Skip to main content

Anyone Can Write A Memoir




Memoirs are written recollections of personal experiences that are significant to you. They aren't the story of your whole life—that's a biography. Memoirs are made up of the stories we all have tucked into our memories awaiting transcription. It's when we put those moments of our life onto paper that we begin to truly understand ourselves. We can pass on that understanding of who we are by sharing those stories in book form to friends, family, and readers we may never even meet.

These stories might be about your childhood, travels or adventures, a crime or injustice that happened to you, or anything you want to write about, no matter how minor it may seem. You can write it yourself or hire a ghostwriter. Either way, you have to coax the story out of your subconscious—a ghostwriter can help with that in interviews.

If you find it difficult to pin down a story to tell, then jot down a few words about your life experiences. Don’t rush yourself, take your time to recall these events, and make notes about them. Often one will stand out as momentous and captivating. If that doesn’t happen then choose any of them. Now that you have a memory to focus on, use the five Ws to draw out the information you’ll need:

·      Who was with you? Describe their appearance, personality, what they were wearing, who they were to you, and how you felt about them?
·      When did it take place? Describe the time of day or night and the time period such as the year.
·      Where were you? Describe the feels, smells, sounds, tastes, of the place and what you saw.
·      What is the point of this story and what did you feel or think at the time? Try to write the emotions you experienced.
·      Why is this story important to you? Did it change your life or someone else’s life? How?

Now, you can write the first sentence of your memoir. The opening sentence is the most important one you'll write. If that first line doesn't draw the reader in, they won't read your memoir. There is no reason at all to start from the beginning. Instead, start at a moment of action or intrigue. If you need to let the reader know something about the chronological beginning, then sprinkle that in as the backstory.

Set a daily goal of writing 200, 500, 1,000, or 2000 words a day. Professional writers usually write 2000 words a day. Don’t worry about spelling, grammar, or sentence structure when you begin, just focus on getting the whole story down on paper. Professional writers call this putting aside the inner editor. This is the best way to make sure you finish the memoir.

However, you may feel you just can't make time to write your memoir or you've tried to write your memoir for years and it looks like you just aren’t going to do it. In that case, if you still want a memoir authored by you, you can always hire a great ghostwriter.


***

I am a ghostwriter, author of 35 published fiction books of my own, and I've ghostwritten two memoirs and one business book for clients as well as numerous blog posts and professional bios. Please visit my website - http://CorneliaAmiri.com for more information. 





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I Was An eBook Author Before eBooks Were Cool

I submitted my first book to Awe-Struck eBooks in the year 2000. I decided to go to the Predators and Editors list of publishers and submit to recommended sites only. That means the authors that wrote for them thought—the contracts were good, they paid on time, were easy to work with, knew what they were doing, etc.   
 I started at the front of the directory at A. Awe-Struck was the first on the list that was recommended and open to submissions for Historical Romances. Plus, they were interested in unusual time periods and mine was set in the dark ages, at the onset of the Saxon Wars. Awe-struck, the first publisher I submitted to, accepted my book and I signed a contract with them. The Fox Prince, later retitled The Celtic Fox, was released in January 2001. It came out in eBook format at that time and in print later that year.  
 The eBook could be downloaded anytime, anyplace to be read on a Rocketbook reader, a palm pilot, a laptop, or d...
2 comments
Read more

Book Stores And Self-Published Authors Part I

So now your book has been ghostwritten. It's finished. Or maybe you or you wrote a book yourself but are new to the industry. Either way, if you are self-publishing it and want it in bookstores, this article is for you. Picture books and books for young children are different and some nonfiction and literary fiction, but other than that, the following information applies to most book genres. You can market and sell books without having them in brick-and-mortar stores. Your books don’t need to be in bookstores for successful sale numbers. Not at all. In many ways, there is no benefit to having your book on a store shelf when you consider most print books are sold online by Amazon. You can make high sales without having your books on store shelves. Many successful self-published authors do not sell their books in stores. It is unnecessary, and this is certainly not a recommendation to go that direction, especially since you have to deal with the cost and hassle of returns of unsold p...
Post a Comment
Read more