Thoughts on Memoirs, let's share!

[KateESal]

Hi All

Interest in writing memoirs is growing within the colony and a number of us are writing them (or have written them).

Much of the advice we share here about fiction can also be applied to memoirs, as the best memoirs also have that golden combination of a strong voice and a good story.

I would love to build up this thread as a resource for memoirists, so a colony brainstorm on the subject would be very helpful.

Recommendations of memoirs to read, observations on the techniques and ingredients that make the best memoirs, and anything else to throw into the mix to get us ruminating, please!

I'll start:

Writing my own memoir has taught me that the situations where things went wrong have far more entertainment value than those that went smoothly. Because, in each of these episodes, you have the perfect story arc: a problem that threw the protagonist into difficulties, the anticipation of whether or not it is resolved and what the protagonist learned as a result.

In other words, the stuff that is most painful to remember is also likely to be the the stuff that will hook the readers most strongly.

 

[Steve C]

I'm in two minds about memoirs. My first novel sort of started out yonks ago as a series of notes about my experience in a Moroccan jail. For me an extreme experience but when I came to write a book about it I felt it might bore readers after a while so semi-fictionalised it as to how it occurred and how it was resolved. The danger with a one-off memoir is that the writer remembers it as extraordinary but readers see it as so so and yawn.
I hope to learn stuff here as it's a good idea to talk about how to write them.

 

[Geoff]

@KateESal Great idea for a thread.

A few trivial thoughts ....
I agree most of a writer's work must somehow or other be linked to the past, for realism, the alternative being in depth research.
I can see @Steve C 's point though, overindulging in something personal maybe interesting to the writer, but boring to the reader. It could also, as we have seen on Submissions, result in a list of events a la diary. But that could probaly be rectified during beta reading.
There is also the range of content, are the less pleasant aspects of the memoir writer to be included?
Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessionsis an example of inclusion of the less appealing sides of his character, but it does make it more the interestiing, imho.
Another. probaly even more trivial question is, who is the memoir aimed at? Published or left as a unpublished manuscript handed down for children, etc. If published, friends and family may be interested in the finer details, and may even get upset if they are not included somewhere, or even have a different idea of an event than the writer, if published that is.

Interesting subject though, be good to see how the the thread develops.

 

[KateESal]

I felt it might bore readers after a while so semi-fictionalised it as to how it occurred

You make a good point, Steve and I think the most enjoyable memoirs are heavily edited by the author in various ways. I think it's what differentiates a memoir from an out-an-out autobiography. I regard memoirs as highly selective and selected portions of people's lives, written with the intent to publish to a wider audience and not to serve as a historically accurate document. Take Gerald Durrell's The Corfu Trilogy, which is one of my personal favourites. A little research into Gerald's life reveals that he left out some significant details and characters from his account (Larry/Lawrence is married, for example, and spends part of the time living away from the rest of the family...but there is no mention of this, and Larry's wife doesn't appear in the memoir at all) Likewise, there's no way Gerald would have remembered in such detail the particular conversations and interactions that he relates, after all he was between the ages of about 10 and 13 when it all took place. So he clearly invents his own version of what the various people did and said in the interest of boosting the entertainment value for his readers.

I must admit, I am doing the same thing with my memoir. Tweaking and re-imagining various conversations and events for the sake of a better story (without, hopefully, losing the spirit of the original event or rendering an entirely false account of what happened). Likewise, I've also conflated several different people into one character (and re-named them) in the interests of clarity and cutting away a density of detail that would confuse a reader.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessionsis an example of inclusion of the less appealing sides of his character, but it does make it more the interestiing, imho.

Yes, indeed. I'm learning that you have to be brave as a memoirist and try not to paint yourself as squeaky clean, because the muckier parts of a life and the less attractive sides to a personality make the whole account more nuanced, more authentic, more relatable and more engaging overall. IMHO.

 

[Jonny]

I like memoirs a lot and have read some really good ones.

Two of my favourites are Adam Kay's This is going to Hurt. Hilarious recent best seller across all genres.

This is Going to Hurt - Adam Kay

Clive James Memoirs that were over 5 or 6 volumes but can be bought as a collected edition. Brilliantly understated wit and humour deftly handled by a master.

Clive James - Complete Unreliable Memoirs

I would also include published diaries as a related genre and there some belters out there.

Michael Palin Diaries. Very entertaining, funny and interesting. All 3 volumes collected here.

Collected Michael Palin Diaries

The Kenneth Williams Diaries - funny, bitter, bleak, poignant, waspish and quite sad too.

The Kenneth Williams Dairies

 

[KateESal]

Great recommendations, Jonny!

Adam Kay's memoir is a brilliant read. I haven't read the others you mention, but will add them to my TBR list.

Particular favourites of mine include:

Caitlin Moran's How To Be A Woman, which is part memoir and part feminist polemic (but single-handedly demonstrates that feminists can be screamingly funny, even while making important points about gender equality).

The Plague And I by Betty Macdonald (this is going back a bit, but I devoured it when I was younger and re-read it several times, too. It's for adults, however. The plague it refers to is TB).

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood (a poet's account of living with her eccentric Catholic priest father and family. Poetically written, whimsical at times and made me cry with laughter)

I've also recently enjoyed Just For One Day by Louise Wener (insider's account of Britpop by one of the few female frontwomen) and Broken Greek by Pete Paphides (growing up in the UK in a Greek/Cypriot family and how his obsession with chart music shaped him).

 

[Steve C]

As I say I have been toying with the idea of writing a memoir or rather a series of them. Together they would make up a sort of biography of a normal person which in itself is odd as we are all different. My idea is to write short books perhaps 100-150 pages splitting my life into pieces. I envisage 5 of them. Pre Love, First love etc up to my current love. Falling in love has every time altered the course of my life so seems a good way of chopping it up. The thing is I feel it would only work if I was 100% honest, warts an all, and I'm not sure if I am prepared to do that. However, I do feel there would be reader interest in such an honest project as much of it would reflect what many people feel but dare not mention.

 

[Eva Ulian]

I think it's best to define what writing a memoir is. A memoir is when the author uses REAL names including his/her own. I've also written a "memoir" but I have neither used my own real name nor that of the protagonist or any of the characters, in that case it cannot go under the category of MEMOIR but FICTIONALIZED MEMOIR. And when it comes to submitting, that is the genre to categorize my work- a Memoir is quite a different kettle of fish, it's NON-fiction, whilst a fictionalized memoir is FICTION. If I remember rightly both @Steve C and @KateESal have done the same as I have- NOT used real names.

 

[Steve C]

I think it's best to define what writing a memoir is. A memoir is when the author uses REAL names including his/her own. I've also written a "memoir" but I have neither used my own real name nor that of the protagonist or any of the characters, in that case it cannot go under the category of MEMOIR but FICTIONALIZED MEMOIR. And when it comes to submitting, that is the genre to categorize my work- a Memoir is quite a different kettle of fish, it's NON-fiction, whilst a fictionalized memoir is FICTION. If I remember rightly both @Steve C and @KateESal have done the same as I have- NOT used real names.

Semantics I think. Write in first person so 'I' is my name and everyone in it is referred to by their first name. Job done.

 

[Eva Ulian]

Write in first person so 'I'

That's an idea! I don't mind using my first name either. I also refer to everyone with their first name. However, I cannot use their real name because they are easily recognised. What about places and institutions? Do you use real names for them. For example the prison where you were detained?

 

[Steve C]

That's an idea! I don't mind using my first name either. I also refer to everyone with their first name. However, I cannot use their real name because they are easily recognised. What about places and institutions? Do you use real names for them. For example the prison where you were detained?

I am talking about what I might do in the future. The book I have written is fiction using my experience to give it authenticity. Many place names are real but names have been changed in some cases. I think all writers inject some of themselves into their stories. It's only when all of it is true it is called a memoir.

 

[RK Wallis]

I wrote all real names in my memoir, but I got written permission first. Only one person said no and I just used her title, which she agreed to.

Research after I finished (the wrong way to do things btw) revealed this: Autobiography vs. Biography vs. Memoir | Blurb Blog. Luckily I fit the bill! A fluke. Mine was written for a niche market, and although an agent signed it in under a week, editors couldn't get it past the Acquisitions Committee (because it was so niche).

To me, this just got my stroke experience out there (because this kind is so rare). But that book was only a detour on the road to writing fiction.

Someone gave me brilliant advice while I was developing/writing mine:

1. Make sure you have a narrative (around 70,000 words).
2. Read memoirs similar to the one you want to write. It's important to have a sense of other books are out there to see where you'll fit in.
3. The reader has to care about you before they will invest time in reading your story. Set the scene evocatively. Who are you? What are your desires, dreams, hopes? (much like fiction).
4. You have to invite the reader into your life (sounds like Peter talking!).
5. Make the reader care to engage them.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Favourites

Promise At Dawn - Romain Gary. What a book. Translated from the French. Glorious, funny, beautiful and tragic. Was everything totally factually true? Who knows. Who cares. It is still Truth

A Child in the Forest, Winifred Foley. A miner's child, and a vanishing way of life in the Forest of Dean. I still laugh and I cry every time I read it. She did not consider herself a writer, and published very late in life. Look up the story of how she got published.

Flames of Calais...Airey Neave (later killed by the IRA, unarmed) A memoir from the thick of it, warts and all, no glossing it, and then to die like that.

The Story of San Michele...one of the greats. Rightly so.

Bad Blood by Lorna Sage. Beautiful Lorna, pregnant before wedlock. Worra scandal. (It was at the time) "Bad blood will OUT!" In this case, purportedly her crazy churchman grandfather. But she still got her degree. My mother wishes she had known her....kindred spirit...missed her by a whisker as a student at Durham Uni.

From the Guardian: Lorna Sage, professor of English at the University of East Anglia, has written an almost unbearably eloquent memoir of the unlikely childhood and adolescence that shaped her. Nothing else I have read, save Carolyn Steedman's Landscape for a Good Woman, destroys so successfully the fantasy of the family as a safe place to be or describes so well the way in which rage, grief and frustrated desire are passed down the family line like a curse, leaving offspring to live out the inherited, unresolved lives of their forebears.

It takes a novelist's skill to write a readable memoir. The minute I see a chronological presentation, I am OUT. I see a lot. Military memoirs etc.
They start at 'the beginning'.

No No NO!

A memoir is still a STORY.

 

[KateESal]

Great advice @RK Capps, thanks for sharing! That blog post has a useful breakdown of the differences between biography/autobiography and memoir too.

And some excellent recommendation too, cheers @Katie-Ellen Hazeldine!

A memoir is when the author uses REAL names including his/her own.

A lot of memoirs don't necessarily use real names and there are plenty of memoirs published under pen names. It doesn't disqualify them from the memoir category. Both Adam Kay's medical diary (mentioned above by Jonny) and The Secret Barrister, another recently published best-seller, include numerous assumed names for the featured characters and/or are authored anonymously, but they are still categorised as memoirs. You may personally hold the view that these are not bona fide memoirs, which is your prerogative, but that is not a view shared by the wider publishing and book-retailing industry.

Here's a Guardian article from the end of last year on the popularity of the "professional confessional" memoir:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/dec/16/lifes-work-professionals-memoirs-alex-clark

 

[Eva Ulian]

A lot of memoirs don't necessarily use real names and there are plenty of memoirs published under pen names.

I'd like to know how they did it, because if it worked for them I want it to work for me too. I would love to write this "memoir" not using real names and still be classified as memoir- but if others can get away with it, why can't I? Do you have examples of such memoirs please so I can check it all out. I would also use a pen name, but again I need examples of that please so, I can verify how it's done.

 

[Eva Ulian]

Actually @KateESal I think I've come up with some good answers:

This one:

So the real question is, How do you tell your story without risking any form of litigation? Disguise the names and biographical data and make sure that no one can identify the subjects from your description. Use a pseudonym if need be. And ALWAYS (it’s in all caps for a reason) talk with a knowledgeable lawyer first. A little cash now can save you a lot of cash in the future.

Will I Get Sued if I Use Real Names in my Memoir?

Brian A. Klems is the online managing editor of Writer’s Digest magazine.


And This one: A DISCLAIMER

The stories in this book reflect the author’s recollection of events. Some names, locations, and identifying characteristics have been changed to protect the privacy of those depicted. Dialogue has been re-created from memory.

https://laeditorsandwritersgroup.com/memoir-do-i-use-their-real-names/


So I'm all set, I'm going to change my FICTIONALIZED MEMOIR to just a NON-fiction MEMOIR!

You had a great idea to post this thread Kate!

 

[Hannah F]

"I am I am I am" by Maggie O'Farrell - as she puts it = about her 17 brushes with death. I love Maggie's writing and this is very poignantly written. I especially remember the chapters concerning her struggles with her own ill health and her daughter's serious eczma which needed specialist treatment.

"When I had a Little Sister" by Catherine Simpson, published last year by Harper Collins - about her younger sister's struggle with bipolar syndrome and paranoia which culminated in her taking her own life, and how both the illness and the death affected the author and her family. I know Catherine if Litopia are interested in having her as a pop-up guest.

"Toast" by Nigel Slater - a coming-of-age memoir narrated in both a comedic and poignant manner.

 

[KateESal]

Yay, go for it, @Eva Ulian! This slight (but significant) re-positioning of your book may make it more attractive to publishers, too.

The couple of bits of advice you've shared on the real names/assumed names dilemma basically sum up why I've chosen the more anonymous route for my own memoir. I'm telling my story in my way and according to my memory. And I'm deliberately amping up the humour. But I don't have the right to suggest my take on events is the only correct version, nor do I have the right to tell someone else's story in a way that might cause them distress (after all, I'm not writing the memoir as an exposé of the behaviour by certain individuals...that's another type of memoir). And I don't want to get sued, either!!

Great recommendations, @Hannah F! I didn't realise Maggie O'Farrell had written a memoir. I shall have to seek that out. I also thoroughly enjoyed Nigel Slater's foodie memoir.

And thanks for the guest suggestion, too.

 

[Jonny]

Forgot to mention these that I read last year. A series of 3 written by Tony Macauley.

They are a fantastic portrayal of what life for a kid growing up in riot-torn NI during the height of the Troubles was really like. How he tried to live just like any adolescent teenager in the UK and put aside the strife.

Hilarious and sad by turns.

The film is currently in production.

Paperboy
Breadboy
All Growed Up
Paperboy Movie