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.