March 19, 2024

Pushing the Fear of Being Sued to Where It Belongs—on the Backburner

Brooke Warner and I have taught hundreds of students in our memoir workshops and classes, and presented memoir topics at dozens of conferences. In every single course we teach, a writer will invariably raise her hand, looking a bit pale and scared, and say: “I can’t write my story because I’m afraid of being sued.” Other writers can’t get the image of angry ex-partners or friends or coworkers out of their minds. If you write what really happened, can these aggrieved people sue you?   Fear of … [Read more...]

Writing Through Exposure in Memoir

Memoir, as a genre, requires intimacy and self-exposure. It demands confession and deep dives into the truths of our inner lives. When we write a memoir, we enter into a contract with the reader: we’ll reveal the truth of our experiences, our emotional truth. But how much? How detailed? And what are we allowed to hold back? These are questions all memoirists encounter, especially at the beginning of the writing journey.Another question every memoir writer will face has to do with exposure—how … [Read more...]

Who Am I? 5 Ways to Develop You, the Protagonist in Your Memoir

When you write a memoir, you place yourself as a “character” in your story. At the heart of any story is someone struggling with a problem, and how they change. In the case of memoir, that someone is you. There are several aspects to being the protagonist of your own story: You have a longing or a need. There is some kind of wound or problem. There is an opposing force to solving the problem.  A protagonist presents a persona. This does not imply it’s false, simply that you’re not required to … [Read more...]

Rules to Live By if You Feel Freaked Out About Writing About The People in Your Life

"Don’t show your work to any family member or friend in question until it’s ready to be published. Yes, that might take a while. That is the point. Read on." One thing I know from teaching memoir over the years is that memoirists freak out about writing about other people in their life. Since memoir means writing the truth, my students often ask, Isn’t revealing my true thoughts about myself exposing enough? To write about others brings up all kinds of fears: What if they sue me? Hate me? … [Read more...]

The Secret of Scenes that Keep your Readers Reading

As readers, we tend to take for granted the writer’s skill, but when your heart starts pounding, and in your mind’s eye you see vivid colors and feel the wind, you are experiencing the writer’s skill in creating a world. You’re lost in a story and stop noticing the passage of time, a car honking outside, or a barking dog.  The author succeeded in connecting her imagery and language and feelings with your emotions, bringing you into what John Gardner, author of The Art of Fiction calls “The … [Read more...]

Truth, Exposure, and the Reason We Write Memoir

Recently I had the privilege of moderating a panel at the Bay Area Book Festival. The panel was titled “Why Write Memoir: A Conversation about Truth, Exposure, and the Genre People Love to Hate.” The title shows a perfect combination of the issues that memoir writers struggle with. In every workshop and class I teach, the conversation that brings the most questions and angst has to do with writing the truth, feeling "too exposed," and writing material that seems to attract pointed criticisms: … [Read more...]

The Narrator of your Memoir

When you read a book, a nearly invisible narrator is guiding you through the text—helping you to focus on the important things in your story. The narrator guides you through the action and setting, and guides you to understand the psychology of the characters, goals, conflicts, and themes being explored. Through the narrator, you learn what’s at stake—what the tensions and conflicts in the story are, even if they’re internal. The narrator translates and interprets an action by offering a … [Read more...]

Shades of Truth in Memoir Writing

I have met few memoirists who didn't have to struggle with issues of truth—how much truth to tell and how many details to include. "Do you use real names in a published memoir; how do you write scenes when you don't remember everything. What is truth anyway?" We all wear "the burden of truth" on our shoulders as we write our memoir. The disappointed faces of relatives who disagree or judge us for our writing appear in our imagination, the voices of angry relatives or friends shout at us. Not … [Read more...]

7 Tips To Keep Writing Through the Muddy Middle of Your Memoir

The idea that you can get stuck in the "Muddy Middle" of writing your memoir came up in teaching Write Your Memoir in Six Months with Brooke Warner. We were talking about the place where suddenly there's a lag in energy, where the forward motion of the writing slows to a stop. As soon as I said it, we both laughed with recognition. All writers experience some kind of breakdown/slowdown as part of the writing process, but it’s a challenge to figure out what is happening and how to move forward … [Read more...]

Solutions to the 3 Most Common Questions re: Writing a Memoir

The three most common problems in writing a memoir: 1. How do I start? 2. What do I include? 3. Where does it all go? By starting with significant turning points you will soon find yourself thinking about important scenes that address your theme(s). Creating a structure that works helps you to figure out how to weave your scenes and moments together. It becomes easier to write a longer form work when we are focused and know how to plan out the trajectory of our writing. 1.List the … [Read more...]