5 Questions All Memoirists Need to Ask Themselves
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The COVID-19 pandemic has changed how we work, how we interact with others, and even how we write. There are few silver linings, but here is one of them: everyone is writing a memoir. Forgive my hyperbole but I can’t think of a better way to describe this tidal wave of personal storytelling. Whether it’s because more of us work from home, or we have less contact with loved ones, or there’s more time and motivation to reflect on the meaning of the lives we have lived — record numbers of everyday folks are picking up a pen or sitting down at a laptop to tell the world about themselves.
This is great news, because each one of us has a story to tell and a memoir is the perfect way to share your life and the lessons you have learned. As a book coach and ghostwriter, I work with many memoirists and the most common stumbling block — one that prevents many would-be authors from even beginning to write — can be summed up in one simple question: where do I start?
This is a great question because memoirs are about a part of your life — not your entire existence. People who have lived very full and interesting lives can sometimes struggle with including or deleting stories from periods outside of the era they are focusing on in their book.
When a potential client asks me “where do I start?”, I respond with a sequence of five other questions they must consider before embarking on writing their memoir. Once the prospective writer has good answers to at least three of the five questions, we know where they should start their story. We also have the beginning of an outline as well as guiding principles to shape their storytelling into a book that complete strangers will order online, read cover to cover, and tell everyone they know about.
Question #1: What Happened?
I offer a free “discovery call” to potential clients, whether they are looking for a book coach or a ghostwriter. In most cases, they’ve been thinking about writing a memoir for some time, but something has finally inspired them to reach out and ask for a little advice. I always begin with this question: “What’s your story about?” Or, phrased another way: “Tell me what happened.”
If the author tells me that they’ve lived such a fascinating life they don’t know where to begin, I rephrase my request: Tell me about the best part. This framing serves two purposes. For the author who wonders if their story would interest others, I can give them my instant feedback from just a short description of that particular slice of life. Equally important is identifying whether or not someone on my team of writers and coaches will be able to help this person share their story. From our experience, it’s better to have too much to tell than not enough. Until you tell us what happened to you, we don’t know if your story might be intriguing, instructive, and/or entertaining for book readers.
In very rare and exceptional situations, this question is the only one that needs to be answered. This person’s story reads like a spy thriller, or a classic rags to riches tale. It’s the kind of book that will get immediate interest from Hollywood because the narrative arc is familiar while still being a fresh take on universal themes. In short, most likely not your story. At least not yet.
So, let’s move on to the next question.
Question #2: Why Did It Happen?
As mentioned, memoirs are about a part of your life’s story — not its entirety.
You may have had decades of interesting experiences that lead up to the period in which your memoir takes place. In film and in novels, we would call this the “backstory”. Your life has one, too — a lot of backstory. Some of the backstory is relevant to your memoir’s subject, but a lot of it isn’t. To determine which parts of your life to include, simply retain the parts that explain why the main story happened.
For example, let’s say an author is an investment banker turned Buddhist monk. They are wondering if they should include their rebellious teenage years in the memoir or focus solely on the decade they spent on Wall Street and why they chucked a seven-figure salary to become penniless on the dusty streets of Thailand. If those teen years illuminate a character trait or lifelong yearning that brings them to the moment of buying a one-way ticket to Bangkok, the author absolutely must mention that youthful period of their life. It’s a part of their why — and could even be exactly where to begin the book.
Unfortunately, many first-time authors never get beyond Questions 1 and 2. Their book is about an interesting part of their life and includes some backstory. If they’ve had a little coaching, they would know to avoid telling their story chronologically, instead leading with the best part of the main narrative and then weaving backstory bits into the manuscript only after their reader was hooked.
If your writing skill and the tale you’re telling are of a very high calibre, your book can succeed while only answering these first two questions. For the rest of us mere mortals, we must soldier on and have a response to at least one more line of inquiry.
Question #3: What Does It Mean?
Many writers stop at Question #2 because this is where things get harder. It’s also the fork in the road where a client often starts thinking about hiring a ghostwriter instead of a book coach. They don’t know what their life means. They’ve been too busy dealing with personal trauma or making billions of dollars or winning an Olympic gold medal to have determined the point of it all. They mistakenly think their ghostwriter will decide what their life is all about.
But whether you’re working with a book coach or a ghostwriter, the good ones will guide you to answering this essential third question yourself, rather than doing so for you. Because it truly must be your answer.
Think about this from the reader’s perspective. They’re getting to know you through your story. The narrative is engaging and it keeps them turning the pages. They’re starting to like you. They’re pulling for you. They understand why your life turned out this way, but something is still missing: What does it all mean? What’s there to take away?
The reader cares about you — the person whose name is on the front cover. They want to know what this life means to you most of all. A memoir is not a self-help book. Readers don’t buy memoirs to fix themselves. They want to know the whole story, and that includes what it all means to you with the benefit of hindsight. Did you find what you were looking for? Was it worth the journey? What would you have done differently?
There truly aren’t any wrong answers for Question #3. And though some answers make for a much more satisfying reader experience, the goal is to find your way (either with some coaching or on your own) to the answer that feels true for you. When you identify and ascribe meaning to your life, or a period of time from your life, the story is complete.
These first three questions are, for most memoirists, the minimum that must be answered. Once you have responded to this trifecta, you will know exactly where to start.
But the journey doesn’t have to stop here. You can push the envelope with two more questions and see if those answers take your story to a level that makes a difference in the world.
Question #4: Why Does It Matter?
Pointing out to the reader why your story matters stretches the boundaries of the memoir genre. You’re now dipping your toes in the waters of current events, social commentary, leadership, or personal growth. This is not a bad thing. In fact, for many memoirists, this question is the x-factor that takes their total book sales from 200 copies to 200,000 copies.
Here’s an example: I’m working with a client that was at the centre of a tragedy in the 1990s. They were the whistleblower who exposed shockingly horrific behaviour and the heartbreaking losses caused by lack of oversight. But this happened almost 25 years ago. Yes, the narrative is still gripping (there has already been a movie made about these events), and if this book had been written 20-some years ago, the first two or three of my questions would have been enough. The challenge is to make the story relevant today, and this is where Question #4 works its magic.
Having gotten to know this particular author I can see themes in their story that resonate with #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter. There are also strong links to the struggles of indigenous people and the cultural and personal devastation caused by residential schools in Canada. The secret is to write about what matters to you, the author, right now. It doesn’t mean you have to get on a soap box or start a nonprofit to fix the wrongs of the world. A little goes a long way. You’re still writing a memoir, not a polemic.
If you can find some connection between what happened in the past and the personal, cultural, or societal happenings of today, then explore and make those links in your writing. You may be the one that finally opens someone’s eyes to an issue. Your narrative drew them in, but your message opened their mind.
Plant the seed and give it a little water, but don’t go overboard. If you want to stay true to the genre you want 95% of your book to be narrative. Stick primarily to your story but make it matter to more than just you. Doing this really well might get you on the coveted bestsellers list of the New York Times.
Question #5: Where Are You Going?
I recently spoke with a thirty-five-year-old woman who wants to write a memoir about a four-year period during her twenties. When she finished answering Question #1 (what happened?) I knew her book could earn a tremendous amount of attention. But she seemed troubled by her youth and inexperience, and how that might influence how people perceive her writing. I told her she didn’t need to sound like someone who had their life entirely figured out and was now on autopilot. How could you possibly do that at the age of thirty-five? The key was to write exactly as she is today, admit to what she can’t explain or understand, but also explore how coming to grips with what she did during those four years sets her up for a better life ahead.
This final question — where are you going? — is planting a seed. But the idea we want to nurture is inside your mind, not the readers’. Memoirists often think that the goal of their work is to “get the story out there.” What they don’t appreciate is how writing your own memoir can change your own life by giving you insight into who you are or helping you heal ancient wounds. Telling your story can give you such a radically different perspective on life that new doors will open for you and old ones will slam shut. Most authors don’t realize the transformative potential of writing a memoir until it happens to them. But it’s worth considering the possibilities up front because doing so can produce a much better book.
When you write your memoir as if it’s the middle of a story — where the next chapter is still an inviting mystery — it injects vitality into your narrative that is often lacking in historical retrospectives of a life well-lived. The goal is to see the writing experience as not only a reckoning with what has already happened, but also a key turning point toward what comes next. No matter your age, there’s still another chapter to come. Writing your memoir will have a tremendous impact on living out that next part of your story and acknowledging this from the get-go can make all the difference in the tone of the book.
This is a type of mental (and even spiritual) gymnastics that does not have to be explicitly described in the book. It's more about your mindset. The purpose is to imagine the writing experience as something powerful and personally transformative which can reveal unseen potential. Maybe this really is the best answer to “Where do I start?” You start with imagining how your book could beneficially alter the rest of your own life. Start with that and then see where your story takes you.
Steve Donahue is a professional speaker, book coach, and the author of two bestselling nonfiction books. His works have sold over 100,000 copies and have been translated into Korean, Turkish, Russian and Greek. Steve helps new and experienced authors turn their book ideas into well-crafted publications that delight readers and inspire change. To learn more, visit his website at MyBookCoach.ca.
