Memoir Basics for Beginners
If you’re new to memoir writing, it can be surprisingly hard to know where to begin. Do you start with your birth? Maybe! (But probably not.) It all depends on the story you want to tell. The following memoir writing basics will help you know where to start your story—and where to go from there.
Memoir Writing Basics: What You Need to Know
First things first. A memoir is not meant to cover your entire life—that would be an autobiography. Instead, a memoir tells the story of either a particular time in your life (for example, the summer you were a ball girl for the Boston Red Sox) or a focused topic across a longer period (your life with horses, for example).
Cheryl Strayed’s memoir Wild focuses on a particular time, her solo hike of the Pacific Crest Trail—while Jeanette Walls’s memoir The Glass Castle considers a topic, her relationship with her family, over decades. And then there’s Mary Karr, who’s written three memoirs, each about a specific period of her life.
Whatever your approach, a memoir is characterized by focus. Rather than being restrictive, the frame you choose makes your story stronger, because it encourages you to dive deep enough into either the event or the topic for meaning to emerge.
Memoir Writing Basics: What You Need to Know About Telling Your Story vs. Sharing Your Message
While some memoir writers want to simply tell their story, many have a particular lesson or message to share. It’s a continuum.
On one end:
- narrative memoir
→ focuses on telling a story, allowing meaning to emerge through experience
In the middle:
- message-driven memoir
→ still rooted in story, but shaped more intentionally around a central idea, rather than around events and their meaning to the author
On the other end:
- self-help or prescriptive writing
→ organized around advice, with personal experience used to support it
A Well-Trained Wife, by Tia Levings, is a narrative memoir. It’s pure, compelling story. In it, Levings tells “about [her] race to save herself and her family and details the ways that extreme views can manifest in a marriage.”
The Healing Path, by James Finley, is more of a message-driven memoir. His book is described as “a contemplative reflection on the spirituality of healing … drawing on his lessons from Thomas Merton…. It is largely written in the form of a memoir of his own recovery from the traumatic wounds of his early life.”
On the other hand (third hand?), in Daring Greatly, author Brené Brown instructs her readers in the art of vulnerability, drawing deeply on her own experiences to do so.
Wherever your book falls, you’ll want to find a structure that supports your intention.
- A more narrative memoir leans on scenes and (usually) a chronological progression
- A more message-driven piece may group material around themes
- A self-help approach organizes clearly around ideas or steps
If you find yourself wanting to explain, teach, or guide the reader, it can be helpful to ask:
Am I writing a memoir, or am I moving toward something more like self-help?
Focus on Meaning, Not Just Events
Even when you’re writing a narrative memoir, though, what happened is only part of the story. What matters just as much is the meaning you gleaned from those events. As you’re writing, consider how you perceived those situations at the time and how you understand them now.
Ask yourself:
- What did I believe was true in those moments?
- What was I trying to understand or make sense of?
- What did I not see or know at the time?
- What surprised me about what happened?
- What stayed with me long after the moment passed?
- Where was the tension—what felt unresolved or unsettled?
- What changed because of this experience, even in a small way?
- What questions did this experience leave me with?
- What would I say now to the version of myself who lived through this?
Questions like these will help you find the sturdy bones of significance in your experience and polish them to gleaming for your readers. Because, as Ursula LeGuin said, we read “to find out who we are … what it is to be human.”
And that is never more true than when we read memoir.
Your Memory Presents Moments Like Photographs
You likely don’t remember your life as a continuous narrative. What you remember are moments—scenes—specific instances you can see and hear again if you pause long enough. Something is happening. Someone is there. You can locate yourself inside the moment.
You might remember:
- the kitchen table where a difficult conversation unfolded, the way the light came in through the window
- the exact words someone said to you—and the moment you realized what they meant
- the feeling of standing somewhere, waiting, not yet knowing what was about to happen
- the smell, the weather, the quality of the air in a moment that stayed with you
Trying to tell your whole story, starting at the beginning and writing through to the end, can be quite daunting. It may be easier—and more effective—to capture evocative moments that arise from any point in your story. These might include fragments of dialogue or small, specific details that have stayed with you, like the scent of someone’s perfume or the tension of an argument.
These are the building blocks of a memoir. They’re also what engage a reader. A memoir comes alive through moments, not summaries.
As you begin to gather scenes, you may start to notice patterns—what repeats, what matters, what still feels unresolved. From there, a loose outline can begin to take shape. You don’t need to force that structure. Let it emerge from the material you’re already writing.
And when you work this way, something else tends to happen: your natural voice comes through on its own. You don’t need to try to sound like a “writer.” In fact, that usually gets in the way. Clarity, specificity, and attention to what actually happened will do more for you than polish at this stage.
You don’t need to know yet how everything fits together. Just start getting the scenes down. The shape of your story—and the way you tell it—will become clearer as you go.
Memoir Writing Basics: Start by Writing for Yourself
Memoir has it’s own challenges. When we’re writing about our lives, there may be things we feel conflicted about sharing. That’s natural. The good news? You don’t have to decide what’s going to make it into print and what’s not—at least not yet!
Your first draft doesn’t have to be something you show to the world. It can be private—something you write for yourself, or share only with a trusted writing partner, group, or coach. If you find yourself hesitating to write because some of your story feels too personal or makes you feel exposed, remember, you can always:
- change names later
- soften or remove material
- decide what belongs in the final version
Memoir is shaped through writing and revision. You’ll find that patterns emerge, focus strengthens, and connections become clearer over time. In your first draft, your job is simply to write your story as honestly as you can.
If you liked these memoir writing basics, which include some things you need to know before you start writing, you might also find my article “How to Write a Memoir“ helpful. 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.