How to write a memoir
Writing a memoir is mostly remembering out loud and then tidying up. Here are seven steps that take you from a blank page to a finished book — and the four things that usually stop people, with a way past each.
The seven steps
1. Pick one thread, not your whole life
A memoir is not an autobiography. Choose a single thread — coming to a new country, raising a family on one wage, forty years in the same trade — and let everything else hang off it. One sentence is enough: "This is the story of how our family kept a small farm going."
2. Gather memories before you shape them
Don't try to write in order. Collect fragments first: the smell of a kitchen, the name of a street, an argument you never forgot. Ten minutes of remembering out loud usually produces more usable material than an hour staring at a blank page.
3. Answer questions instead of writing chapters
Most memoirs stall because "write chapter one" is a frightening instruction. "What did your mother do on Sunday mornings?" is not. Have someone ask you questions — a relative, a recorder, or a patient interviewer — and simply answer them.
4. Tell scenes, not summaries
"Times were hard" tells the reader nothing. "We heated the front room with one bar of the fire and kept coats on the beds" puts them in the room. Whenever you catch yourself summarising, stop and describe one particular day instead.
5. Group the pieces into chapters afterwards
Once you have twenty or thirty answers, patterns appear: childhood, work, marriage, loss, what you'd tell your grandchildren. Sort your fragments into those piles and you have an outline you never had to invent.
6. Get the names and dates right
Family readers forgive a rough sentence; they don't forgive a misspelled maiden name. Keep a running list of people, places and spellings, and check it against the finished draft before anything is printed.
7. Finish it as a real book
A memoir becomes an heirloom when it has a cover, a title page and large, readable type. Set a modest target — sixty pages is a proper book — choose a print format, and give copies to the people in the story.
What usually stops people
- "I can't type for long."
- You don't have to. Speaking is faster and warmer than typing, and a spoken memoir keeps your own turns of phrase. NTI Writing records your answers and writes them up for you.
- "I don't know how to organise it."
- Organising is a separate job from remembering — and it is the easier of the two. Answer questions first; the chapters can be arranged later, by you or automatically.
- "I'm not a writer."
- Memoir readers want your voice, not literary polish. The best pages usually sound exactly like the person talking, which is precisely what a spoken draft gives you.
- "I'll never get it printed."
- Printing is the last mile that stops most families. Pick a service that takes you from draft to a hardcover copy without a separate design step.
How long does a memoir take?
Working alone, most people spend six months to a couple of years — and many never finish. Talking through your story in short sittings, two or three afternoons a week, a first draft of a short memoir is realistic in a few weeks. The deciding factor is rarely time; it's whether the next step is small enough to face.
Covering your whole life rather than one thread? See how to write a book about your life.