieces will add color to your narrative but require you to do some research. Today, data and details are relatively easy to access. Imagine yourself working on this project before the Internet. I won’t give you a “when I was young” lecture on how we would use the library, telephone and public records to chase facts, but what took us weeks now can take minutes. So consider yourself born at the right time for that.
  3. A throwaway story. Write about what you know—you! Choose an episode in your life that you do not plan on including in your memoir. Look, if it turns out great and you love it, maybe you can wedge it in there somehow. But the idea is to practice the craft of memoir by writing a simple and unremarkable narrative from your own experience. Choose a scene you remember vividly, but it doesn’t have to contain a lesson or represent a pivotal point in your life. It’s just a story. Can you make it come alive?

After you complete those three exercises, I think you’ll find that you’ll be better prepared as well as more confident to write a chapter of your memoir. If you want one more assignment before you start, though, my advice is to read some memoirs that have received good reviews. Every good memoir has the author’s voice, but what they all have in common is that they keep the reader interested. By reading those memoirs, you’ll pick up tips on how that happens. Good luck!

Make Your Memoir Timeless

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Keyboard and old-fashioned typewriter illustrate how to make your memoir timeless

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 to have some historical knowledge about people, places and things?

Technology: The Moving Target

Along the time line of your memoir, you’ll likely deal with a series of obsolete technologies, their level of obsolescence influenced by the state of the technology at the time you’re doing the writing. All I know is that I’m tired of reading the sentence: “This was before cell phones,” or “This was before we had GPS to guide our journey.” We all know what came before cell phones and how people used to have to use maps and ask for directions. Even young people know this.

The exception would be if you’re writing about a moment in time when most people had more advanced technology than you did. You don’t want readers to think, “This isn’t true, because everyone used GPS by then.” So you might have to explain:

“I had forgotten to MapQuest the route. My friends all had GPS availability on their phones, but my parents had a habit of making sure I always had the most outdated tech.”

Your Memoir is Not a Tech History Book

Let’s look at music and say you’re writing today about an incident that took place as you were listening to your iPod. How might you approach that?

  1. Assume the reader knows nothing about anything and would rather be educated in context than have to Google every sentence:
    “I put on my clunky headphones, which everyone used before Airpods came along, and picked up my iPod, an upgrade from the previous era’s tapes and compact discs (CDs) but not yet replaced by streaming. It looked like a slim bar of white soap and contained all the songs I loaded onto it. I scrolled through my tunes by running my finger in a circular motion along the smooth part in the center of the front of my iPod, until I came to the song I loved by Jesse McCartney, who was not related to Beatle Paul McCartney but was a popular artist at the time.
  2. Provide some background but omit details:
    “I put on my headphones and picked up the music delivery method of the day—my iPod, which I’d customized to contain all of my favorite tunes. I scrolled through until I found my favorite song by Jesse McCartney, who was making it onto the covers of the teen magazines.”
  3. Trust the reader to figure it out:
    “I put on my clunky headphones, turned on my iPod and ran my finger along the small inner circle until I’d scrolled down to my favorite Jesse McCartney song.”

My preference is to do something along the lines of the second option. If the technology is more or less the same as it is today, just leave it. Headphones still come in clunky versions, but it also doesn’t hurt to use an adjective like that. I wouldn’t bother describing how the iPod’s unique scrolling was configured. If you know, you know. And if you don’t, it’s hard to describe well enough to give someone an accurate mental picture, plus it’s just not an important description. You’re writing a memoir, not a history of early 2000s tech.

People and Current Events

The Jesse McCartney mention previews the next problem: what seems universally known today can be forgotten tomorrow. I caution you against referring to “Taylor and Travis,” for example, not that you would. But you might mention a more historically prominent person:

“It was my first time voting. I remember entering the church on the corner, having no idea whether to vote for Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan for president.”

Or:

“It was my first time voting. The church on the corner served as our polling place, and I remember entering the room to see little open voting stations lining the perimeter. I had no idea whether to vote for Georgia democrat Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan, the Californian republican, in their head-to-head contest for U.S. president.”

If you want to describe the polling place, fine, but otherwise I prefer the simpler, first version. If the narrative follows your voting decision as taking into consideration the political party, where the candidates were from, the way they looked or whatever, you can explain that part. But you don’t have to educate the reader just for the sake of explaining the reference. Readers who don’t recognize the names of U.S. presidential candidates deserve to have to do the Googling.

But you do have to mention that it was a U.S. presidential election. That’s the fine line that can be hard to draw. You can give readers enough credit to assume they know that both men were presidents. But do readers who were not voting in 1980 know that they ran against each other? Maybe it was a gubernatorial or senatorial race. Help out the reader by giving the bare bones of the history.

Tips About Wording for a Timeless Memoir

I think it’s helpful to Future Reader to acknowledge that you don’t know what the world will be like in years to come. In the music example, you can smugly look down on past technologies and reference “streaming” as if everyone will know what that is only to find that five years from now there’s some other method of listening to music. Maybe we’ll all have chips implanted in our ears or something.

What about if you’re describing the ordeal of getting through a very bad weather system? I’m thinking of something like this:

“We paid little attention to the storms that would roar up the Atlantic coast, because they tended to lose strength as they approached Virginia. Or they’d go out to sea after destroying the Carolinas, gather wind power and slam into New England. Hurricane Camille was different, showing no mercy to our little state and remaining, as of 2024, the worst natural disaster on record in Virginia.”

I don’t go for a lot of “looking at the camera”—pausing your narrative to talk to the reader about today—but it does have a place in memoir. This treatment—“as of 2024″—is better than referring to Camille simply as “Virginia’s worst storm on record,” when a storm the very next season could knock that hurricane off the top spot. Then it’s your memoir that would be obsolete.

I want to mention one more method: “…showing no mercy to our little state and, at the time, standing as the worst natural disaster on record in Virginia.” Use that only if, at the time of writing, another storm already had rendered Camille the number-two spot, because that’s what it implies.

How Have You Handled Time Line Issues?

I think I’ve just scratched the surface. Have you had these time line challenges? How have you addressed them? I’d love to hear your ideas. You can leave a comment here, or you can go our Substack for the same entry and leave your comment there.

Writing Tips: How to Develop Empathy in Your Memoir

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Empathy Sign

You probably want people who read your memoir to root for you. Even if the main topic of your memoir does not address something like overcoming hardship, facing tragedy or triumphing over opposition, you most likely want to encourage empathy for yourself. Unless you’re unusually self-critical, telling your story from your point of view will naturally point readers in that direction.

But there also are writing devices you can use. Here are three.

1. Writing Tone: Be Intimate, Raw, Honest, Humble, Authentic

Eliciting empathy from readers is really no different from trying to make new friends. Why do people want to spend time with someone?

You earn empathy from readers not only by the story you tell but also by the way you tell it. Write intimately, as if you’re sitting with just one person and “spilling your guts” to a degree.

Like new friends, readers like nice people. Show your heart! If your journey takes you from being not very nice to becoming a much better person, start your memoir at a more recent period and then jump backwards. That way you’ll let readers know that sticking with your story will pay off, because eventually they’ll like you.

Readers sense authenticity; if they feel phoniness, they’ll doubt your story. If they think you’re outright lying at all? You’re toast.

If readers hear arrogance in your writer’s voice, they’ll turn against you. If you blame others or just bad luck for what you’ve done, they’ll abandon you. Readers will be turned off by a flippant attitude that treats your sins as if they’re less significant than the sins of others. So take accountability for mistakes you’ve made and your own contribution to your troubles.

Expressing true contrition and raw honesty will keep readers on your side. Your tone must demonstrate that you don’t think you’re always right or better than other people.

Writing at the average reader’s level is a good way to get them to relate to your storytelling. If you write down to them, that condescending attitude will probably not sit well with readers. At the other end, writing in highly scholarly language can be tough to slog through and also indicate that you’re not easily relatable to ordinary people.

2. Writing Content: Give Evidence for Empathy

Be careful if your memoir positions you against the world, because the world might just win in your readers’ minds. To encourage empathy, show empathy. Roll out incidents that demonstrate how you empathized with other people.

Include, as well, episodes that show people empathizing with you. Give some play to other people who agreed with you, friends who had your back, relatives who came to the rescue. Explain your reasons behind your actions. Include any “aha” moments you had so that readers can take that ride along with you.

3. Writing Quality: No Sloppiness

Smart readers like smart writing—your memoir must be well-written. Readers do not have to be English professors to spot typos, bad grammar, repetition, hard-to-follow narratives and other errors that indicate poor writing. Even just unsophisticated writing can undermine a good story, because readers might not be able to follow your thoughts.

While you don’t have to be a professional writer, you should have a professional editor look over your work. Little things like paragraph transitions make a big difference in keeping the story flowing and the reader turning pages.

If your writing is poor, readers may feel sorry for you—but sympathy is not empathy. You don’t want readers to pity you; you want them to respect you for the way you handled tough situations and your good times, too. Ultimately, you want readers to enjoy your book—through your challenges, your decisions and your survival. Put them right by your side, and they’ll get it.

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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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