Writing a memoir? Read this first

What does ‘memoir’ mean to you? Is it something a famous person writes at the end of a long life? Is it a get-rich-quick scheme for minor celebrities when they haven’t got much to say? Or perhaps it’s a self-indulgence—something you write when you think you’ve had an interesting life and your children are sick of hearing about it?

Whatever the negative connotations surrounding memoir, it’s a thriving genre in the publishing world, and if you’ve got a story to tell you’d be surprised how successful you could be. For example, what if I told you that Call the Midwife is a memoir? Or This is Going to Hurt? They were both written by ordinary, non-famous people who had an interesting story to tell.

So should you write a memoir? And if so, how do you go about it? I’ve worked with dozens of memoir authors with varying involvement, from light editing to complete restructuring to rewriting projects when the author needs more help, and in that time I’ve found general principles for memoir writing that will help you to get started.

Here are my top tips for writing when the main character is you.

Find the theme

The best memoirs can be summed up in one sentence—or even, in some cases, a word. So what’s your story about? Tara Westover’s memoir Education covers many events, mainly a childhood spent in the grip of a controlling cult. But she summed it up nicely in one word in the title: it’s about the empowering effect of education and the journey she took to find it. So what’s the theme of your story? See if you can sum it up in a sentence, and you’ll be more like to create a joined-up narrative.

Pick out what’s unique

Although it might be interesting to you, you don’t have to include everything that’s ever happened to you in your memoir. The best memoirs are not ‘cradle to grave’ but focus on the events that fit around your theme. Kidnap victim Terry Waite might have had an interesting early childhood, but that’s not what readers of his memoir Taken on Trust want to read about. So what is it about your story that’s unique? This should be the focus of your book.

Take a step back

Although memoirs are by nature very personal, it will do you good to take a step back and get a wider view of your material. What’s the hook? The thing that will make someone sit up and take notice? Like novels, memoirs need a plot and ‘Woman grows up in middle-class Oxfordshire’ is unlikely to be it.

Isolate your market

No one ever succeeded by writing a book that will appeal to everyone. So who is your market? Who’s going to want to read about your experiences? Isolating this reader and working out what will make them pick up your book will help you to focus and write your story. Your reader has a lot to choose from, so they’ll need to have a reason to choose to read about your experiences. Find what resonates with them and write your story just for them.

Think commercially

Have you got a platform you can use to promote a book about your experiences? Do you have any social media accounts. A publisher looks at how you can promote a book yourself, so work hard to create a presence online. Publishers also do their research. What other books are there on this subject? Spend time immersing yourself in your genre and find out what you’re up against.

Interview yourself

If you were asking the questions, what would you want to know about your experiences? Imagine you’re a journalist and are interviewing for a newspaper article. What would you want to find out? Chances are that’s what your reader will want to know too, so you might need to be more open than you think about personal details. Good memoirs are honest, even raw at times, and tell the truth, so if you’re not prepared to lay things bare you might want to reconsider.

Think about tense and time

Your voice as the author is the only thing your reader is going to hear. So how are you going to write? The tense and other stylistic devices you choose will depend on the feeling you want to provoke. Adam Kay wrote This is Going to Hurt mostly in the present tense, like a diary, while Terry Waite chose to alternate between his time in captivity and his previous life. Remember that you have several options and you don’t have to keep everything chronological. Not all memoirs start at the beginning.

Don’t forget dialogue

Dialogue brings a story to life, and you can use it in your memoir even if you can’t remember exactly what was said. Construct conversations that further the plot and add depth to your characters. You might be writing non-fiction, but this is still a story.

Zoom out

Zooming in and out when telling a story gives it depth and relevance, and nowhere is this a more helpful technique than in memoir writing. As well as telling your story, how can you incorporate a wider view? A travel memoir should include interesting details about the history and culture of a place, for example, not just your own personal journey. This is Going to Hurt is not just Adam Kay’s experiences of being a junior doctor but a manifesto for the better treatment of doctors in the NHS. Find the bigger picture and make your book about more than just you.

Whether you’ve started writing a memoir or have never thought about it until now, use these tips to think about the structure, style and purpose of your book. Don’t forget to think like a publisher (even if you intend to self-publish) and look for the commercial value in what you write.

And if you need help with structuring, editing or writing your memoir, email me to chat about your ideas.

sophie@sophie-bradshaw.com

How do I develop a daily writing habit?

When I create bespoke writing schedules for my authors, it never fails to take them by surprise that they could write a non-fiction book in as little as four months. They can't believe that they could have time to write a book alongside running their business.

So what’s the secret to getting a book written in months rather than years?

Dedication, passion for your subject, confidence and perseverance are all key when writing non-fiction, but one of the simplest yet most important things is building a good writing routine.

Authors who join me for a Book Planning Day benefit from a bespoke writing routine that works for them, but here are a few general tips that will keep you on track:

Understand the value of ‘compound writing’

The concept of compound interest—that the interest you earn on your money accumulates exponentially if you reinvest it—applies to writing too. It’s what I call the ‘snowball effect’ of a regular writing habit. It works like this: you write 500 words every day for two weeks. You now have 7000 words. But you also have momentum. The 500 words you’ve got used to writing becomes easier, and then you find you’re able to write 750 words each day. The 7000 words you started with becomes 17,500 by the end of the month, and by the end of the next month it’s more like 40,000 words. Writing makes writing easier. The more you do it, the quicker you get.

Don’t take days off

Routine is everything, so making your writing habit about when you’ll write rather than if is an important step. You know you have to brush your teeth every day, right? It’s just a case of when you do it before you leave the house. Make writing like brushing your teeth. Setting yourself time before the day has begun is helpful. Don’t tell yourself you need to do some writing today—just ask yourself when you’re going to do it.

Get to know your amygdala

One of the tricks to building a writing routine is just that: a trick. It’s about fooling your change-resistant brain into accepting a new habit. When we do something new, our amygdala (the part of the brain responsible for alerting us to danger) senses things are about to change. In the wild, change is usually bad, so we resist the new habit. To get past the amygdala, we need to trick our brains into thinking nothing’s different. This is all a roundabout way of telling you to start small. Setting yourself impossible challenges you know you won’t achieve doesn’t work in this instance, so make your routine something you know you can do. In the beginning that might be to write the headings for a chapter. However small it is, you’ll be able to build it up once your brain is used to its new habit.

Do it anywhere—and everywhere

My 10-year-old daughter’s top writing tip is to always have a pen and paper with you, because you “never know when you might get an idea”. She’s right—but for us digital adults it’s even easier, as we always have a method of taking notes right there in our pockets. Use your phone to jot down ideas when you have them. You can even use a dictate app like Rev to record them in audio. Whatever you do, take your writing with you on the road. Some people get their best ideas in the car.

Don’t worry about quality

Stopping to edit is one of the worst things you can do when trying to build a writing routine. If you’re tempted to overanalyze, consider using an app like Blurt that hides what you’ve written. You’ll be able to focus on writing instead of editing, and you won’t lose confidence because you don’t like what you’ve done so far. For the really adventurous there’s also The Most Dangerous Writing App. It deletes your words if you stop typing for five seconds. Now that’s scary.

Find an accountability partner

If you work best with someone to guide you, find a willing partner who’ll hold you to account. Some of my coaching authors say the best investment was just knowing they had to send me some writing each week. Deadlines focus the mind, so having someone expecting your work at regular intervals will help you to keep going. If you can’t afford a coach, why not use your social media account or blog to stay accountable? If you commit to publishing an article each week, you won’t want to fail publicly.

Building a writing routine is key if you want to write a book quickly. But even if you’ve got all the time in the world, never underestimate the importance of momentum. If you’d like someone to keep you accountable and give expert, constructive feedback on your work, just get in touch here.

Author Profile: Cal Newport

We can learn a lot from other writers. The techniques they use, the stories they tell—they’re all things we can bring into our own writing toolkit. In my new Write like a Writer series I’ll be looking at the styles and practices of successful authors to see what we can learn from the people who do it well.

First up, it’s bestselling author Cal Newport.

As a computer science professor at Georgetown University, you might not expect Cal Newport to be a good writer. But it turns out he’s a real all-rounder: as well as working on academic research he’s also written six bestselling books on technology, productivity and the way we work. His latest book, Digital Minimalism, was a New York Times bestseller.

So how did a computer scientist learn to write like a writer?

By telling stories

Like many successful non-fiction writers, Cal Newport knows that to get complex ideas across to a new audience you need a narrative. He uses stories—from history, everyday life and even academia—to communicate information in a way that resonates. This makes his books relatable and allows him to connect with the emotions of his readers. The more emotion he invokes, the more invested they feel.

Need an example? In So Good They Can’t Ignore You, Newport uses a variety of stories to bring his writing alive. From personal anecdotes to the life of Steve Jobs, he weaves relevant examples into his narrative to express and expand his ideas.

By offering different perspectives

As you read Newport’s books, you’ll notice that he explains the same idea in different ways. These might be theoretical, or they might be practical. Mixing ideology and concrete examples makes for lively reading and creates content that feels rich and insightful.

Offering more than one perspective on an idea also makes it more likely to appeal to different kinds of reader. Different people have different learning styles, so the more ways you can explain yourself the better.

By structuring logically

In Deep Work, Newport allows the structure of the book to speak for itself. By dividing the content into two sections—the Idea (the why) and the Rules (the how)—he takes the reader on a journey from understanding to implementation, from theory to practical. I’m guessing this made the book easier to write, and I know it allows the reader to see what’s coming next.

The more we read, the more we know—not just in terms of ideas but about writing techniques too. If you’ve recently read an author whose writing style inspired you, I’d love to hear about it in the comments. And if you’d like some help with your own writing, ask me about author coaching.