Writer's Blog: Tips and Inspiration

Memoir Writing Prompts: What Your Stuff Remembers

If you’re looking for memoir writing prompts that are personal and specific to you and your life, you don’t need to look far. What you need is probably sitting on a book shelf or tucked in the back of a closet. The objects you live with every day are quietly holding your memories—you just need to ask them to speak.

After Joan Didion’s husband died, she couldn’t bring herself to give away his shoes. As she says in her memoir, Because somewhere in the back of her grief-stricken mind, she writes in her memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking, a part of her believed he might still come back—and he would need them.

Objects remember differently than photographs

Photos are wonderful memory triggers. If you’ve ever tried writing snapshot memoir, you know the magic of dropping into a moment captured by an image. But objects can have a different, maybe more immediate, impact.

Your grandmother’s mixing bowl, for instance, can conjure an entire experience:  Sunday mornings, flour on a dark countertop, the sound of your cousins’ laughter. Your father’s old toolbox can carry his whole philosophy of life: Fix what’s broken, make it last, do it yourself.

Objects carry sensory memory: weight, smell, texture, the specific way something felt in your hands. And that kind of memory goes deep.

For memoir writers, this is gold.

Your home is a memoir waiting to be written

Think about the objects around you that you’ve kept, the things that have followed you from apartment to apartment, relationship to relationship, decade to decade. What memories do they hold that you can mine?

Maybe you have a piece of jewelry you never wear but can’t part with. Or a book with someone else’s handwriting in the margins. Or a coffee mug from a place you used to love. These aren’t just things. They’re memoir writing prompts, hiding in plain sight.

You may not even know what an object means to you until you start writing about it. You think you’re writing about a mug, and then suddenly you’re writing about loneliness, or belonging, or a summer that changed everything.

A memoir writing prompt for you

Set a timer for ten minutes. Look around the room—or close your eyes and let an object come to mind. It might be something ordinary. It might be something you’ve stopped seeing because it’s so familiar.

Pick it up or picture it clearly. Now ask it some questions: Where did you come from? Who held you before me? What were you there for? What do you know about my life that I’ve never put into words?

Then write. Don’t edit, don’t overthink. Just follow the object wherever it leads. You may be surprised where you end up.

Ready to write your story?

If you’re feeling the pull toward memoir, toward getting your own story onto the page, I’d love to support you. Sometimes all it takes is the right question, and the right person to help you find your way.

As you’re considering writing your memoir, you might find my article “How to Write a Memoir” useful, as well as my books, Plotting Your Novel with the Plot Clock and Jamie Helps Mel Write a Novel.

I work with memoir writers at all stages of the process. Whether you’re just finding your way into your story or you have a complete draft, I can help. Visit my contact page, and let’s connect.

First-time memoir writers know they have a story to tell, but they’re not necessarily sure where that story starts, where it ends, or what to include in the telling of it. Most “memoir writing tips for beginners” hand you a bullet list of principles—show, don’t tell; find your theme; write with honesty. These are all important points. But just reading those principles may not help you get your book off the ground.

So instead of another list of principles, the “memoir writing tips for beginners” here are actually given in the form of an exercise with six steps—sort of like a treasure hunt!

Do all the steps over a weekend, or take them one at a time over a few weeks. Either way, when you’ve finished the exercise, you won’t just understand memoir writing better. You’ll have the actual beginnings of your book.

Step One: Exploring What Your Story’s About 

Start by spending some time with this question: What is your memoir actually about? You might think you already know: It’s about what happened to me! Which is true. But your memoir also carries the meaning of what happened.

For instance, maybe your story is about your time as a professional swimmer: the competitions you attended or injuries you may have sustained. But if you dig deeper, you might discover your swimming career was about belonging—or about what happens when your whole identity is built around what your body can do.

Good news: This is only the first part of the exercise! You don’t need to know the answer yet. You just need a thread to start pulling.

Exercise: Finish this sentence ten different ways: My memoir is about…

Step Two: Make a Timeline

Once you have a possible thread—what happened and the possible meaning of it—break your life into five-year chunks: birth to five years old, five to ten, and so on. For each period, jot down the basics: where you lived, the people who mattered to you, what you were doing.

Then ask one more question of each chunk: Do I see any threads of my story here? 

Step Three: Pull the Thread

Go back over what you discovered on your timeline and pull out anything connected to your thread(s). You might end up with a list of moments, conversations, people, events, or turning points. For instance, the swimmer might notice entries that touch on the theme of  belonging: a coach who made the team feel like family; a roommate at a meet who became a lifelong friend; the isolation of training alone before dawn.

This is where the shape of your memoir usually starts to show itself. Not in any single event, but in what the events have in common. One moment is just a memory. A pattern of moments can become a book.

Step Four: Write the Scenes

Pick a few moments from your list and just write them. Not chronologically. Not for a first draft. Just dive into the moment and write. What happened? Who was there? What did you notice? And, getting back to meaning making, what do you understand now that you didn’t then?

Write as many scenes as you like. Don’t worry yet about how they connect.

Step Five: What Got Clearer?

Consider this your book’s discovery phase. After writing those scenes, notice whether anything became clearer while you were writing. Did your sense of focus—the meaning of the scene—shift, sharpen, or get more complicated? What did your scene-writing tell you that your time line didn’t?

Eventually, most memoirists realize they’re not writing exactly the book they originally thought they were. That’s exciting! Allow the process to show you more about the story you’re telling.

Step Six: Write a “Synopsis”

You’ve done a lot already. This step is about consolidating what you’ve accomplished so far—not about creating marketing copy! It might take a few tries, but try to write just one paragraph that describes the version of your story you’ve discovered so far.

Include how you changed because of what happened to you, and what you hope to convey to a reader (the meaning). This is a way to catch up with your own thinking, and it’s a step that can be repeated as your story shifts shape on its way to becoming its truest self.

The Best Memoir Writing Tips for Beginners Are Not Rules

Notice what you learned about writing a memoir by doing this: You didn’t just read a definition of theme—you found your own, by asking what your story means rather than simply what happened. You didn’t just read about how to choose which events matter—you homed in on moments from your life that you feel belong in your book. You didn’t just read the phrase “show, don’t tell”—you wrote fully fleshed, engaging scenes. You didn’t just read about memoirists understanding more of their story as they write—you watched your own theme shift, right there in Step Five.

What a writing guide would hand you as a rule, you arrived at as an experience—that will stick. That’s why what you’ve got now isn’t just a stronger grasp of memoir. It’s the actual start of yours.

A Final Thought on Writing Memoir 

This may be counterintuitive, but “starting” your memoir isn’t really about writing your first chapter. It’s about digging in to discover exactly what story you want to tell. The best “memoir writing tip for beginners” I can offer is this: Give yourself permission to gather all that you’ll need to tell the whole story—events, ideas, remembered moments—before you begin your first draft. Your memoir will be all the richer if you allow your story to reveal itself one scene, one memory, and one honest question at a time.

Writing a memoir can be a deeply rewarding journey—but also a tricky one. Use the memoir writing tips for beginners above to get you started. Then you might find my article “How to Write a Memoir”useful as well. 

If you’re interested in my approach to writing, you might also take a look at my books:
Plotting Your Novel with the Plot Clock and Jamie Helps Mel Write a Novel.

Could you use some support as you write your memoir? I work with memoir writers at all stages of the process. Whether you’re just finding your way into your story or you have a complete draft, I can help.
Visit my contact page, and let’s connect.

Have you been trying to get some traction on your memoir—or simply find a way into your story? If so, these 10 memoir writing prompts might be just the ticket!

Because they are posed as questions, these 10 memoir writing prompts are designed to evoke a new memory, open a door that you may not even have known was there. Pick one that interests you and see where it takes you.

10 Memoir Writing Prompts: The Questions

Question 1) It seems (mostly) true that difficult passages end. What was the hardest period in your life? How did you make it through? What gave you hope to continue? Did you have help making it to the other side? And what did you find when you got there?

Question 2) We aren’t always in a position—emotionally or otherwise—to respond to even a wonderful opportunity. Have you ever been offered something you didn’t feel able to accept at the time? Has that haunted you? If so, how can you lay it to rest today?

Question 3) Are you a loner or are you a collaborator? Have you ever had to work against your preference? If you’re a loner, have you had to work in a team? If you’re a collaborator, have you had to complete something on your own? What did you learn about yourself from “working against your grain”?

Question 4) Have you ever successfully completed a phase of life or accomplished something hard won and noteworthy? How did you feel? Did you allow yourself to enjoy a sense of satisfaction? If not, why not? What door opened next?

Question 5) Can you recall a time when you were in a significant battle of the wills? Who won? Was it worth the fight?

Question 6) There are times when we need to persevere in the face of adversity or deep disappointment. Remember one of those. What did it take for you to keep going when the way forward seemed nearly impossible? Where did that strength come from?

Question 7) What has your relationship with authority been? Have authority figures helped or hindered you? Do you tend to trust authority? Challenge it? Avoid it? How has your relationship with authority affected the story of your memoir?

Question 8) When have you felt alone or abandoned? What helped you find your way when no one was coming to help? Who or what became your lantern?

Question 9) Do you remember a time when effort you put forth paid off beyond your expectations? When what you set out on the waves of fate returned to you like a ship full of silks and spices from a foreign land? Were you prepared for the abundance when it arrived? What surprised you most about receiving even more than you’d hoped for?

Question 10) What have you accomplished that took longer than felt reasonable? Was it worth it? How did the waiting change you?

And there they are: 10 memoir writing prompts, offered as questions in the spirit of Rainier Maria Rilke, who said, “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.”

Writing a memoir can be a deeply rewarding journey—but also a tricky one. This article offers guidance for shaping your story in a way that honors both your truth and your readers: “How to Write a Memoir.”   

If you’re interested in my approach to writing, you might also take a look at my books:
Plotting Your Novel with the Plot Clock and Jamie Helps Mel Write a Novel.

Would you like some support as you write your memoir? I work with memoir writers at all stages of the process. Whether you’re just finding your way into your story or you have a complete draft, I can help.
Visit my contact page, and let’s connect.

How Did Jane Austen Write a Novel from a Single Question?

It may not be immediately obvious, but Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is predicated on a single question! This post will show you how to write a novel from a single question, too.

At the beginning of the book, the Bennet family faces a problem. Mr. and Mrs. Bennet have five unmarried daughters. Because the family estate is entailed away from the female line, the daughters won’t inherit it. That means that when Mr. Bennet dies, the women of the family will find themselves in a precarious financial position.

This creates an immediate question: How will the Bennet daughters secure their future? This is not a romance question (yet). It’s a practical question. A survival question.

Watch the Question Evolve

Almost immediately, Austen introduces a wealthy newcomer, Mr. Bingley, who might be the answer to the family’s problems—and who is promptly drawn to the beautiful oldest sister, Jane. With that, Austen shifts the question slightly: Will Jane and Bingley marry, relieving the uncertainty of the family’s financial future and securing a true love match for sweet Jane?

While the reader is freshly invested in Jane’s story, another marriageable man appears: Mr. Collins, the male heir to the Bennet estate, who could also rescue the family if he married one of the girls. He latches onto witty Elizabeth—but he’s a dullard, and Elizabeth refuses him.

From this, we learn that Elizabeth is not willing to sacrifice her happiness for security—and we invest in a new question: Will Elizabeth find someone worthy of her intelligence, humor, and independent nature?

As the story continues, Mr. Bingley’s sour-faced but wealthy friend, Mr. Darcy, believing the Bennets beneath Bingley’s rank, separates Bingley from Jane—even as Darcy himself begins to show interest in Elizabeth, who dismisses him for what he did to undermine Bingley and Jane.

Then the youngest, wildest Bennet girl, Lydia, elopes with bad boy Wickham, and Austen raises the stakes again: in the social world of the novel, Lydia’s scandal threatens to ruin her sisters’ prospects, too. The original question—can this family secure its future?—comes snapping back, now sharper than before.

Fortunately, Lydia does marry Wickham; Bingley finally returns and proposes to Jane; and the initial question is resolved: the family’s future is secured by Bingley’s fortune.

But the question that has emerged as the emotional heart of the novel still remains: Will Elizabeth and Darcy find their way to one another? That final question carries readers through the last chapters, until the story reaches its satisfying conclusion.

The Single Question Changes Shape

Notice how Austen writes a novel from a single question! Rather than abandoning her original question, with every twist of the plot, she allows that one foundational concern to generate new questions:

• The Bennet family’s uncertain future leads to questions about Jane and Bingley.
• Those questions lead to questions about Elizabeth and Darcy.
• Lydia’s elopement raises the stakes and creates still more uncertainty.

Each development feels surprising, yet each one grows organically from what came before. The story keeps moving in unexpected directions, but the reader never feels as though the writer has changed the subject. Everything remains connected to the original source of tension.

When you’re writing a novel, it can be useful to worry less about adding new complications and, instead, explore the implications of a question you’ve already posed. One good question can contain a whole web of interconnected plot threads.

How to Write a Novel from a Single Question 

1. Identify the Opening Question: Look at the first chapter of your novel. What uncertainty exists? What question do you want the reader asking by the end of that chapter?

2. Follow the Trail: Choose three major turning points in your story. For each one, consider: What question was the reader asking before this event? What question are they asking afterward? Does the question narrow? Deepen? Change direction?

3. The Reader Test: Complete this sentence: “If I were the reader, I’d have to keep reading because I need to know…” Your answer may reveal the question that’s truly driving the story.

Final Thoughts

One reason Pride and Prejudice is so engrossing is that Austen continually gives readers something important to wonder about. But she doesn’t do that by raising a dozen unrelated questions. Instead, she begins with one compelling question and allows it to grow, branch, deepen, and evolve until it carries readers all the way to the final page.

Your novel can do the same. You don’t need a dozen plot threads. You need one question, asked early, that you let twist all the way through your story. One question strong enough to make your reader wonder: What happens next?

Want to discover how you, too, can write a novel from a single question? I work with novelists at all stages of the process. Whether you’re just finding your way into your story or you have a complete draft, I can help. Visit my contact page, and let’s connect.

If you’re interested in my approach to writing, you might take a look at my books: Plotting Your Novel with the Plot Clock and Jamie Helps Mel Write a Novel.

Are you writing a memoir? If so, is the process stirring things up? You may have thought you’d be ready for what the remembering brought with it. But if your emotions are rising, you could be wondering if writing a memoir is, inherently, a therapeutic process—and what that means for you.

The Early Stages of Memoir Writing Are Likely to Feel “Therapeutic”

In your earliest drafts, your job is to just get your experiences—the raw material of your memoir—on the page. If your writing feels messy and emotional at first, great! Give yourself all the permission you need to explore. Revisit events, re-evaluate relationships, and reconsider the perhaps shadowy aspects of your life in your own way and your own time.

Of course, this process is likely to be a bit of an emotional ride. It may be clarifying—but it can also be unsettling.

When You’re Writing a Memoir, Therapeutic Support Can Make a Real Difference

Writing a memoir can bring things to the surface that might be hard to navigate on your own. So having support—a therapist, a trusted friend, a writing community—can help a lot. Good support means you don’t have to carry everything that comes up all by yourself.

But Is Your Memoir-Writing Just Therapeutic? Or Are You Writing a Book? 

Of course, your writing doesn’t have to become a book. For some people, the experience of writing their memoir is absolutely therapeutic, and that’s enough. (Especially if they’ve had help working through their feelings during the process.)

But if you do want to take it further, if you you want to publish your memoir and have readers travel the life path you’ve written about, eventually you’ll start to shape the material you’ve written. That shift—from personal expression to narrative craft—is what will turn your exploratory, therapeutic writing into a book.

Distance Matters

When you swing the door open between writing for yourself and writing for your readers, you’ll shift from being the person who lived the experience to being the writer who shapes it. You’ll suss out the narrative arc and develop the characters in your story. You’ll refine and define, discovering what you want to include and what’s okay to leave out.

All of that begins with learning to look at your own material with an objective eye. Here’s a simple exercise to practice that skill.

Writing Prompt: From Raw to Cooked

Think of a situation from your life that was difficult: painful, confusing, charged, or just never resolved. Write it out for yourself first. Don’t worry how it sounds. Be awkward, be whiny, be angry, be wobbly, uncertain, inconsistent. This writing isn’t for anyone else’s eyes.

Once you’re done, let that piece cool on the counter of your laptop for a few days.

When you come back to it, see how you can shape the piece into something another person would be engaged by, could relate to. Here are some ways to approach this revision that might help:

• Make it a scene: Put the reader in the room. Where were you? What did you see, hear, feel physically? Sensory details like these make the experience you had available to the reader.
• Add context: What do you know that the reader doesn’t? Is there a detail, an element of backstory, or a relationship dynamic that you could name that would orient the reader? A single sentence can do a lot of work in this regard.
• Find the shape: Even a tiny scene can have an arc! Can you offer the reader a full experience with a beginning, a turn, and an ending? (Our raw writing often spirals; when we shape that writing for a reader, they arrive somewhere.)

The Raw …  

Here’s a raw journal entry, one that you might write in the aftermath of an unexpected, triggering experience:

I can’t. I just can’t. He was THERE and I saw him and he saw me and he just—I don’t even know. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what I felt. I don’t know why I’m writing this. I hate him. No. I don’t hate him. I just want him to know that I—what? That I’m in pain? That it mattered? That I mattered? God. I’m so tired of feeling like this. Why am I still feeling like this?

… And the Cooked

Now here’s that same moment, after a few days on the counter (and some crafting):

We hadn’t spoken in almost a year. I saw him across the lobby. I think he saw me too—but he just kept walking. No nod, no anything. I stood there for a minute, not really sure what to do. I’m still not sure what I was hoping would happen.

In the raw version there was no location, no time, no context—just feeling. In the cooked version, there’s a shape baked in to what we felt:

• Scene:  We’re in a lobby. The reader can see it.
• Context: “We hadn’t spoken in almost a year.” That one sentence that tells the reader enough about the relationship to orient them without dissipating the immediacy of the moment.
• Shape: It has a beginning (the narrator sees him), a turn (he keeps walking), and an ending (the narrator’s still standing there, still not sure what they wanted).

That’s a complete little story. That’s what you’re working toward.

Be Where You Are

But if you’re still in the early stages, still just getting it out, still letting it be hot and wild and unruly, good. That’s the work, the first work. Don’t rush yourself to the next stage. That writing, the words you spill on the page just for yourself, will be the solid foundation of every iteration of your story that comes after it.

Writing a memoir can be a deeply rewarding journey—but also a tricky one. This article offers guidance for shaping your story in a way that honors both your truth and your readers: “How to Write a Memoir.”   

If you’re interested in my approach to writing, you might also take a look at my books:
Plotting Your Novel with the Plot Clock and Jamie Helps Mel Write a Novel.

Could you use some support as you write your memoir? I work with memoir writers at all stages of the process. Whether you’re just finding your way into your story or you have a complete draft, I can help.
Visit my contact page, and let’s connect.

Writing a memoir is a deeply creative undertaking. It can be helpful to have a roadmap—or at least a compass. This article offers guidance for shaping your story in a way that honors both your truth and your readers: “How to Write a Memoir.”   

If you’re interested in my approach to writing, you might also take a look at my books:
Plotting Your Novel with the Plot Clock and Jamie Helps Mel Write a Novel.

Could you use some support as you write your memoir? I work with memoir writers at all stages of the process. Whether you’re just finding your way into your story or you have a complete draft, I can help.
Visit my contact page, and let’s connect.

If you’re interested in my approach to writing, you might also take a look at my books:
Plotting Your Novel with the Plot Clock and Jamie Helps Mel Write a Novel.

Could you use some support as you write your memoir? I work with memoir writers at all stages of the process. Whether you’re just finding your way into your story or you have a complete draft, I can help.
Visit my contact page, and let’s connect.

Often, memoir writers discover new layers of meaning while they’re writing.

They may:

• change their perspective
• deepen their understanding
• remember additional material
• or realize the memoir is actually about something different than they first thought

That unfolding process is not necessarily a distraction from the work. Often, it is the work.

A final thought

If your motivation fades while writing your memoir, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve chosen the wrong project. It may simply mean you’ve reached a more demanding phase of the process.

Memoir writing asks for:

• persistence
• reflection
• patience
• and a willingness to stay with uncertainty for a while

For many writers, this is what makes the process meaningful.

Writing a memoir can be deeply rewarding—but not necessarily easy. I’ve written an article that offers guidance for the journey: “How to Write a Memoir.”   

If you’re interested in my approach to writing, you might also take a look at my books:
Plotting Your Novel with the Plot Clock and Jamie Helps Mel Write a Novel.

Could you use some support as you write your memoir? I work with memoir writers at all stages of the process. Whether you’re just finding your way into your story or you have a complete draft, I can help.
Visit my contact page, and let’s connect.