Writing Memoirs
The experts suggest a variety of ways to get to the writing of memoirs. They also bring up the all-important ethical considerations.
Environment: Treat writing like a job. Create a writing area for yourself. Add a regular schedule--even if only a few hours a day. At the same time, create a reading schedule, perhaps one that designates a set time for doing the "difficult" reading.
--Roorbach, 16
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Collecting Ideas and a Fresh Start: Keep a scrapbook of ideas--not just a journal. That way you can put menus and ticket stubs and other reminders in there.
Rather than having big notebook journals, consider having small sketchbooks that will fit into a pocket or purse or backpack.
If you become dragged down by your collection of writing journals and notes, collect all early writing, and put it in a box with tape. Start over.
--Roorbach, 34
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Structure: Think of alternative organizational and content schemes as similar to slicing a submarine sandwich: by chunks of years, or decades, or pivotal event, or major desires throughout the years. These won't yield an entire memoir, but they will give perspective and material ripe for revision. For example, you can expand your writing about a pivotal event by asking: What did I want before this event? What was I doing before this event?
Write as if creating a quilt: This is a sort of start/stop structure that begins with a problem or desire and leads to a realization. And then there's another problem and a realization. And so on, until the final or cumulative realization.
Write as if on a quest: Lay out the hero's goal and then the writing becomes the achievement of the goal and the wisdom gained.
--Raines, 49-53, 60-61
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Letter for an Audience: Write a letter to someone you haven't seen in a long time to explain yourself. This letter isn't to be sent. Instead, remove the salutation and initial "small talk" from the letter. Then read the rest? It should be the beginning of an essay with a solid audience because, as you have been writing you have been thinking of someone else.
--Roorbach, 94, 99
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Truth: If you are concerned about truthfulness, start your memoir with your confession that you can't remember all the details.
--Roorbach, 49
Use a qualifier like, "this is how I see what happened...."
--Barrington, 77
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Ethics: As a memoir writer, you are both observer and participant. As a result, loyalties to family/friends, etc. may conflict with your desire to tell the truth as you understand it. Being a participant, in other words, may make it difficult to observe well. Still, you have to do your best, because you have responsibility to the past, especially the decision of what to say and when--or if--to say it.
--Trimbur, 175
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Writer's Block: One way to deal with writer's block is to address it directly. Create a metaphor for it and describe your time with it. Then turn to another topic and write badly (it's really hard to do) for multiple pages.
--D. Haines, 135-136
To unblock writer's block, try these steps:
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list the internal and external things that get in the way of your writing
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check the item that has the most control over you and think about it
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tell a trusted friend (even a pet will work) a particular time you grappled with this problem
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turn this story into third person
You've now written something that has gotten you from writer's block.
--Barrington, 44-5
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Publishing: Research possible publishers by checking the publishing houses of several books that are of the same sort you are writing. Create a one paragraph description of the project--make it very tight. Use it as the core of the letter you compose for the the publishers.
--Roorbach, 183
Works Cited
Barrington, Judith. Writing the Memoir: A Practical Guide to the Craft, the Personal Challenges, and Ethical Dilemmas of Writing Your True Stories. Portland, OR: The Eighth Mountain P, 2002.
Haines, D. Writing Together. New York: Perigee Trade (Penguin), 1997.
Rainer, Tristine. Your Life as Story: Discovering the "new Autobiography" and Writing Memoir as Literature. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 1998.
Roorbach, Bill. Writing Life Stories: How to Make Memories into Memoirs, Ideas into Essays, and Life into Literature. Cincinnati, Story P, 1998.
Trimbur, John. The Call to Write. New York: Longman, 1999.
