Every ordinary life story is extraordinary!

Every ordinary life story is extraordinary!

Valentine’s Day and Love in Memoirs

Your romantic experiences are part of your life story. But be careful about what you reveal!
Valentine’s Day and Love in Memoirs
Since today is Valentine’s Day, let’s talk about love and romance! This can be a sticky topic in a memoir. How much information is too much?
Consider your audience and your goal. If you’re writing your memoirs primarily for your children, grandchildren and friends, you may want to limit your courtship stories to the person or people who have been important to your family. If you have been married to one person for decades, that person is probably the only one you’ll want to talk about. A couple of charming anecdotes about your courtship and what dating was like during the era you met can form a wonderful chapter in a memoir. Readers will be interested in learning why you were attracted to each other, how you overcame obstacles to being together and a description of your engagement and wedding. Valentine’s Day itself may come up as you reminisce about your years together.
If you have had more than one spouse or important significant other, carefully determine how much you want to share about past relationships. This decision is likely to be shaped by whether you were widowed or divorced. If you express any bitter feelings, read that section over a few times or ask someone you trust how it comes across. Again, your goal becomes important. If you want your memoirs to be a statement of your perspective on everything that has happened to you, all of your major relationships may be pertinent. People’s feelings get easily hurt, so just be careful. And Happy Valentine’s Day!

Since today is Valentine’s Day, let’s talk about love and romance! This can be a sticky topic in a memoir. How much information is too much?

Consider your audience and your goal. If you’re writing your memoirs primarily for your children, grandchildren and friends, you may want to limit your courtship stories to the person or people who have been important to your family. If you have been married to one person for decades, that person is probably the only one you’ll want to talk about. A couple of charming anecdotes about your courtship and what dating was like during the era you met can form a wonderful chapter in a memoir. Readers will be interested in learning why you were attracted to each other, how you overcame obstacles to being together and a description of your engagement and wedding. Valentine’s Day itself may come up as you reminisce about your years together.

If you have had more than one spouse or important significant other, carefully determine how much you want to share about past relationships. This decision is likely to be shaped by whether you were widowed or divorced. If you express any bitter feelings, read that section over a few times or ask someone you trust how it comes across. Again, your goal becomes important. If you want your memoirs to be a statement of your perspective on everything that has happened to you, all of your major relationships may be pertinent. People’s feelings get easily hurt, so just be careful. And Happy Valentine’s Day!

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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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