Updated: May 17, 2023
Just write.
Don’t think, just write.
Just write and see where it takes you.
First-time writers (and would-be published authors) often ask for advice on social media as they wrestle with creating their first-draft manuscripts. Just write is the #1 comment I see. I always chime in that to write a long-form piece (such as a memoir), you really need to have a sound purpose in mind when you begin. A direction. A compass heading.
I’m always in the minority.
I decided I needed to re-evaluate my position. Maybe I’m being too rigid, too narrow in my advice. So I pondered. . . .
Where to Begin?
As I am a writing coach and as I specialize in memoir, I have had to give a lot of thought to how to help newbie writers get started with their memoir, or improve existing work. I have read innumerable first-draft manuscripts (and one or two first-draft chapters). They are often the product of the just write school of manuscript development. A few show immediate promise; this writer understands where they ultimately want to take this book. But most, sadly, suffer from what I refer to as being all over the place. When you just write, it shows in how your narrative jumps from one subject to another, one time period to another, one argument to another.
Let me be clear—I do not enjoy dashing a writer’s dreams. Seriously. It takes a ton of tact and empathy for me to objectively critique a piece of writing that someone has poured their heart and soul into for months or years, but it just doesn’t fly. My defense is putting on my coaching hardhat and remaining objective and professional to offer my guidance as to how this draft can become a successful published book.
Where are You Going?
I feel like a vinyl record with the needle stuck in a groove. I have offered the same advice in every article I’ve written about memoir. So, I apologize. But if this is the first one of my blog articles you have read, I will repeat the two questions I ask of everyone I work with:
What is the personal transformation story you want to share in this memoir?
Who is your audience for this story; who are you writing this for?
In my article Memoir is a Journey Story, I discuss this in detail. So, there’s no point in repeating myself. Is there?
Oh, heck! Let me ask you—why are you writing this memoir? If it is for yourself, to get clarity or catharsis about some particular aspect or experience in your life, that’s okay. But that’s not a memoir. (See my article Is it Time to Write Your Memoir? for more about the transition from journaling to writing memoir.) If you are writing for your personal legacy or to leave a record of your life or specific experiences for your family, that’s okay too. But that’s not a memoir either.
People who fall into one of these categories rarely intend to publish their writings. “It’s just for me,” they say. Or “It’s something I want to leave for my family.” I applaud anyone who puts the time and effort into such an endeavor.
But a memoir—a real memoir—that you hope to publish must be more than this. If you hope to publish, I assume you hope to sell. I have been told, “I don’t care if it sells. I don’t care if anyone buys it.” That's your choice. But maybe—just maybe—if we focus the message, carefully detail your journey, and highlight your transcendence, this could be a story that helps others. In the way author Caroline Knapp used her memoir Drinking: A Love Story to describe her journey from alcoholism (and one alcohol-soaked bad choice after another) to recovery, sobriety, and taking control of her life, your memoir could potentially be a game changer for someone else.
Just Write—Good Advice?
Far be it from me to tell anyone that they should not follow the just write advice for memoir. Just write certainly makes the process feel less intimidating, less daunting to a new writer. Just write can kickstart a manuscript when the thought of knowing exactly where you’re going with the writing eludes you. But I wouldn’t be much of a writing coach if my coaching consisted of, “Just write. Don’t think, just write. Just write and see where it takes you. Here’s my bill.”
Go ahead. Just write. But know this: You must just write with the knowledge that you will definitely—100 percent—have to just rewrite extensively if you want to produce a book that people will read, enjoy, and recommend.
In addition to working as a nonfiction and creative nonfiction editor and writing coach, I am co-author, with Dr. Terri Lyon, of the book Make a Difference with Mental Health Activism: No activism degree required—use your unique skills to change the world. Visit my website page Make a Difference and Dr. Lyon’s activism website Life At The Intersection to learn more about Make a Difference with Mental Health Activism, including how to place bulk orders. Also available at Amazon.com.
Memoir groups on social media debate regularly about how to structure a memoir. As a memoir writing coach, I take what I assume is a conventional approach to memoir structure, one in which the stories are divided into three acts, like a play. I coach novice memoirists in this approach because I think it gives the writer the greatest chance of producing a coherent and engaging memoir.
This three-act structure is not for pantsers—those who write when and how the urge hits, who don’t follow a roadmap on their journey, but just start off and go wherever the storytelling wind takes them. No, developing and following a three-act structure for a memoir forces you, within reason, to follow an outline that moves you in a predictable way—from the introduction of your circumstance to its resolution. To do this, the writer must be a planner.
So, what is the three-act structure for memoir and is it for you?
The Classic Three-act Structure
The three-act structure is the basis of narrative fiction, creative nonfiction, and plays. It is not specific to memoir writing, it is just where I apply it in my coaching since I don’t work with fiction. My Google search for the phrase three-act structure came back with more than five billion results. Five billion. So, if you want to read more about this method, you won’t have any trouble finding information! And that’s good, because I’m not going to spend time describing it here.
My search results also came back with scores upon scores of images that illustrate this structure. They were all informative and showed the same information as this one:
Here’s another, with slight adjustments to the climax of Act Two and what’s included in Act Three:
But, as you can see, they are effectively the same structure.
I’m not going to explain which stories go into which act; as a writing coach, I will be happy to guide you through that process for your memoir. What I am going to do is explain why I believe that following this structure is the best (though not necessarily the easiest) way to produce a memoir that accomplishes everything a memoir is supposed to accomplish:
Presents a clear theme (the author’s argument)
Shows what is at stake for the author (the problem to be fixed in this memoir)
Describes what challenges are encountered
Shows how the author fails to overcome those challenges
Identifies the disaster (biggest challenge, final straw), the point at which the author knows the situation cannot go on and must change
Offers the resolution to the problems faced throughout the memoir
Concludes when the author has become the person they want to be
To follow the three-act structure, you will have to really work as a writer. It is for those you dare take on the challenge of becoming an author.
The #1 Mistake in Memoir Writing
If you read my other blog articles on memoir, you will see that I can’t say enough about what the purpose of memoir is. And I can’t say it any more clearly than I did in Memoir is a Journey Story. If you haven’t read that one, stop and do so now. I’ll wait. . . .
So what is the #1 mistake that first-time memoir writers make? I’ve talked about the four most common memoir writing mistakes in this article. But since writing that, I have found that the most common mistake is not having a clear point or reason for the memoir—a clear, concise answer to the question, “Why are you writing this?” Related to that, I ask, “What lesson have you learned that you are going to share with the reader?” As I’ve said before:
No meaning, no memoir. No transcendence, no memoir. No takeaway for the reader, no memoir.
Frankly, I’ve lost potential memoir coaching clients over this. But that’s OK. Let me be clear about how deeply I want to help someone write a truly good memoir! Maybe even a great one. If I’m coaching you, we agreed that you, the writer, are serious about producing a memoir that has an interesting point, a clearly defined audience, and a strong, satisfying conclusion.
And by satisfying, I don’t mean where all problems have disappeared and everything is rainbows and butterflies. As I tell my coaching clients, your memoir will end when you reach the point where you have risen to your challenges to the best of your ability. If yours is a story of a marriage in decline, you might ultimately get divorced. You did all you could and, yet, the marriage dissolved. And you accept this reality and the change this journey has resulted in. You don’t need a happily ever after but you need to show your transformation and the lessons you learned from it.
Finally. . .
Writing is hard. Writing memoir is really hard. And yes, you can quote me on that! It’s hard mentally, physically, and, maybe most of all, emotionally. I gave my advice for working through the challenges of writing your memoir in this article about cutting yourself some slack. And I’ve suggested stepping stones for building up to tackling a memoir in this article about journaling.
If you are ready to tell your journey story, I’m ready to guide you. Please let me know how you feel about applying the three-act structure to memoir writing in the comments below.
In addition to working as a nonfiction and creative nonfiction editor and writing coach, I am co-author, with Dr. Terri Lyon, of the book Make a Difference with Mental Health Activism: No activism degree required—use your unique skills to change the world. Visit my website page Make a Difference and Dr. Lyon’s activism website Life At The Intersection to learn more about Make a Difference, including how to place bulk orders.
To guide writers into the ofttimes difficult job of creating a memoir, I have developed a formula. But to keep the suspense high, here is what this formula is not: As an editor, I’m all about syntax (word arrangement), grammar, spelling, word choice, and all those necessary components of quality writing. As a coach, I’m all about helping the writer identify their audience (who they are writing for), settle on their theme (point or argument), and improve in the art of dialogue, description, and scene creation. My formula isn’t about any of this. Keep reading.
I’m Not a Doctor, I Just Play One
Forgive me, it’s just some old-school humor. No, my college degree is in English, not Psychology. But my years of experience leading support groups and teaching classes for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) have given me extra insight into understanding the effects of trauma, grief, loss, as well as reflection on joyful or happier times gone by. Any time we take a walk through our memories, we never know what emotions we might stir up. I found my NAMI experience to be surprisingly helpful in working with people as they write their memoirs; an unexpected bonus, of sorts.
P.O.W.E.R.
My formula is not about grammar and syntax, or dialogue and scene creation. It is a guide for writing while exercising self-care and self-kindness. It’s P.O.W.E.R.
Pace yourself.
Own your feelings.
Write when you feel like it.
Ease into the tough stuff.
Reflect as you remember.
You see, there is no writing instruction here. It’s strictly about protecting your psyche as you delve into memories that at times might sting. Let me discuss each point of P.O.W.E.R.
P: Pace yourself
Let me congratulate you on deciding to write a book, be it a memoir or another genre. It takes courage to start a project this expansive. And it will take courage to finish it. Many first-time writers settle on a self-imposed deadline for their book; they set a date, usually completely arbitrary, by which they want their book published. Then the pressure’s on! They must produce a certain number of words each day to keep up with the schedule. Author Stephen King notoriously recommends writing 2,000 words each day, for a total of 180,000 words in three months. Folks, that’s Stephen King’s output, not mine or anyone else I know! Plus—spoiler alert—don’t write a 180,000-word anything as a first-time author, especially a memoir. Creating an outline for your book is an excellent idea and I highly recommend it. And if you are a very disciplined person, you can come up a timeline that corresponds to the sections of that outline, which can result in a projected date range to wrap up the writing and move into the next phase. But, first and foremost, the process of writing a book should be fun, or at least as much fun as you can garner from it. Self-imposed deadlines are a great way to rob yourself of whatever joy creating your book could offer.
O: Own your feelings
A memoir is not an academic treatise. If you hope to write your memoir without exploring your innermost thoughts and feelings, I suggest that you are not ready to write. Within your family, among your friends, maybe at work, you might gloss over pain or mistakes or abuse or anger. You might be so accustomed to sugar-coating your life’s experiences, you’ve forgotten how to be honest with others—and with yourself. I will ask my clients over and over, “But how did you feel?” If you have a story worth sharing—one that will offer a life lesson to your readers—you will have to dig deeply into your memories, your heart, your spirit, your soul. Grab onto what you find there and bring it into the light. The time for hiding is past.
W: Write when you feel like it
This point works in concert with the P, Pace yourself. If you inflict a self-imposed deadline on your project, you sacrifice giving yourself permission to create when and how it best suits you. There will be days when you write good stuff for hours—you’re in the zone, you’re firing on all cylinders, and other clichés. Then there will be days where you’re lucky to finish a page. You write a scene that consists of four paragraphs, read it, hate it, delete it. An hour later, you do it all over again. Writing is hard, but it shouldn’t feel like torture. If your writing is strained or forced, it shows and you know it. Give yourself a break.
E: Ease into the tough stuff
I know from working with new memoirists that writing a memoir can be emotionally exhausting. I have seen writers get anxious just thinking about the part of the memoir they’re going to be working on next. This is tough stuff. Books have been written about it, one of the best being Melanie Brooks’s Writing Hard Stories: Celebrated Memoirists Who Shaped Art from Trauma. I suggest two ways to come at this. One, just write the bare-bones version of a scene or incident. Report it like a news story. Write the facts and only the facts. During this first round, avoid emotional language to whatever degree the situation allows. Don’t reflect yet (the R in P.O.W.E.R.). Two, this method might work for you: make a few simple notes as a placeholder in the story, then leave it; return a day or two later and add a few more notes. Take baby steps. Do this until you have recounted the entire scene.
R: Reflect as you remember
A quality of memoir that sets it apart from every other genre is reflection. A memoir without reflection is like a murder mystery novel that ends without solving the mystery. By reflection I mean, don’t just recall a memory but analyze it. Merriam-Webster defines reflection as a thought, idea, or opinion formed or a remark made as a result of meditation. What emotion does the memory conjure? You know what happened (it’s your memory), but why did it happen? How did it happen? How did you feel at the time? How do you feel now? If your feelings or impressions changed over time, why did they? How does the scene play into setting up what else is coming in the book? Reflection in the now helps you put your past in perspective. Here’s where you figure out how what happened shaped you into who you are now for the purpose of this memoir.
Exercise P.O.W.E.R. as a Writer
Writing a book is not for the faint of heart. There are so many moving parts: theme, structure, grammar, supporting your argument, adding creative elements, what to put in, what to leave out. . . it can be the challenge of a lifetime. For my website’s blog, I have written several articles to help improve your writing:
But P.O.W.E.R. is about you, as a person, tackling a big job. Don’t let the writing dominate you. Don’t let it drag you into your past and leave you there. This is your book and you are in control now—of the people, of the words, of the scenes. You decide who enters, what they do, and when they leave. They can’t stay longer than you want them to. They can’t say anything you don’t want them to say. Exercise your P.O.W.E.R.
In addition to working as a nonfiction and creative nonfiction editor and writing coach, I am co-author, with Dr. Terri Lyon, of the book Make a Difference with Mental Health Activism: No activism degree required—use your unique skills to change the world. Visit my website page Make a Difference and Dr. Lyon’s activism website Life At The Intersection to learn more about Make a Difference, including how to place bulk orders.