Tips

Memoir writing tip 3: Write Your Life in Little Pieces

You don't have to start your memoir with, "I was born in..." and then write your life in chronological order.

Sometimes that makes memoir writing unnecessarily difficult. You start worrying about dates, sequence, missing years and what happened before what.

Try something easier.

Write a collection of ordinary, random stories.

Write whatever memory comes to you today.

It could be like the book "Everybody likes Cham' by Verena Chin (find her on Linkedin) or

'The Little Things that Made Me' by Adeline Lee at https://payhip.com/b/ny9kR

These are collection of seemingly small experiences that shaped the person you became.

Or perhaps:

The Day I Earned My First Dollar

The Teacher I Never Forgot

The Girl I Was Too Shy to Talk To

My Father's Old Radio

The Food I Still Miss

The Worst Job I Ever Had

The Lie I Still Remember

The Place That No Longer Exists

There does not have to be any chronology.

One story might be from when you were seven. Tomorrow's story could be from when you were seventeen. The next one might take you back to age ten.

That's okay.

Think of your memoir as a box of photographs. You don't have to arrange the photographs before you can look at them. Pick up one photograph and tell its story. Then pick up another.

This approach makes memoir writing much easier because you only need to answer one question:

What memory do I feel like writing today?

After you have written thirty, fifty or even a hundred little stories, you can decide what to do with them.

You may arrange them chronologically.

You may group them by themes such as family, school, work, friendship, love, faith and growing up.

Or you may deliberately keep them as a collection of seemingly random stories connected by one thing: they are the little pieces that made you who you are.

Don't wait until you know how to tell your whole life story.

Write one small story.

Then another.

One day, you may look at the pile and realise:

You have been writing your memoir all along.

This could also become an important philosophy for the whole project: collect first, organise later.

Memoir Writing Tip 6: Add a Picture to Your Story

When you write about the past, consider adding a photograph to go with your story. It could be a photograph of your childhood home, your school, your neighbourhood, an old market, a playground or a place where something important happened. It could also be an ordinary household object. An old

Memoir writing tip 5: How I Organise My Manuscript

When I start writing a memoir, I don't begin with a blank Word document and simply write until I reach the end. I create the skeleton of the book first. I open a Word document and create a working table of contents. It doesn't have to

Memoir Writing Tip 4: Why Share Your Life Experiences?

Some of us grew up keeping our thoughts to ourselves. We dealt with our struggles quietly because we thought they were private, embarrassing, or simply something we had to handle on our own. But something changes when we begin writing and sharing our stories. The more you share your journey,

Memoir Writing Tip: Don't Try to Write Your Whole Life at Once

When I wrote my autobiography in 2021, I tried to cover my whole life in one book. I later discovered that there is an easier way to write my life story: break it into smaller memoirs. Instead of asking, "How do I write about my entire life?" choose

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Memoir Writing Tip 6: Add a Picture to Your Story

Memoir writing tip 5: How I Organise My Manuscript

Memoir Writing Tip 4: Why Share Your Life Experiences?

Memoir Writing Tip: Don't Try to Write Your Whole Life at Once