Memoir is not just a fancy literary theme for an autobiography. It is a theme shaped by anecdotes from your life that support a specific thought. A memoir might revolve around a single or maybe multiple memories. No one born can be without a story. Your theme must be based on your reader’s preferences, offering universally true principles but with which they can relate to. Often these principles form the basis of the moral values carried in the story and are the lessons learned from the book.

You don’t have to hold a glorious portfolio in order to write an engaging memoir that touches the heart of the audience and shares some deep truth about life. A memoir can be an ordinary tale of life depicted through a thoughtful narrative. You simply need to have the mindset and rest will fall in place.

Use vivid word imagery to build a special realm within your memoir

Build your story but don’t lead the readers towards an obvious conclusion. Let them imagine and approach their own conclusive thoughts. Create evolving characters. Your secondary characters should be close to real. Some authors embark upon the journey of writing a memoir because in their heart of hearts they believe their lives are intensely colourful, worthy of getting attention from the entire world.

Your memoir should begin from a point from where you had started your journey of evolution. The progress is something which people will be keen to know and they will also learn from the hurdles you faced. That lends a satisfaction of achievement both for you and your reader.

You might start off with the adversities you have faced and how unlikely it was for you to have overcome the situation. Then you go on to the life-changing episodes or influences in your life that guided you and showed you the path of light and finally how each helped in changing your life. Naturally, the better your stories and the more significant your change, the better your memoir. Readers should be able to relate to those moments of pain or disappointment and should feel the hardships as their own to be able to enjoy the read.

When writing your memoir

The memoir might be narrating your life’s journey but remember that it is not only about you. You have to lend your personal experiences the colour of the world and give those personal moments a worldly hue. Equip them with the tools they need to win their own battles, even if they are a bit different from what you experienced. Encourage them with a winsome model.

Spin a web of entertainment, motivation, learning, and emotion around the main story and the reader will faithfully follow you till the last page. They will also gather like-minded followers to share experiences from your memoir.

How to Write a Great Memoir?

Whether you’re aiming to write a script for a blockbuster or the next regional hit, here are some elements that all good books will inevitably contain.

A Great Opening:

A good book grabs the attention of the readers from the very first page and doesn’t let go of their readers until they reach the end. A strong opening is essential to hold on to the readers’interest.

The opening of a book also introduces the protagonist and the main characters. It also sets the tone and the mood, along with the setting and transports the reader’s mind into the labyrinthine story line.

A great novel will also use its opening pages to establish the conventions of the book’s genre. For instance, the expectation of the readers are set to expect a sudden murder or crime being perpetrated at the very first chapter if it is a thriller; and with an immediate quest for the unknown if it is an adventure story; or a war if it is a tale of combat or bravery; or maybe an alien world with strange characters if it is a science fiction. All great books begin with a grand opening, and the first few pages decide if someone is going to read the entire book and carry it home or leave it on the book shelf after reading the first few pages.

Fascinating Characters:

Most great and popular fictions have rich, compelling characters as a common factor.

Well etched multi-dimensional characters keep readers glued. The audience hate, love and live with them and be one with them. Just like people in real life, these characters are multifaceted, giving us insight into human nature as they overcome obstacles and moral tests.

Character development is often inseparable from the plot since readers typically experience the events of the story through a character’s point of view. Without a clear notion about who the character is, what are their likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses, aims and ambitions, the reader will not be able to attach themselves to the story line and the plot will thus lose significance. Great writers draw their protagonists in rich, vivid details.

A Captivating Story:

When a reader picks up a novel, including any piece of creative writing, they want to be entertained by a good story. From the inciting incident to the rising action to the climax, a great story keeps the reader engaged from the first page onwards.

Captivating stories don’t happen by accident. Good writers usually spend infinite hours conceiving and outlining their plots, so that they have the sequence of all the events etched in their minds even before they begin writing. Planning out your story structure before you start penning ensures that the plot is sustainable and progresses steadily over the course of the novel. The pace of the plot can also be controlled better that way.

Clear and Crisp Dialogues:

Good books are filled with sharp and memorable dialogues.

Bestsellers contain dialogue that advances the plot, demonstrates your characters’ personalities, and adds texture to your story. Good books maintain a balance between scenes with heavy dialogues and scenes that are purely action based by the help of juggling between first-person and third-person narration.

Great writers know how to make each character’s word choice and sentence structure sound completely unique so that the reader feels like no two characters sound completely alike.

Unique style: 

Your writing style is the voice and tone; a writer uses to convey a story or express an idea.

Every writer has their own writing style based on how they use words, the literary devices they prefer, their sentence structure, and their overall approach to the art of writing.

Writers spend their entire career learning how to express themselves in their own way—and in the best cases, the results can be a classic novel with a writing style, unlike anything readers have seen before. In both, self-publishing mode andtraditional, having a unique, characteristic style will make your writing stand out among the masses.

If you have a life experience to share that has the power of impacting the lives of readers all around the world, pen it down. Get ready to “positively change lives with your story”.