Every ordinary life story is extraordinary!

Every ordinary life story is extraordinary!

Your Life as Improv Theater

A British theater troupe will act out vignettes from audience members’ life stories.
Your Life as Improv Theater
As you’re writing your memoirs, I know many of you are picturing your stories coming to life as a script for the movies or theater. If you happen to be anywhere London, England, your vision could become reality sooner than you think.
Stillpoint, a British theatrical troupe, has established The Department of Unreliable Memoirs to conduct a “micro project” as part of the White Night presentations at one of its performance venues, the Nightingale Theater in Brighton. Billed as “an intimate encounter for one audience member,” the project requires the players to act out a scene from the life of an audience member who volunteers to describe the action. As the audience-member storyteller, you can play fast and loose with the facts: “Make an appointment with our helpful hostesses to retrieve a half forgotten moment, from a past you may well have had,” the promotion states.
It sounds as if it’s all in good fun, but maybe you could apply the concept as part of your memoirs writing process. Think about the various scenes from your life’s chapters. Which elements create drama? Can you incorporate humor in the story? Or does it amount to a tragedy? How can this narrative further the character development of the players in your life? And if you’d like to see actors play it out right in front of you, a trip the UK may be in store!

As you’re writing your memoirs, I know many of you are picturing your stories coming to life as a script for the movies or theater. If you happen to be anywhere London, England, your vision could become reality sooner than you think.

Stillpoint, a British theatrical troupe, has established The Department of Unreliable Memoirs to conduct a “micro project” as part of the White Night presentations at one of its performance venues, the Nightingale Theater in Brighton. Billed as “an intimate encounter for one audience member,” the project requires the players to act out a scene from the life of an audience member who volunteers to describe the action. As the audience-member storyteller, you can play fast and loose with the facts: “Make an appointment with our helpful hostesses to retrieve a half-forgotten moment, from a past you may well have had,” the promotion states.

It sounds as if it’s all in good fun, but maybe you could apply the concept as part of your memoirs writing process. Think about the various scenes from your life’s chapters. Which elements create drama? Can you incorporate humor in the story? Or does it amount to a tragedy? How can the narrative of this vignette further the character development of the players in your life? And if you’d like to see actors play it out right in front of you, a trip the UK may be in store!

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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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