- Begin your memoir with a dramatic opening sequence that captures your reader’s attention and introduces the conflict of the story they’ll be reading about.
- Use humor and vivid imagery to build a relationship with your reader and make them feel immersed in your story from the first paragraph.
- A memoir tells the story of one specific period in your life, not your entire life story. Clarify what this specific event is within the first chapter.
Begin your memoir with a dramatic, personal moment.
Hook your audience with an action-packed event to keep them engaged. You can always backtrack and come to this moment later, but hooking your reader in with a pivotal scene in your journey lets them know this turning point will be coming soon, so they’ll be more likely to stick with your memoir at least until that point. For example, Ron Kovic’s famous memoir Born on the Fourth of July begins with: “The blood is still rolling off my flak jacket from the hole in my shoulder.” He soon jumps back in time to explain how he got into this situation, but the reader is now invested because they know this intense moment will be coming soon.
Use humor to earn your audience’s trust.
Make your audience laugh early on. Try leading with humor, even if your memoir isn’t funny all the way through. Getting your reader to laugh will help put them at ease and trust you as a storyteller. Ways you can incorporate humor into your memoir include: Irony - saying one thing and meaning the opposite (“There were storm clouds everywhere, thunder echoing at deafening volume, and unrelenting rain. It was a great day for a picnic.”) Incongruity - making an unexpected, illogical choice to surprise and delight the reader (“I opened the wine bottle to let it breathe, but it started hyperventilating.”) Self-deprecation - making fun of yourself to humanize yourself to the reader (“I looked at myself in the mirror and my reflection screamed in terror.”) Understatement - describing a dramatic situation in an intentionally nonchalant way to ease the tension (“The day my grandfather died was mildly unpleasant.”) Hyperbole - exaggerating something to emphasize a situation’s silliness or absurdity (“My little brother took the last Snicker’s bar so we have to put him down.”)
Set up a character arc in the first few pages.
Create an emotionally satisfying journey for your protagonist. In your memoir, your main character is likely going to be you, so tease the lesson you’ll be learning throughout the story in your first chapter. In addition, emphasize that you don’t know this lesson right away. This will make your arc more satisfying once you eventually learn it. For example, in Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir Eat, Pray, Love, she begins the first chapter as a timid housewife who’s disillusioned in life and love. By setting her up this way, it’s all the more meaningful when she learns to find happiness, joy, and romance.
Establish a personal relationship with your reader.
Make the reader feel like they’re a close friend and confidante. Use language that will resonate on an emotional level and talk to them like a friend. Try telling them a revealing secret and addressing them directly to build trust. For example, you might say “I’ve never told anyone this. Here goes: I have a shrine to lizards in my bedroom. or “I’m writing you because I feel lost. If you feel lost too, keep reading.”
Use vivid imagery to put your reader in your shoes.
Create immersive scenes that capture the reader’s senses. Make your sentences more vivid by using figurative language and evocative, graphic descriptions of events so the reader can easily picture them in their head. In addition, cut out “telling” words (smelled, felt, saw, heard, etc.) to help the reader feel more immersed. For example, instead of “I heard footsteps and felt a tingle of joy because I knew my dad was home,” you might write “THUNK-THUNK! Footsteps echoed through the wood of our old 1930’s home. A tingle of joy pulsed through each vertebra in my spine. Dad was home!”
Write honestly and without a filter.
Tell your story unabridged in your own voice. One of the easiest ways to catch writer’s block is to censor yourself before you’re even done with your story. Your memoir tells the story of you, so tell it in a way that captures your point of view authentically. Keep the tone and grammar true to your voice, and include words that actually sound like you (not what you think sounds most sophisticated). Remember: there’s only one you, so people want to hear what you have to say! For example, if you’re writing about yourself in high school, you probably wouldn’t describe your friends as “kindly, warmhearted souls who made worries disappear like tears in rain” (even if it sounds poetic). It’s okay to use terms like “chiller” or “dude” if that’s how you talk. One thing that causes most memoirists to censor themselves is fear of how the people in their life might react to seeing themselves in a story. If you need to, use a pseudonym and change their names to respect privacy. But don’t let that change how you tell your story!
Clarify what event your memoir is about early on.
Narrow the focus of your memoir to one or two specific times in your life. Remember: a memoir is not an autobiography. Don’t try to tell your whole life story; write about one particular experience that taught you something about yourself. Tease what experience this will be within your first chapter, so your audience doesn’t get confused. For example, if your memoir is about your experience in the military, you might want to open your book with a moment from your experiences overseas. If it’s your whacky journey to stand-up comedy, you might want to describe your first open mic.
Convey a tone and mood that matches the stories of your memoir.
Use genre conventions to give the audience an idea of your book’s style. Your tone is your overall attitude toward the material you’re writing. Are you upbeat or cynical? Silly or serious? Meanwhile, mood refers to the overall atmosphere of your book. Is your world uncanny, farcical, melancholy? Be selective about what stories you tell and what moods/tones they convey. It may help to use common memoir genres to laser in on your tone. For an inspirational memoir, select stories about triumph and overcoming adversity: living through a natural disaster, finding faith and spirituality after feeling lost, or reconciling an estranged relationship after one of you made a mistake. For a comedic memoir, select stories about silly, awkward, and uncomfortable situations that lots of people may relate to: an outrageous family reunion, the awkwardness of middle school, or public humiliation. For a travel memoir, select stories in unique settings where it almost feels like the location itself is a character: a trip to Fiji where you can feel the sand between your toes, hiking in Yosemite under the lush green trees, the brassy jazz that echoes out of New Orleans. For a confessional memoir, select cathartic stories about taboos or secrets you haven’t told anyone before: struggles with addiction, behind-the-scenes details about your industry, family traumas you kept hidden.
Highlight potential themes in your first chapter.
Use characters, words, and images to establish your theme. The theme is the main lesson or subject of your memoir. Think of what you’re trying to say with your story and key people in your life who taught you this message. Then, find moments in your piece where that lesson was communicated. Try to come up with a list of 5-10 images, memories, or people that address your theme. For example, if your memoir takes place at a picnic and the theme is teamwork, you could write about the friends at this lunch you felt you could confide in, the beehive you saw where all the bees worked as a community, or the beauty of the interlocking squares on the blanket. Use word choice to convey the theme too. For example, if your theme is teamwork, you might use adjectives like “harmony,” “synergy,” and “congeniality” to describe positive experiences and “loneliness,” “isolation,” or solitude to describe negative ones.
Avoid getting lost in irrelevant details.
Keep your memoir focused on one specific event or subject. Only include details that tie in and support your central theme. Keep the focus of your memoir narrow and, before adding a new beat, ask yourself: does this detail advance the story, enhance the characters, or strengthen my relationship with the reader (i.e make them laugh, build relatability, etc.)? If the answer is yes, include it. If it’s not, save it for another book. Think of a memoir like a story you’d tell to someone face-to-face. If someone asks “What was 8th grade like for you?” you probably wouldn’t go on a tangent about your dog, unless that dog played a key role in your 8th-grade year.
Write your memoir’s opening last.
Postpone writing your opening paragraph (or even your opening page). Don’t come back to it until you’ve written everything else. Since the job of your opening is to set up key details and themes that will happen later on in your memoir, it’s a much more effective use of your time to jump right into the story and allow yourself to discover how you want to begin throughout the process.
Recognize that your memoir’s opening won’t be perfect at first.
Allow your first draft to be rough. One of the main reasons people fail to start writing a memoir is unrealistic expectations. Recognize that no author writes a masterpiece on their first pass. It takes several rounds of writing and re-writing to polish a great work of art. Don’t re-read or make edits to old passages until you’re done. Just start. Then, once you’ve finished, keep going and don’t look back! Once you’ve finished your first draft, avoid working on your memoir for 2-4 weeks. Give yourself space to replenish your creative juices for the rewrite.
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