New writers often believe they have not lived an exciting enough life to have something valuable to write about.  After all, one of the main pieces of advice given to them is “write what you know about.”  Unfortunately, they think, they had too good of a childhood, too easy a pathway through life, or few opportunities outside their tiny community where nothing of value ever happened.   But as Willa Cather noted, “Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen.”

What she is talking about, I believe, is the fact that everyone’s childhood, everyone’s life, is full of potential writing material.  The problem isn’t a lack of experiences, it’s a lack of imagination when it comes to mining them.  Think back on your own childhood.  How many interesting people were there in your family or community – Uncle Jesse who was divorced three times in four years, your mother’s boss who used to call her in the middle of the night just to talk, the old man who used to shoot buckshot at the kids who cut across his property on the way to school?  These are all rich characters to start with.  Then how about the night the babysitter got fed up with all of you and locked you in the closet until just before your parents came home, or the time you watched as your friends made fun of the boy at the grocery store who had Down’s Syndrome and you wished you had had the courage to stop them?

There is no life that isn’t a writable life.  If you can’t find something in there, then accuse yourself and look deeper.

On the drive back home, when I was stuck in traffic that moved five miles in two hours, I started thinking about how the fact that things don’t work out the way we want them to is a constant part of life.  And so it is for our characters as well.  We send them on a journey (sometimes our own journey) and bring them to some kind of change or epiphany, however small or large, in the end.  Often, we want their journey, and ours as the writers of the journey, to go smoothly.  We plan it out:  Start with conflict, face obstacle, overcome obstacle, face another obstacle, and come to an epiphany.  But sometimes it doesn’t work out that easily, and I think that is a good thing.  It’s more interesting for our characters not to slide through the story to a perfect ending; it’s good to show them messing up, having too high of expectations, not catching the signs in front of them at first.  Sometimes they have to retrace their steps, come to small epiphanies along the way, find the journey is much harder than expected.  That’s how life is. And it is certainly how the writing life is.  As writers, our smooth plan for our story or poem rarely traces a smooth path.  It’s how the character and we deal with all of these problems and either still pursues our goal or redefine what really is meaningful to us.

Here are some tips for writing your memoir.

Brainstorm and/or do freewrites about events in your life that affect you.

Gather as many details ahead of time, before you begin writing.

Ground your writing in carefully selected details. Use all of the senses, including intuition.

Write first – all the way through – then, edit later.

Write in first person.  This is you POV all the way through.

Be authentic – you are the main character and you have to be believable.

–Be well-rounded.
–Show good and bad sides.
–Show your quirks, you weird thought and habits, whether they are silly or serious.

Keep the names the same as in real life, even if you think you may change some of them though later—this keeps you more centered in the story.

Remember people reading your work were not there when the events took place.  They won’t understand any “inside jokes,” and you may need to provide a bit of back-story to illustrate the context of certain events or not use them.

Don’t include unnecessary details.  While autobiographies are often written as chronological accounts of a person’s life, a memoir only includes events relating to the main theme of the book.  Stay on tract.

If your memoir includes references to pop culture or historical events, double check these facts for accuracy.

Writing Partners. Source: National Council of Teachers of English

The author Adair Lara suggests writers need writing partners. So does writer Natalie Goldberg.  And while both of them have a different approach, the goal is the same – to encourage you to write.  It can sometimes be daunting to toil away with your writing and not have anyone to share it with – especially if you just wrote a great line or made a keen insight while writing.

Goldberg advises finding someone you can meet with once a week.  It might be a coffee house, a restaurant, or any place else that allows you to sit for an hour or two.  Use writing exercises to get going and set time limits on the writing.  Then read what you wrote to each other.  Doing this gets you out of your writing cocoon, makes you write, and provides you a listener and some feedback.

Lara, on the other hand, found in her own life that having an e-mail writing partner was very helpful.  Choose a friend who is a writer and commit to writing 500 words a day (don’t worry about it being in perfect form).  Send it to each other.  The other person reads what you wrote and notes what he or she liked about it.  Then your partner sends it back to you.  It’s that easy.  Writing 500 words a day can quickly add up to a story, book, essay, or whatever.  She suggests that if you hit a snag where you just can’t write, it’s okay to send 500 words from your favorite writers.  Just typing up that passage allows you the chance to see exactly how the writer crafts the story.  Setting up this type of relationships offers you a chance to be more productive and get the support you need to  continue writing.

One of the things I hear new writers – okay, more seasoned ones too – say is “Why bother?  Every story has been written, probably by people better than I.”  And, yes, if you are going to write your story with the same old plot, same old characters, same old everything, don’t bother.

What readers want is authenticity – going for the heart of the story.  You have a story in you that, on the surface may look like a stereotypical story – love lost, forgiveness, the death of a loved one – but you have a different way of looking at it than anyone else.  We all have our own unique slant on stories, but often we don’t show that “different” side of ourselves, because we fear people will think we are weird.

I wrote a story once about a woman who was unemployed for two years and felt she was going crazy.  There was a lot of interior dialogue to show what she was thinking.  Some of my nonwriting friends wondered if I had those kinds of thoughts, if I was okay.  I assured them I was fine, but had allowed my character to try and express the genuine fears she had about being in her 50s without any prospects of a job ahead.  I went as deeply into her psyche as I could – or maybe I should say, I let her go as deeply into her own psyche as she could, to say to herself the things she was unable to say to her friends and family.  My writing friends all understood, but it took a few heart-to-hearts with my other friends to convince them I was okay.  I actually felt pretty good about that – that I had entered into territory that was real and deep enough that they were worried – really for the character, but they couldn’t separate me from her.

That is what engages your reader and makes your story unique.

Truman Capote said we can’t be blamed for what our characters do – but only if they are acting on their own accord and not ours.  So, here are some ideas for testing your characters to see what they are really made of.

Place your character in several scenes and see if you know what he/she will do:

            Job interview he/she really doesn’t want

            Flirting at a bar

            Asking a partner for more time alone

            Dealing with death of a parent

            Winning $25,000 in the lottery

            Fighting with friend, child or parent

            With his/her therapist

            At a party with lots of people he/she doesn’t know

  Out in the country when his/her car breaks down at midnight

Have fun with this and see where your characters lead you.