How to Get Started in Memoir Writing
6 minutes read
Sian Meades-Williams shares some practical advice for getting started with memoir writing, drawing on her experience as an award-winning author and features writer.
Tell all the truth, but tell it slant.
Emily Dickinson was wise as ever when she wrote those words. It’s a line that’s dominated writing courses for decades, and with good reason. Too often, we’re scared to tell the truth. While this might be the opening to a poem, it’s a line that always pops into my mind when I’m beginning a piece of memoir writing. Poetry and life writing have a key thing in common: whatever their theme or topic, they start with the writer.
Long before we’ve even considered taking a memoir writing course, we start to write with outpours in crayon about what we did on our holidays, what we want to be when we grow up, and why we love going to the beach or zoo. It is natural for us to put ourselves in the storm of the blank page, because we don’t know very much else. Children share with abandon.
When we do finally grow up, it’s easy for us to lose that natural instinct. Or rather, that instinct to share becomes marred with self consciousness. At some point in adulthood, we begin to second-guess ourselves. We learn the power and vulnerability that truth has, and the impact that our words can have on other people. We start to protect ourselves and somewhere, the truth can get lost. We all have incredible stories to tell, but something stops us.
How to Start Memoir Writing from Everyday Life
For writers, that instinct can still fight its way through if we practice enough, often when we least expect it. Memoir writing can be sneaky like that. When I wrote Centering, an essay that was longlisted for the Yeovil Literary Prize, I thought I was writing a piece about my new ceramics hobby. What actually came out was a piece about ceramics, women’s bodies, fertility and the many unexpected parallels I found between craft and life.
That essay began, as many early drafts of my work do, in the notes app on my phone. Just as the urge to write our stories can sneak up on us, I’ve learnt that I can sneak up on writing. If I had tried to sit at my desk in front of my computer and write an essay, I’d have been staring at a blank screen for hours. When I tinker away on my phone while I’m on the bus, I feel an ease in my words. Similarly, I reject a pretty notebook. I’d rather opt for the most basic – even ugly – choice in the shop. I don’t need the extra pressure of neat handwriting and being word-perfect. I want to be free to scribble and experiment with different phrases.
I can only tell the truth if I’m not checking myself. The most important thing is getting the words down, however they want to come. Editing is tomorrow’s concern.
Memoir Writing Prompts to Spark Your Story
Memoir writing can be confessional, sometimes big and dramatic, but so much of life writing is in the small moments. Those tiny details that we jot down and squirrel away, even though we don’t know their significance at the time. On a freezing cold morning in January, my ceramics teacher had told me ‘clay has a memory’, patiently explaining why I couldn’t simply patch up the tear in the bottom of the bowl I’d just thrown. Unbeknownst to my teacher, that single sentence stuck with me for months, and it became the heart of my essay. The small moments I recall throughout my day are what I draw on for memoir writing exercises. They’re small, but they lead into the things we want from a story: drama, connection and tension.
If everyone on a memoir writing course was handed a cheesegrater, they would each share something different about themselves. You could choose to write about a date. A line from a film. The taste of something. Memoir writing prompts can be entirely commonplace. Looking for connections, patterns, and detail, and then drawing these back to our own lives is the key.
Try 15 minutes free writing around one of those ideas and see where it takes you. Pick something new every day for a week, perhaps a series of items from the same room in your house, and examine your collection at the end of it.
Themes, repeat phrases and familiar topics will all start to present themselves. There will no doubt be a lot of sections that you don’t love, but in them you might just get one line, an idea, or a half of something that stands out. And that’s it. That’s your starting point.
Why Telling the Truth in Memoir Matters
This approach is far easier than heading straight for shock and awe. It’s so tempting, but you need the reader to be on your side before you get to that. Telling the truth slant allows the reader to get comfortable. When you lead with the truth, the reader learns to trust you. You’re not throwing everything onto the first page, you’re leading the reader to where you want them to go. And when we get that right, the reader will follow. We all want that moment as readers when something entirely unexpected happens. That’s as true in memoir writing as it is in fiction. We want the gasp, and that rarely comes in an opening line – the writer hasn’t earned it yet. As Emily Dickinson went on to say, ‘The truth must dazzle gradually.’
Some people think that memoir writing is one of the easiest forms of writing there is, but I think it’s the opposite. It’s enormously bold to centre yourself in your work with little else to bolster you. Writing without a world of plot and characters to do your bidding is anything but easy.
When we start out in memoir writing, we’re not just scared of telling the truth, often we’re scared of what truths we might uncover about ourselves.
Telling the truth slant doesn’t just make our words shine from a new perspective, it allows us a little self protection as we find them.
About the Author
Sian Meades-Williams is an award-winning author, poet, and features writer. Her journalism has been published by the New York Times, National Geographic, and The Sunday Times. She is the author of several non-fiction books and her historical novel-in-progress, Belville, won the Yeovil Literary Prize. She is also founder of the popular media industry newsletter, Freelance Writing Jobs.
Photo by Julie Kim.
If you’re interested in exploring memoir writing further, Faber Academy’s first six-month Writing a Memoir course is launching next month.
Taught by Margie Orford, this course is a deep dive into the art and craft of memoir, with sessions on every aspect you’ll need to take you from the bare bones of an idea to a finished piece of work. Along the way, you’ll hear from writers at the top of their game as well as industry experts – as well as meeting up to fourteen dedicated aspiring memoirists who you can take with you into your future writing career.
Find out more about the course here, and find all of Faber Academy’s upcoming non-fiction courses here.
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