Far too often I have found myself reading through memoirs that would be excellent if it weren't for one problem. That problem is the fact that the authors clearly hadn't planned their memoirs and had instead rushed straight into the writing of their works. Although the content contained within usually is good, the structure of these pieces of writing lets the entire memoir down. In order to prevent those who are new to memoir writing from making the same mistake, I have decided to share the most important step in memoir writing - effective planning and drafting. By following the basic steps which act almost as a template, it is hard to go wrong.
The first phase of planning a memoir is deciding your target audience. You need to decide whether you are writing for friends, family members and other people who are close to you or whether you want to release your memoir to the general public. If you are simply writing for close relations then you will be able to use a more informal, intimate writing style. However, for those of you who wish to have your memoir go public you will need to deliver more in terms of style and action.
Next, comes one of the more time consuming aspects of writing a memoir, choosing the stories that you wish to tell. You should begin by jotting down any experiences in your life that you feel would make interesting reading in whatever order you think of them. Once you have done that, order what you have written chronologically and then remove the stories that you feel are not absolutely necessary for your memoir.
Finally, you need to start "fleshing out" the stories that you have come up with. This is quite a difficult but rewarding part of writing a memoir and is absolutely vital if you want to write a good one. Begin with the first notable event that occurred in your life and jot down the details of the event, why it was so important and how it affected your life for better or for worse. Ensure that every event has a beginning, middle and end and that you don't embellish/exaggerate any of the information you are writing down. Once this step has been completed you can start the process of actually writing your memoir knowing that you have a complete draft/plan that will help you structure your writing.
By effectively and consistently planning your work you will find the memoir writing process much easier. Use the steps shown above as a basic template for your writing to help you overcome problems such as writer's block. Drafting and planning is easily one of the most important phases of writing a memoir and once this technique has been mastered your writing will improve massively!
Daniel Phillipson has been writing professionally for over 15 years. He has published dozens of articles and a number of books and has helped a large number of people write their personal memoirs. If you would like more, free advice on memoir writing (including how to get your memoir professionally published and released to the general public) then please visit his website at http://www.squidoo.com/how-to-write-a-memoir
Source: www.articlecity.com
