Breaking Down the Key Elements of a Memoir

A memoir is a nonfiction book that presents a firsthand retelling of a period in an author’s life. It does not document the memoirist’s entire life story but rather a selected era or a specific multi-era journey. Alternatively, a memoir may concern its author’s entire life but through a particular lens—such as the events leading up to and surrounding their professional career. As such, a memoir is comparatively focused when considered side-by-side with an autobiography.

From Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes to Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love to Joan Didion’s A Year of Magical Thinking, the best memoirs combine a number of elements to convey their story to the reader. Here are the essential elements that great memoirs have:

1. 1. A theme: When writing a book of your life experiences, it’s tempting to try to write every interesting personal story that has occurred in your life. However, memoir writing should focus on a specific theme or lesson, and every compelling story included in a good memoir should support that theme. When people read your memoir, what do you want them to take away? What’s the overarching lesson that you want to relay? A consistent, engaging theme is a hallmark of a great memoir.
2. 2. Obstacles: Once you’ve settled on your theme, it’s time to outline the key events of your memoir. Memoirists will often tell the story of a specific time period in their life when they wanted something (such as professional or career success) or needed something (like relief from addiction or a time to process grief). Memoir writers can facilitate the writing process by outlining the major obstacles that stood in the way of achieving their goals. After all, you are the main character in your own memoir, and like any protagonist, readers want to see you face and overcome obstacles.
3. 3. Emotional beats: The best memoirs take the reader on an emotional journey. Writing in the first-person point of view allows you to not only tell your story but to relay the emotional impact of each specific memory. What was the most emotionally devastating moment of your story? What were the important events that made you feel hopeful or joyful? When were you the most frightened? Readers want to experience your emotional arc alongside your narrative arc.
   
4. 4. Supporting stories: Writing memoirs involves plumbing the depths of your real-life story and presenting those key events with honesty and transparency. That’s why one of the essential elements of a memoir is gathering supporting stories from other sources. If your memoir is a coming of age story about your youth, it may be helpful to interview your friends or family members who were around you at the time. You may find that they remember events differently than you do or have additional stories that can help flesh out your manuscript.
5. 5. Personal style: Writing memoirs is an opportunity to tell a story from your life, but it’s also a chance to tell that story in a way that nobody else can. That’s where your personal writing style comes in. Each page should be filled with your own personality and point of view. Your style might be tonal: When people read a David Sedaris memoir, they can be sure to expect some of his signature humor. Your writing style might be more formalistic in nature. Perhaps you present the events of your memoir out of chronological order, relying on flashbacks and flash-forwards to destabilize the reader. Only you know your personal style, and it should be present in every line.
6. 6. Honesty: One of the defining characteristics of a memoir is brutal honesty. Remember, readers pick up a memoir expecting a true story. Readers are smart. They can tell if something in your memoir feels untrue. If they suspect that the events in the memoir are false, it can permanently damage the relationship between author and reader. That’s why you must be willing to tell your story in an unflinching and honest way.
   

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