10 Tips for Writing Memoir

You have a unique story that only you can tell. And the way that you tell it matters. Even the world’s best story—winning the World Cup, walking on the moon, dipping into death and returning to life—needs to be told well. 

Here are a few ideas to help you write your story in the most compelling way.

1. Offer a Unique Angle

Your story—a difficult childhood, your cancer journey or disillusionment with church—must have a unique angle, or slant. This fresh angle needs to grab the reader. How is yours unique?

2. Meet a Felt Need

Your memoir needs to meet the reader's felt need. To keep the reader turning pages, there must be something in it for her/him. What's the benefit for the reader?

3. Ignore your internal critic.

Silence the inner voice saying you’re doing it wrong or should probably just stop and make a sandwich. Write now; edit later.

4. Tell the truth.

Notice your own resistance to truth-telling. Being bullied by an instinct to protect, yourself or others, deprives readers—and you!—of the surprising gifts truth brings forth.

5. Develop a clear theme.

Are you after adventure?  Hunting for healing?  Identifying your fundamental theme, or “red thread,” allows you to skim off extraneous material in the editing stage.

6. Exercise chronological creativity.

Sometimes telling your story from conception to the present moment works. Be open, though, to the ways a reordered narrative might serve the story.

7. Employ dialogue.

Dialogue lubricates the flow of the narrative.  It gives the reader critical insight into characters without telling the reader about them. 

8. Show transformation.

Throughout the book, the reader should be able to see the main character change, grow, transform. Have you done this?

9. Avoid painting yourself as the victim or the hero.

Abigail Thomas writes, “Memoir should never be self-serving, even accidentally.” Avoid “poor little me” and “good little me.”  Jeanette Wall’s Glass Castle does this beautifully.

10. Read memoir. But be you.

Notice when memoir makes your heart soar (or sore) and when you want to set the book down to take out the trash. Don’t try to sound like Anne Lamott. Be you. It’s better that way.

Cheering you on,

Margot

Crafting a Book Proposal? Don't Submit Yours Without Reading These 10 Tips

*In the comments today you can ask any book proposal related question. Go!

Every sentence of your book proposal should have one person in mind, and it's not you: it's the reader. Your job is to meet the reader’s needs—both that first reader, the agent or publisher, and the eventual one—by communicating efficiently and effectively.

1. Don’t get visually fancy.

Elaborate fonts, colors and graphics distract. Use Time New Romans 12 pt font in a Microsoft Word doc or PDF. Rule of thumb? Keep it simple.

2. Use plain language.

High-fallutin’ intellectual language is only appropriate for academic books. More often, communicate using a conversational voice.

3. Write in the third person.

Compose proposal in the third person, as if your agent or a professional collaborator has prepared it—allowing you to brag a bit.

4. Be clear and concise.

When a reader sets down your proposal, he or she can easily identify the premise of your book. Make the reader’s job easy: don’t use more words than are necessary to communicate effectively.

5. Avoid extremes.

Claiming every person always feels a certain way distracts reader by challenging her to search for an exception. “Most” and “often” are more effective.

6. Communicate value for the reader.

Throughout your proposal, make explicit the takeaway value for the reader who purchases and reads your book.

7. Title effectively.

  

Your working title suggests the book’s premise and the subtitle its promise. Avoid titles that are either too generic or too clever—both making the premise difficult to identify.

8. Prove you will market your book.

Don’t just say you’ll help with promotion. Offer concrete plans you will put into effect.

9. Practice Humility

Don’t oversell, insisting Oprah will return to daytime TV just to promote this book. And be cautious, even with faith-based publishers, about claiming that God told you to write it. #redflag

10. Offer an error-free proposal.

If you’re not paying for a professional critique, have a word-loving friend scour your final draft for grammatical or typographical errors.

Do you have a question about your book proposal? Ask away...

10 Tips For Writing Well

Some writing requires a writer to string a lot of words together as quickly as possible. (Maybe you
have a day job that requires this!) But there are other writing projects in which we want to gift readers with words that shine. Here are some tips to make your writing as artful and effective as possible...

1. Be specific.

Use precise language. Not “tool,” but lathe.  Not “hot,” but fiery. Not “fruit,” but mango.

2. Appeal to a reader’s senses.

Appeal to the reader’s senses by including sights, smells, tastes, sounds and textures.

3. Avoid flowery speech.

Overusing adjectives and adverbs makes your speech too flowery. Mary DeMuth exhorts, “Use a better noun instead of a weak one that needs an adjective. Use a stronger verb instead of one that leans on an adjective or adverb for help.”

4. Use active voice.

Employ active voice, rather than passive, to create interest and keep readers engaged.

5. Avoid fancy words.

Don’t use a splendiferous fancy word when a plain one will do.

6. Eliminate unnecessary words.

If any words or sentences can be removed without changing a text’s meaning, your writing will be stronger if you scrap ‘em.

7. Vary sentence length and structure.

Use simple shortie sentences. Also use longer and more complex ones.

8. Choose original combinations of words.

Reach beyond clichés and stereotypes to discover fresh expression. “Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.” (Orwell’s 6 rules of writing in “Politics and the English Language,” 1946)

9. Write to one person.

I’ve heard my wise friend Jonathan Merritt say, “If you try to write a book to everybody, you’ll end up writing a book to nobody. If you try to write a book to somebody, you’ll end up writing a book for anybody.” Identify your target reader—sister? neighbor?—and write to that one person.

10. Show, don’t tell.

Allow reader to discover what you have by painting colorful moments, conversations, conflicts, etc. Writing that “tells” simply informs, like recipe ingredients. Writing that “shows” offers reader a taste of yummy cake.

Serve the reader,

Margot