STRUCTURING YOUR STORY

My memoir is my story, not my brother's; he has his own story.

Story structure is similar in memoir and fiction. Each has a beginning, middle, and end. Each has a main character or protagonist, an internal and external journey, a story arc and character arc and a theme. While fiction is a made-up story, a memoir is a story that has been lived and that means the author knows the outcome. 

Once you narrow all your turning points and figured out where they occurred in your timeline, you can decide how to tell your story. It might work well told chronologically, if it's  coming f age story or a story of psychological healing. 


Often a linear chronological structure—point A to Point B—is the easiest and best way to tell your story. A coming of age memoir works well with a linear structure; so does a memoir showing ychological development and transformation. 

On the other hand, a braided memoir that weaves back and forth from present and past in alternating chapters might work best. In a framed memoir, like Wild by Cheryl Stayed, the main story is on the trail while the author picks up threads from the past and weaves them in through flashbacks. A wrapper story also works well when a narrator tells the story to others. By developing the narrator as a visible presence in the memoir, you help the reader gracefully move back and forth between the time frame of the person writing the book and the time frame of the character who lived through the earlier events. In Colored People, Henry Louis Gates tells his children about the old days in order to help them understand where their ancestors have been. In Tony Cohan’s memoir Native State, his father lies dying, and while he is stuck in California, he reminisces about his childhood and about his experience as an expat in North Africa. 


Travel can be used as a wrapper story.  Such memoirs are used as containers in which the author spends so much time exploring the past, or reminiscing about it, you begin to wonder if the story is about the journey or the memories. This dual use of a travel memoir, as both a story of a journey and a wrapper story of a previous time, is especially noteworthy in: Zen and Now by Mark Richardson: As the author follows the path of Robert Pirsig’s original motorcycle ride, there is plenty of time for reflection about his past. The travel memoir as a wrapper story introduces the potential for telling a story in two time frames at once.

Another technique jumps all the way into the two-frame concept and weaves two parallel stories, one from earlier in life and one later. These authors have managed to start the story right in the thick of it, and then go back to give the backstory without diffusing the power of the book.  


Once you have a general idea of your theme or themes and know how you want to structure your story, you will have a better idea of what to include and what to leave out. There will be a lot of wonderful stuff you won't want to cut out. Save it for a personal essay or memoir piece for a magazine. What goes into your important memoir must be what moves your story forward. 

One looming question when writing memoir is What about my family? Your memoir is your story and no one else's. You are unique in the universe and your story is unique. Your story belongs to you; your brother's story belongs to him. We each have the right to tell our own story from our own point of view.

It’s clear that writing a memoir is indeed a process—challenging but rewarding! It takes time to sort things out, but every time you make lists, brainstorm, and research how other authors have solved these problems by reading memoirs, you are figuring out the challenges of writing, and creating skills that help you write a successful book that will be meaningful to others.