So . . . What do you think? Should you write a memoir?
Sure! Why not? The process is satisfying, a lot of fun, and even can be healing. You don't have to be a writer to do it. And, if there's something in your past that you don't want to write about, then you don't have to. Or, if you do decide to write about a painful or embarrassing episode, you don't have to show what you write to anyone else, much less publish it.
A few years ago I was asked to develop a series of hands-on workshops on how write a memoir for San Francisco's now defunct Center for Learning in Retirement (CLIR). These workshops were a great success. Although there was some typical shyness at the beginning, eventually everyone was drawn in to share their wonderful stories, laughing together, or crying together, but defintely cheering each other on. I will be posting tips and prompts from those workshops to help you get started too. Or, you can make use of one or more of the many very good "how-to"s out there on memoir writing. In addition, I'll be posting some personal examples, starting with my mother's memoir "Step-father," which I edited and foot-noted. I think it's a pretty good piece about growing up female in Akron during the early decades of the Twentieth Century.
What is a memoir?
Certainly there is a broad range of media that count as forms of memoir today: notebooks filled with family stories; scrapbooks of labeled photos and home movies, archived documents, and paragraphs composed to connect various multi-media elements together; websites can work as memoir too; and of course there are books (both published or publishable). At one end of the memoir spectrum, lies fiction (one of my favorite examples: Alice Munro's View from Castle Rock). At the other end, lies genealogy (an organized collection of carefully documented facts about family, specifically births, marriages, and deaths). In between is sandwiched everything else, from heart wrenching survival stories to celebrity tell-alls to quite accurate personal narratives of life and experiences in times and places near and far.
As one might expect there are differing views on the need for scrupulous accuracy in memoir. Some say a little fictionalizing is just fine if the writer retains a solid core of "truth." Others argue that one must always try to tell the truth, although it's usually okay to spice up the story with a changed name or some dialogue, so long as there's some real basis for what you do. I believe that memoir represents an interesting journey, navigating through the shades of truth that inevitably color human memory without racking up on the shoals of the outright lie.
Does memoir differ from autobiography?
I think so. Generally, memoir tends to be shorter and less comprehensive than autobiography. Often, memoir focuses on a specific aspect or theme in the author's life, for example: my journey across the United States by Greyhound Bus, growing up on an Iowa farm, raising a disabled child, building a banking business, finding love. There is no rule that memoirs must be all inclusive, or even that memoir be held to the same standard of historical accuracy or objective truth that one expects from either biography or autobiography. It's all about perspective, after all: "This is how I recall what happened" or "This is how events appeared to me then". These are tropes from the world of memoir, not autobiography.
But I' just an ordinary person who has lived an ordinary life. Why should I write a memoir?
I hear this all the time, and you may well be a quite ordinary person--whatever that means. On the other hand, you may not be so ordinary at all. In fact, it's remarkable how many obviously extra-ordinary people feel themselves to be quite ordinary. But whatever you are, it doesn't really matter for memoir. The fact is that the sheer act of writing memoir is both fun and satisfying. It's like being freed to talk about your experiences in life, without boring anyone--not something that happens very often in any sustained way. Probably there are many aspects of your life you haven't thought about or spoken of in a long time.
Here are some of the reasons my students cite for writing their memoirs:
A few years ago I was asked to develop a series of hands-on workshops on how write a memoir for San Francisco's now defunct Center for Learning in Retirement (CLIR). These workshops were a great success. Although there was some typical shyness at the beginning, eventually everyone was drawn in to share their wonderful stories, laughing together, or crying together, but defintely cheering each other on. I will be posting tips and prompts from those workshops to help you get started too. Or, you can make use of one or more of the many very good "how-to"s out there on memoir writing. In addition, I'll be posting some personal examples, starting with my mother's memoir "Step-father," which I edited and foot-noted. I think it's a pretty good piece about growing up female in Akron during the early decades of the Twentieth Century.
What is a memoir?
Certainly there is a broad range of media that count as forms of memoir today: notebooks filled with family stories; scrapbooks of labeled photos and home movies, archived documents, and paragraphs composed to connect various multi-media elements together; websites can work as memoir too; and of course there are books (both published or publishable). At one end of the memoir spectrum, lies fiction (one of my favorite examples: Alice Munro's View from Castle Rock). At the other end, lies genealogy (an organized collection of carefully documented facts about family, specifically births, marriages, and deaths). In between is sandwiched everything else, from heart wrenching survival stories to celebrity tell-alls to quite accurate personal narratives of life and experiences in times and places near and far.
As one might expect there are differing views on the need for scrupulous accuracy in memoir. Some say a little fictionalizing is just fine if the writer retains a solid core of "truth." Others argue that one must always try to tell the truth, although it's usually okay to spice up the story with a changed name or some dialogue, so long as there's some real basis for what you do. I believe that memoir represents an interesting journey, navigating through the shades of truth that inevitably color human memory without racking up on the shoals of the outright lie.
Does memoir differ from autobiography?
I think so. Generally, memoir tends to be shorter and less comprehensive than autobiography. Often, memoir focuses on a specific aspect or theme in the author's life, for example: my journey across the United States by Greyhound Bus, growing up on an Iowa farm, raising a disabled child, building a banking business, finding love. There is no rule that memoirs must be all inclusive, or even that memoir be held to the same standard of historical accuracy or objective truth that one expects from either biography or autobiography. It's all about perspective, after all: "This is how I recall what happened" or "This is how events appeared to me then". These are tropes from the world of memoir, not autobiography.
But I' just an ordinary person who has lived an ordinary life. Why should I write a memoir?
I hear this all the time, and you may well be a quite ordinary person--whatever that means. On the other hand, you may not be so ordinary at all. In fact, it's remarkable how many obviously extra-ordinary people feel themselves to be quite ordinary. But whatever you are, it doesn't really matter for memoir. The fact is that the sheer act of writing memoir is both fun and satisfying. It's like being freed to talk about your experiences in life, without boring anyone--not something that happens very often in any sustained way. Probably there are many aspects of your life you haven't thought about or spoken of in a long time.
Here are some of the reasons my students cite for writing their memoirs:
- The process of writing these stories brings back so many memories I thought I'd completely forgotten. It's quite an amazing and very pleasurable experience!
- I am writing my stories down so future generations will know I was a real person, not just a name on some genealogical chart.
- I write so the stories my parents and grandparents told me won't die with me.
- Some of the things I did and the experiences I had when I was young seem very remote today. I want my children and my grand children to understand how it was then, where I came from, and why I am the way I am.
- Telling stories has helped me work through and understand painful experiences. Writing these stories has produced a sense of peace about my past.
- I'm too old to keep secrets any more. Now I can say what really happened.
- When I work on my stories, I relive my past and assess its meaning. It's been an interesting experience to see how my perceptions about myself have changed through this experience.
- I'm creating a legacy for my kids and for future generations. I hope they'll treasure these stories, since I won't be leaving them much money. I hope they will help them understand who they are. I wish my parents had left me their stories!
- I don't have any family, but my ordinary life is part of the social history of life in San Francisco. I'll give these stories to the historical society to archive. Maybe in a hundred years some graduate student will mine all the specific details I put in for a research paper.
- No one else knows how to tell my stories quite like I do.
- Finally, I am beginning to get the story of my own life straight!