5 Mistakes That Trip Up Budding Memoir Writers

When you begin your memoir, there are important aspects of the writing to keep in mind if you want your audience to find your book engaging. If it’s boring, even your nearest and dearest won’t bother to plod through it.

So here are some mistakes to avoid:

1. Writing your memoir as if it’s a report, rather than a narrative. (“Narrative” just means “story.”)
2. Failing to use lively and dramatic novelistic techniques, such as scenes and dialog.
3. Forgetting to include emotions.
4. Not being familiar with the genre. How are you going to write a memoir if you don’t read them? There are lots of different types of memoir, from the healing memoir, the search memoir, the career memoir, to a host of others.
5. Not taking memoir writing classes. In those, you’ll get to present your work and receive comments from the instructor and your classmates. Though many people prefer to work one-on-one with a coach/editor, you can still gain lots of useful suggestions from a group of fellow writers.

Stay tuned: My next post will be about the pitfalls awaiting aspiring family history writers.

If you need help getting off to a strong start on your memoir, or help making significant progress on it, get in touch with me. Unsure? Check out what my students, colleagues, and clients say about working with me.