Take your readers on an adventure!
If you are wanting to make your memoir unforgettable where it stays in readers minds for days or weeks after they have finished reading it, it’s not about you needing to have a dramatic life but so about including a journey that changed you – big or small.
But what journey do we include?
Well in this blog we will talk about the 3 simple steps to uncover the perfect memoir idea that will leave a lasting impression in your readers minds long after they read the last page.
But firstly, what is a memoir and why do readers read them?
Definition of a memoir: A memoir is a work of nonfiction in which the author tells true stories from their own life, usually built around a particular theme, period, relationship or experience rather than covering their whole life from birth onward.
People read memoirs because the stories are true and told by the person who lived them.
They want to learn from that person’s life, about what went wrong, what went right, and what they would do differently.
So, if that’s the reason people buy them and read them, wouldn’t it be logical to give that to them?
The opposite would be to write a whole life story and never include any learnings or lessons.
What are some of the mistakes to avoid?
Firstly, the biggest mistake is not writing your memoir at all.
From our experience in teaching writing courses, one of the biggest tragedies is NOT hearing some of the incredible stories people have lived and what they have overcome.
In fact, the reason why we taught our memoir course was because during our ‘Creative Writing – How to write a short story course’ in the break times and after lesson, when we got chatting, I found people’s real-life stories fascinating and really inspiring.
I had written my own memoir ‘Project Me, Project You’ about my time bucket listing my way out of depression, but it was written totally the wrong way.
It was more like a diary.
But how we teach it now after reading memoirs, and doing courses on writing memoirs, we created a super simple framework to tease out the best story from somebody’s life.
It’s not about living a big dramatic life – which is what some people think.
It’s a story about how you changed and what you learned.
You can then teach these lessons to your readers.
A bad example of a memoir would be:
The day I won a £100 on the lottery.
It’s about one event, the money is hardly likely to massively life-changing and there’s no build up or lessons learned.
A better example could be:
How I quit my 9-5 job and became built a 7-figure business
There is a process of building a business, a transformation and very likely to have lessons learned.
Which one would you want to read more?
‘But I haven’t built a 7-figure business’ I hear you ask.
Firstly, don’t worry about that – it’s more about realising what would make a better memoir.
We have had memoirs about all kinds written by our students such:
• Leaving a toxic marriage and starting over
• Moving to a new country
• Living with an illness
• Fulfilling a loved ones’ wish
• Starting a business
• Life in the armed forces
• Experience as a foster carer.
And there are so many more.
If you want the entire walk-through of how we teach our proven method of blank page to publishing your memoir, click the link HERE to be on the wait-list to be guaranteed the discount of the launch price.
The main thing we need to make sure our memoir includes is a journey or transformation where we can show our lessons learned.
How do we pick our memoir idea?
Well when we teach our course, we don’t teach our students to pick one idea.
But to pick 5 ideas.
Why?
Because picking one feels like pressure – like it has to be perfect.
But 5 ideas makes us feel like it’s a list.
What 5 life experiences meant something to you where you went on a journey of transformation?
Examples:
• Learning a new skill
• Trying something new
• A small failure and how I recovered from it
• Losing someone and how I coped
• Becoming a parent or carer
• Moving to a new place and how I adapted
• Health or recovery
• A big decision and what it led to
Each of these is a journey of some kind.
I want you to imagine a photograph – that’s 2D – one moment in time.
We don’t want that.
Think of our memoir ideas as movies – with a beginning, middle and end.
It’s your turn to think of at least 5 moments in your life where you experienced a journey of transformation.
For example, you started off shy and by the end of the journey (transformation) you became confident.
Tell us what you came up with.
Pick your journey
By having 5 ideas to choose from, it’s easier than creating one from scratch.
Your brain finds it easier to recognise a good idea than to pull it out of thin air.
You have your 5 possible ideas, but will they make an unforgettable memoir?
Well we need to do some work with them.
We need to put them to the test.
Let’s go shoe shopping
I want you to imaging you are going shopping for shoes.
If I was to take you to a shoe shop and simply ask ‘Well, which shoe is best?’
You may say ‘Well I haven’t tried any on yet!”
And you’d be right.
Isn’t it better we ‘try our memoir idea on for size?’
Your 5 Memoir Ideas
Take each of your 5 memoir ideas and put them through this filter – make each one out of 10.
10 being the most.
1. How much did this experience mean to you?
2. How much transformation took place?
3. How much advice could you give?
4. How much are you looking forward to writing about it?
You will pick a winner.
You may even be surprised at which one wins!
If your winning idea before you even start is: Meaningful, transformative, full of advice and lessons and you are passionate about writing it, it already fits the bill of an unforgettable memoir!
So for example:
Memoir idea 1. Moving to a new country
• Meaningful = 5/10
• Tranformative = 4/10
• Advice = 7/10
• Passionate about it = 7/10
As opposed to:
Memoir idea 2. Setting up a new charity
• Meaningful = 9/10
• Transformative = 8/10
• Advice = 9/10
• Passionate about it = 10/10
You can see a clear winner as to what we should write a memoir about.
We are also not leaving it to luck.
We are seeing it on the page infront of us that it will be an memorable memoir as it has all the ingredients to be a gripping read.
Ok, great… but now what do we do?
What’s the transformation?
Transformation is what makes memoir matter.
When readers see how something changed you, this is what makes it magnetic.
Think of before and after weight loss pictures.
They are visual transformations that are effective in proving exactly how somebody has changed.
And we are gripped by it.
How do we show transformation?
We need to know upfront what our transformation is.
Take our idea of setting up a charity.
We started off overwhelmed, confused, worried.
We didn’t know how to do it.
By the end, we say what our everyday is like:
For example:
Memoir Idea: Setting up a new charity
I started off:
• Overwhelmed
• Alone
• Confused
• No money
• Worried
• Unsure where to begin
• Full of doubt
• Scared of failing
• No experience
• Just an idea and a hope
I ended up:
• Confident
• Part of a team
• Clear about my goals
• Funded and growing
• Calm and proud
• Knowing the next steps
• Believing in myself
• Learning from mistakes
• Skilled and experienced
• Making a real difference
= The transformation
Can you imagine the wealth of inspiration, lessons and experiences this memoir could produce?
There is now so much meaningful content ideas, your reader will feel like they are walking beside you and will be gripped!
They will experience every success and failure with you and learning as you take us through each stage of this journey.
Because I’m guessing it didn’t go smoothly.
Obviously, you need to plan out the chapters and in other videos, we talk through exactly how you do that.
If you want the entire walk-through of how we teach our proven method of blank page to publishing your memoir, click the link HERE to be on the wait-list to be guaranteed the discount of the launch price.
Let us know in the comments what you are wanting to write your memoir about.
Happy writing!
Vicky
HackneyandJones.com