A memoir is a story about a specific time period or set of events in your life. Focus on overcoming adversity, pivotal moments, or life-changing experiences that can serve as inspiration to your readers.
A memoir can be a powerful tool. The story you share can guide and benefit others by encouraging, uplifting, inspiring, and teaching your reader.
That said, your success as a memoirist depends on choosing the right topic. Before you brainstorm possible topics, it helps to remember what a memoir is and what it isn’t.
A memoir is a story about a specific time period or set of events in your life. This is not to be confused with an autobiography, which is broader in scope, covering your life from birth through adulthood.
As you consider what to focus on in your memoir, concentrate on specific topics, time periods, or themes, rather than your “life story.”
What to include in your memoir
We all have favorite stories from our past. Some are meaningful to our intimate circle of family and friends while others could speak to a wider audience. Your book should tell a story that would interest and benefit readers who don’t already know you.
Here are examples of stories that could draw a wide audience.
Difficulties you have overcome
I call these “overcomer stories” because you, the author, share how you were able to overcome difficult circumstances.
Difficult circumstances in memoirs are often beyond the author’s control, such as abuse, infidelity, death, illness, job loss, or other unforeseen events. Your response to these unwanted circumstances drives the central action of the story.
Nancy Jo Nelson wrote Lessons from the Ledge: A Little Book About Big Stuff to dredge the fallout from her husband’s suicide, which happened in the middle of their divorce. Nelson didn’t choose this agonizing road, yet she found a way to support her family, work through the grief, and come to peace with what happened.
A popular book-to-movie overcomer story is Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, about her solo hike of the Pacific Crest Trail after her mother’s death and her own slide into drug abuse. Strayed grapples with her cruel circumstances by choosing a tangible journey to test her mettle.
If you’ve faced difficult circumstances in your relationships, career, health, or some other area of life, writing an overcomer memoir might be what you embark on.
A pivotal moment
Sometimes a memoir’s story is not put in motion by a set of circumstances but by one pivotal event that changed your life.
Memoirist Jes Averhart calls these “crucible moments,” and they birthed the idea and title of her memoir, Out of the Crucible, set to publish later this year. Her crucible moment involves the search for her biological father, and her interest in this life-changing event drove the theme of her memoir.
Sometimes, pivotal moments arrive at the end of life. Physician Paul Kalanithi wrote When Breath Becomes Air to process the change in his life after he was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer at age 36. This redefined Kalanithi’s definition of a meaningful life and changed his perspective on nurturing his new baby.
If you can point to a moment in your life and show how it changed you, consider writing about it.
An amazing experience
Maybe you had a thrilling or impactful experience that you’ll always remember. While the average reader may not want to know about every cool trip or touching moment in your life, some experiences are so fantastic, or reveal something so universal, that you should share them.
AfterLIFE: Waking Up from My American Dream by Carlo Sanfilippo included many of his most memorable experiences from mid-life. His determination to say “yes” to opportunities led to amazing memories of trips to Italy and the discovery of distant family there. The memoir works because Sanfilippo delves into something most readers can relate to: the desire to know what constitutes “the good life.”
Likewise, Braving It: A Father, a Daughter, and an Unforgettable Journey into the Alaskan Wild, by James Campbell, recounts a father-daughter coming-of-age adventure in the Alaskan wilderness. It reveals as much about the dynamic between fathers and daughters as it does about Alaskan trekking.
An accomplishment
Everyone loves to see a narrator reach a goal. It reassures readers that they, too, can attain their loftiest ambitions.
Lindsey Jacobs wrote Stronger: From Trials to Triathlete to Triumphant about her struggle to train for an Ironman Triathlon while adjusting to life as a divorcee. The Ironman was something she could point to as a concrete accomplishment. It served as a metaphor for the less tangible accomplishments in life, like overcoming a fear or learning independence.
Mary Rechkemmer-Meyer wrote her memoir I Meant It for Good: A Memoir of Dreaming, Visualizing, and Becoming My Authentic Self about her process of visualizing, planning, and then attaining a fulfilled life. The reader follows a woman who dreams an ambitious dream, goes after it, and achieves it. Because Rechkemmer-Meyer did it, readers believe they can, too.
Childhood or adolescence
Writing about childhood can be tricky because not every writer’s childhood is the most interesting part of their life. However, conflict and challenges happen to children, too. If your childhood story has some type of struggle at its center that adults could relate to, it may work for a memoir.
Storming the Tulips, by Hannie J. Voyles, is a particularly dramatic example. It chronicles the experience of several children who survived World War II in Amsterdam. Likewise, memoirist Saeed Jones’s book, How We Fight For Our Lives, is a window into the struggles of growing up black and gay in the South.
Not every childhood or adolescent memoir must feature abuse, trauma, or horrific war stories, but it should have some obstacle that will speak to grown readers.
Best Practices
After you select a topic, you’ll want to check out some best practices for memoir writing. It’s not as simple as writing down all the important moments of your story in the order they occurred. You need to think about:
- Developing the concept
- Making the story memorable
- Connecting with your readers
- How to market a memoir
- Crafting stellar prose
I am going to write a historical novel which is, I think, a Memoir as well. I have a series of letters written by my husband’s Great Grandfather from the Australian Goldfields to his family in England, spanning 40 years. The letters still exist, in full, over 140 years later. They chronicle his life’s hopes and disappointments, and factual information about the gold mines he managed. His two sons also traveled all over Australia, often with him, seeking their fortunes. Details are included about the lives of the sons’ wives and children left behind (one being my husbands father) , and their struggles and triumphs. It is an epic true story, which can be told in his own eloquent words. The ending is tragic for Great Grandfather and also holds an unsolved mystery of what became of my husbands Grandfather who disappeared in outback Western Australia in 1912. I would greatly appreciate any advice you can offer me. I have self published a non fiction book already (available via Bookbaby) “New Baby 101 – A Midwife’s Guide for New Parents” (Third Edition).
I did write an autobio (memoir) and included all of the suggested items. I did it for fun and as a legacy for my kids and grands. Several others read it, loved it, and have been pushing me to publish it. I did speak with BookBaby as my desire was not to put in personal effort to self publish it but to have them take the reins and just do it. The dilemma is the fee to do so is over $2,000 not including copyright or proofing and I have no idea where it may lead or if it will be just an expensive exercise in futility. For now I’m just happy with the book!
Great tips
Wendy, I appreciate your comment. To me, and how and what I teach, we are always in the midst; I look at the writing and the expression as an ongoing conversation–one that has no particular beginning nor ending, just a continuation of ideas, discoveries and expressions. I think of a “last chapter” as a good place to pause in our own exploration. :-) thanks for bringing this question up!
You haven’t read Brave New World, have you?
What if what we need to tell isn’t “overcoming”? What if it’s a real-life “Brave New World” and we simply haven’t gotten to the last chapter yet?