To guide writers into the ofttimes difficult job of creating a memoir, I have developed a formula. But to keep the suspense high, here is what this formula is not: As an editor, I’m all about syntax (word arrangement), grammar, spelling, word choice, and all those necessary components of quality writing. As a coach, I’m all about helping the writer identify their audience (who they are writing for), settle on their theme (point or argument), and improve in the art of dialogue, description, and scene creation. My formula isn’t about any of this. Keep reading.
I’m Not a Doctor, I Just Play One
Forgive me, it’s just some old-school humor. No, my college degree is in English, not Psychology. But my years of experience leading support groups and teaching classes for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) have given me extra insight into understanding the effects of trauma, grief, loss, as well as reflection on joyful or happier times gone by. Any time we take a walk through our memories, we never know what emotions we might stir up. I found my NAMI experience to be surprisingly helpful in working with people as they write their memoirs; an unexpected bonus, of sorts.
P.O.W.E.R.
My formula is not about grammar and syntax, or dialogue and scene creation. It is a guide for writing while exercising self-care and self-kindness. It’s P.O.W.E.R.
Pace yourself.
Own your feelings.
Write when you feel like it.
Ease into the tough stuff.
Reflect as you remember.
You see, there is no writing instruction here. It’s strictly about protecting your psyche as you delve into memories that at times might sting. Let me discuss each point of P.O.W.E.R.
P: Pace yourself
Let me congratulate you on deciding to write a book, be it a memoir or another genre. It takes courage to start a project this expansive. And it will take courage to finish it. Many first-time writers settle on a self-imposed deadline for their book; they set a date, usually completely arbitrary, by which they want their book published. Then the pressure’s on! They must produce a certain number of words each day to keep up with the schedule. Author Stephen King notoriously recommends writing 2,000 words each day, for a total of 180,000 words in three months. Folks, that’s Stephen King’s output, not mine or anyone else I know! Plus—spoiler alert—don’t write a 180,000-word anything as a first-time author, especially a memoir. Creating an outline for your book is an excellent idea and I highly recommend it. And if you are a very disciplined person, you can come up a timeline that corresponds to the sections of that outline, which can result in a projected date range to wrap up the writing and move into the next phase. But, first and foremost, the process of writing a book should be fun, or at least as much fun as you can garner from it. Self-imposed deadlines are a great way to rob yourself of whatever joy creating your book could offer.
O: Own your feelings
A memoir is not an academic treatise. If you hope to write your memoir without exploring your innermost thoughts and feelings, I suggest that you are not ready to write. Within your family, among your friends, maybe at work, you might gloss over pain or mistakes or abuse or anger. You might be so accustomed to sugar-coating your life’s experiences, you’ve forgotten how to be honest with others—and with yourself. I will ask my clients over and over, “But how did you feel?” If you have a story worth sharing—one that will offer a life lesson to your readers—you will have to dig deeply into your memories, your heart, your spirit, your soul. Grab onto what you find there and bring it into the light. The time for hiding is past.
W: Write when you feel like it
This point works in concert with the P, Pace yourself. If you inflict a self-imposed deadline on your project, you sacrifice giving yourself permission to create when and how it best suits you. There will be days when you write good stuff for hours—you’re in the zone, you’re firing on all cylinders, and other clichés. Then there will be days where you’re lucky to finish a page. You write a scene that consists of four paragraphs, read it, hate it, delete it. An hour later, you do it all over again. Writing is hard, but it shouldn’t feel like torture. If your writing is strained or forced, it shows and you know it. Give yourself a break.
E: Ease into the tough stuff
I know from working with new memoirists that writing a memoir can be emotionally exhausting. I have seen writers get anxious just thinking about the part of the memoir they’re going to be working on next. This is tough stuff. Books have been written about it, one of the best being Melanie Brooks’s Writing Hard Stories: Celebrated Memoirists Who Shaped Art from Trauma. I suggest two ways to come at this. One, just write the bare-bones version of a scene or incident. Report it like a news story. Write the facts and only the facts. During this first round, avoid emotional language to whatever degree the situation allows. Don’t reflect yet (the R in P.O.W.E.R.). Two, this method might work for you: make a few simple notes as a placeholder in the story, then leave it; return a day or two later and add a few more notes. Take baby steps. Do this until you have recounted the entire scene.
R: Reflect as you remember
A quality of memoir that sets it apart from every other genre is reflection. A memoir without reflection is like a murder mystery novel that ends without solving the mystery. By reflection I mean, don’t just recall a memory but analyze it. Merriam-Webster defines reflection as a thought, idea, or opinion formed or a remark made as a result of meditation. What emotion does the memory conjure? You know what happened (it’s your memory), but why did it happen? How did it happen? How did you feel at the time? How do you feel now? If your feelings or impressions changed over time, why did they? How does the scene play into setting up what else is coming in the book? Reflection in the now helps you put your past in perspective. Here’s where you figure out how what happened shaped you into who you are now for the purpose of this memoir.
Exercise P.O.W.E.R. as a Writer
Writing a book is not for the faint of heart. There are so many moving parts: theme, structure, grammar, supporting your argument, adding creative elements, what to put in, what to leave out. . . it can be the challenge of a lifetime. For my website’s blog, I have written several articles to help improve your writing:
But P.O.W.E.R. is about you, as a person, tackling a big job. Don’t let the writing dominate you. Don’t let it drag you into your past and leave you there. This is your book and you are in control now—of the people, of the words, of the scenes. You decide who enters, what they do, and when they leave. They can’t stay longer than you want them to. They can’t say anything you don’t want them to say. Exercise your P.O.W.E.R.
In addition to working as a nonfiction and creative nonfiction editor and writing coach, I am co-author, with Dr. Terri Lyon, of the book Make a Difference with Mental Health Activism: No activism degree required—use your unique skills to change the world. Visit my website page Make a Difference and Dr. Lyon’s activism website Life At The Intersection to learn more about Make a Difference, including how to place bulk orders.
Memoir, a subgenre of creative nonfiction, is often the home of stories of trauma. As I point out in my blog post Writing About Trauma: What Memoir Is and Isn’t, memoir has a bad reputation for being all about trauma. It’s an unfair assessment. Yet, as a memoir writing coach and editor, I do find that the majority of my clients want to write a memoir about emotional pain, loss, grief, addiction, disease, or toxic relationships.
My personal feelings are that people are more motivated to share the negative aspects of their lives (rather than the good times) because those are the experiences they have reflected on and learned from the most. This is true of my own life. I have spent much of the past three and a half years analyzing my failed second marriage. From that failure, from that disappointment and emotional pain, I have learned more about myself than at any other time in my life. I could not have become who I am now—someone I am happy with and proud of—if not for that experience. Maybe there’s a memoir in my own future.
Mass Trauma—It’s a Thing
I’m compelled to write a second time about addressing trauma because I have heard more and read more about trauma in the last two years than the previous twenty combined. And the reason? The pandemic. Globally, COVID has sickened more than 393 million and killed almost 6 million, as of this writing. No one in the world—literally no one—has remained unaffected by COVID’s impact. Subsequently, health experts on TV, radio, podcasts, social media, and in writing have been forced to discuss the worldwide fallout with terms like mass trauma, collective trauma, and traumatic stressor event.
Trauma, once most often the psychologically painful side effect for war veterans, survivors of domestic violence and rape, serious accidents, natural disasters, harassment, witnessing violence, and the like, has driven tens of millions of US citizens to seek mental health counseling and medication for the first time in their lives. Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, was first added to the bible of mental health disorders, the DSM (Diagnostic Statistical Manual), in 1980 primarily as a descriptor for the mental health challenges faced by military veterans, particularly those who served in the Middle East. My father served in World War II. He definitely suffered from PTSD, then referred to as combat fatigue or battle shock. Upon returning from Europe in 1945 at the end of the war, he received no treatment and no counseling. And he never fully recovered.
Trauma, whether we like it or not, has become a household word—a mental health problem that knows no boundaries among class or color or gender or ethnicity. However, as I stated at the beginning of this, the dark experiences of our lives tend to be the ones we reflect on and learn from the most.
Therapeutic Journaling Can Help
Have you been journaling during the past two years? I wrote about the mental health benefits of therapeutic journaling a while back. This practice became more popular than ever during the last two years. Have you documented the day-to-day challenges you faced on your own, or as a parent, employee, employer, or caregiver? What lessons from this unprecedented time in our history will we learn and share for our children and future generations to help them navigate the difficult challenges life throws at us?
What have you learned about yourself since early 2020? Is there a memoir about survival, creativity, or transformation in you? Let me know in a comment. And take care.
In addition to working as a nonfiction and creative nonfiction editor and writing coach, I am co-author, with Dr. Terri Lyon, of the book Make a Difference with Mental Health Activism: No activism degree required—use your unique skills to change the world. Visit my website page Make a Difference and Dr. Lyon’s activism website Life At The Intersection to learn more about Make a Difference, including how to place bulk orders.
Updated: Nov 8, 2021
Through my business, Strike The Write Tone, I have chosen to work exclusively with nonfiction. But my focus, my specialty, my love is memoir. Thanks to memoirs, memoir instruction books, online courses, private instruction, and webinars, I am confident in my understanding of what true memoir is, and what it is not. Is there a genre any more misunderstood than memoir? Based on my research and experience, I think not!
First-time memoirists send their manuscripts to me for assessment or as the first step to coaching or developmental editing. I would guesstimate that four of five of the memoir manuscripts I read suffer from the same flaw—the writer is trying to cover too much in the memoir. I have written about this in my blog post Writing Memoir: Avoid These Common Mistakes and How to Choose a Memoir Theme. Frankly, I’ve touched on it in nearly every bog post I’ve written about memoir writing. Why? Because having a clearly defined theme (which is not the same as the plot/story line) is absolutely key to writing a good memoir that people will want to read. Key!
Staying the Course
I started to work with a brand-spanking new memoir writer two years ago. He showed me his first ten chapters, within which I could identify at least four different themes—he was all over the place. In his first chapter, he wrote about a woman, now deceased, whom he admired and had learned about the meaning of life from (or so he said). The memoir was to be dedicated to her. By three pages into Chapter 2, she was gone, never to return.
Now, this doesn’t mean your theme can’t be modified or fine-tuned as you write, or even after you feel your first draft is finished. Does this sound like I am contradicting myself? My point is, a theme might start as:
How my life with four younger brothers who went on to lives of crime led me to become a social worker.
to one of greater insight:
How I learned to forgive myself for not being able to prevent my younger brothers from turning to lives of crime.
Do you see the difference? Embedded in the writer’s original theme is a hint at her sense of having failed her family. But her career choice is not the heart of the story, it is symbolic of her (possibly subconscious) desire to get over her sense of having let down her brothers by helping others avoid making their mistakes.
Spilling Your Guts
Recently, an aspiring memoir writer said to me, “I just want to keep writing, I’ll decide on my theme later.” Oh, no. No, no, no. That is a formula for wasted time and effort. And, ultimately, wasted money, when the time comes for the editing phase. For those who read this and think, why can’t the writer just let it all out? I suggest you read my post Writing About Trauma. In it I say,
Memoir writing is not therapy. A memoir is not a therapeutic journal. Simply re-living painful events in your life and calling it a memoir is not helpful to you nor is it a source of comfort or inspiration to a reader.
If you feel the need to get it all out in your writing, I suggest you might not be ready to write a memoir. Read my post Is It Time to Write Your Memoir? When, through your writing, you recognize your transcendence and see clearly what your experiences have taught you, then it’s memoir time.
Help Finding Your Theme
There are several questions that a writer should be able to answer (or at least take a good stab at) when planning to write or revise a memoir. Memoir writing coaches know how vitally important the answers to these questions are:
1. What is the theme of your memoir? That is, what have you learned that you are sharing in your memoir?
2. Who is your primary audience? If you were looking across a table at your ideal reader, describe who that person is.
3. How do you want the reader to feel when they've finished your book?
4. What do you hope to achieve with your book? (Don’t say make money!)
If you feel you have a pretty good idea of how to answer all or most of these questions, you are ready to start writing. Contact me and let’s start your memoir journey.
In addition to working as a nonfiction and creative nonfiction editor and writing coach, I am co-author, with Dr. Terri Lyon, of the book Make a Difference with Mental Health Activism: No activism degree required—use your unique skills to change the world. Visit my website page Make a Difference and Dr. Lyon’s activism website Life At The Intersection to learn more about Make a Difference, including how to place bulk orders.