How to write a memoir

Everyone, it’s said, has a story to tell, and a memoir is one way to use your own life as literary fuel. You may have astounding adventures to recount, grief to uncover or the entirely relatable joys and sorrows of everyday life – the trick is knowing how to transform scattershot memories into an engaging, well-structured story.

It may sound obvious, but the first thing you need to decide on is what you’re going to write about. Our minds are full of memories, from childhood remembrances, to recollections of teenage angst, the unruly recall of relationships gone bad and scrapbook impressions of friendships. Each of these are remarkable, but there may not be enough there to turn them into a long piece of prose. Make sure the story has staying power – spend an hour writing an unedited splurge of words, and if you’re still interested in going on, that’s a good sign.

Decide on how you want to tell the story. Unlike an autobiography, which starts with the beginning of a life, and heads chronologically onwards, you can pick a more creative style for a memoir. You can concentrate on just one day, a decade, or a month that is important to you. You can think in chapters, or in short episodic, fragments, beginning in the far past with important family history, or just tell it in the here and now – unfurling your story in the present describing it as it happened, in the order it happened.

Do some research – plunder old diaries, listen to records, look at images online of fashions and places that are relevant to your story – these lovely details can reignite forgotten memories and they help to make your story vivid and individual – you’re inviting the reader into your world and you want to be able to hear, see and feel what it’s like there. (see p70 for more advice on recalling and even making memories)

Read. There’s no better way to learn – hopefully our list will give you plenty of inspiration.

And write – just start and see what happens, it’ll be an adventure in itself.