You may be someone who, for better or worse, has lived through something dramatic—a sudden loss, a hard diagnosis, a family secret that finally came to light. If that’s you, a memoir may already feel like the obvious next step. But maybe your life looks “ordinary” from the outside. No big scandals, no life-threatening crises, nothing you’d really call a “story”? But you’re still feeling a nudge to write about your experiences? No worries! If that’s you, this post will help you see that your life is interesting enough to write a memoir.
The Comparison Trap
People often put off writing their memoir because of doubt. They may be measuring the dramatic value of their own life against that of someone else. Usually they’re comparing themselves to already-famous memoirists—particularly those whose stories arrived pre-shaped by trauma or fame. But that’s unfair. Sure, trauma and fame, while difficult to live through, are interesting to read about. And those experiences certainly offer a writer a core to their story those with more unremarkable lives have to go looking for.
But, obviously, most of our lives don’t come with that built-in center—and they don’t need to. Remember, whatever the level of drama a memoirist brings to the writing of their book, by the time we pick it up on Amazon, that story has been through years of drafting and professional editing to make it a compelling read.
The benchmark for a worthwhile memoir, in a reader’s eyes, isn’t really the intensity of experiences it covers. To a large degree it’s how well the story—ordinary or extraordinary—is told. Your life, at this stage, is still raw material. It hasn’t failed a comparison test; it just hasn’t been shaped yet.
Interesting vs. Universal
It also helps to separate two things you might lump together: being interesting and being universal. Again, a memoir doesn’t need to deliver drama. The telling of a more straightforward life just needs to share a truth that other people can recognize in themselves. Readers aren’t necessarily drawn to a memoir because the story is unusual. They are equally as likely to be drawn to a book in which the author has put language to feelings the reader may have had but never quite named.
That feeling may be quite ordinary, something we’ve all experienced. The ache of not being chosen, the dull realization that a marriage has gone quiet, the guilt of feeling relief after a loss. These emotions are not produced only by an extraordinary life. Those of us living ordinary lives feel these things as deeply. But no matter the details of the life we’re writing about, we will capture our readers’ hearts if we share the truths that lie beneath the events we’ve lived.
Then, readers will finish our memoir thinking not “what a rare life.” They’ll finish it thinking “I’ve felt that too, and I didn’t know anyone else had.” That recognition is “interesting”—and it’s available to any life, examined closely enough.
Showing Your Life Is Interesting Enough to Write a Memoir
An ordinary moment, told with honesty and sensory detail, can land hard. Compare “my mother was sick for a long time” to a description of the weight of the spoon in your hand as you fed her on the last morning she could still eat. The first is an objective observation. The second is a scene: personal, subjective. It’s a moment that invites your reader into the room and experience what you experienced.
This is an example of the writing advice “show, don’t tell.” Telling (“my mother was sick”) is an observation. No matter how sad or complicated the situation you’re naming, telling asks readers to take your word for it. Showing (the weight of the spoon, the angle of light, the words your mother said) lets them arrive at sad or hard or complicated on their own. A reader trusts a feeling they arrived at themselves far more than one they were asked to take your word for.
What Readers Actually Want
Readers pick up a memoir to feel less alone. To learn more about what it means to be human. That means the goal isn’t to present your most impressive moments, polished to a high shine. It’s to offer your most honest understanding of those moments—or the arc of the portion of your life you’re sharing. A polished, yet emotionally guarded account of even the most extraordinary events will move readers less than an open, truthful account of the course of more ordinary events. Readers can feel honesty from the first page. And no amount of drama can substitute for that.
Test: Is Your Life Interesting Enough to Write a Memoir?
One useful way to check whether you have enough for a memoir is this. Can you say what your story is really about? Do you know what underlies the events themselves? The growth you experienced through the experiences you had? So, not “my divorce” but what the divorce revealed about how you’d disappeared inside the relationship. Not “my mother’s illness” but what caring for her taught you about duty. If you can find that underneath layer, you have enough to write your memoir. Regardless of how quiet the surface of the story looks.
Small Life, Big Feeling
Some of the most beloved memoirs explore the interior of the lives they cover. H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald is a deep but quiet telling of the relationship between the author and a goshawk she trains after her father’s death. The Long Goodbye by Meghan O’Rourke, which explores her mother’s illness and death, takes place almost entirely inside one house. Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal is written as an A-to-Z of small daily moments—without plot.
Even if you happen to be famous, you can focus on the smaller aspects that make up an important portion of your life. Patti Smith is about as well known as a memoirist gets, but her book M Train is mostly her drinking black coffee in the same cafe, watching detective shows, and missing her late husband.
Rest assured though, you don’t need fame! Self-published South Island Tiny House by Corianne Holmes covers a single season in Holmes’s life during which she moves into a new country and a tiny home.
None of these books needed a big life—or loud moments. They just needed a close look at small moments that carried quiet impact on their authors’ lives.
The “Who Cares” Voice
Almost everyone who sits down to write a memoir hears some version of the same voice: who cares about this? It’s a first cousin to the question “is your life interesting enough to write a memoir?” Truthfully? You don’t know yet. You need to write your story to find your way to the answer. That “who cares” voice is loudest before there’s anything written to prove it wrong.
How do you prove it wrong? Write. Then share with a reader—even one reader—who can tell you about a specific moment that moved them.
Proving Your Life Is Interesting Enough to Write a Memoir
Still asking, “Is my life interesting enough?” Try this.
Set a timer for ten minutes and write five ordinary moments you still remember clearly. Not milestones, just moments. A moment in a cafe. A kitchen table. A car ride. A phone call you took standing in a doorway. Write without editing yourself. And don’t explain why they matter yet. Just list them.
Then pick one moment from your list and write for another ten minutes about what was actually happening underneath the obvious. What you wanted, what you were afraid of, what you couldn’t name at the time. If writing that made you feel something, or made you remember more than you expected to, you’ve found your way in.
Do this a few more times, on a few more mornings, with a few more moments. You’re not looking for your one big story yet. You’re looking for the pull: the moment that, once you start writing it, compels you to keep writing.
That’s your material. And that pull tells you your life is interesting enough.
I work with memoir writers at all stages of the process. If you’re wondering if your life is interesting enough to write a memoir, I can help you find the pivot points that will help you tell your story and engage readers. 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.