How do you begin to write a memoir?
In many ways the principles are the same as when writing a novel.
The idea of memoir is much misunderstood - at least in my experience. Writers attempting memoir often seem to think that it is a just a matter of marshalling ‘interesting’ facts and memories, utilising research where necessary, and then putting those facts and memories down on the page. But what you end up with then is simply a scrap book - literally, a book of scraps.
As with a novel, it is structure, character and purpose that makes a memoir work ( along with that intangible factor ‘voice’).
A memoir usually has to conform to the three-act structure omnipresent in drama.
In the first act of a novel, you set the scene, introduce the characters, give the reader time to orientate themselves in the fictional world that has been created and set a question, or questions, that is going to keep the reader ( theoretically ) reading to the end.
In ‘Hamlet’ the question is , ‘will Hamlet kill his stepfather’?
In ‘The Scent of Dried Roses’ , my memoir, ( serialised elsewhere on the Boot Camp) the question is ‘why did my mother kill herself’?.
This framing of a question at the beginning of a piece of fiction or memoir is crucial, because it gives the protagonist - in the case of a memoir , the author - a quest, a journey.
As in fiction, it is not only a question, but a desire that catches the reader’s imagination. Usually, in the case of memoir, to find out something. In that sense, most memoirs resemble detective novels. Who was my father? ( ‘When Did You Last See Your Father’ Blake Morrison). Who was my brother? ( ‘ Shot in the Heart’ Mikal Gilmore, brother of the executed murderer Gary Gilmore). And whoever is ostensibly being written about, inevitably the question, ‘who am I?’.
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