Why Write a Memoir?
Memoirs are “as popular as ever” per Publishers Weekly (and trust me, they would know); though, with brick and mortar and e-book retailers having a larger and larger selection available (many of which are bestsellers, topping charts for weeks upon weeks (such as Glennon Doyle’s Untamed)).
The growing awareness we all have of the genre and the chances that you’ve read a memoir that resonated with you and made you think, “I should write my story,” have prompted you to contemplate whether or not you, too, should write a memoir. After all, “they” say that we all have at least one story we should tell in our lifetime, and usually, that story is a memoir, a story about an experience that so profoundly impacted our life, that it must be documented.
So, if the argument is that yes technically everyone on the planet can / should write a memoir, the next question is why should you and why are you writing a memoir?
To Give Something to Your Children / Descendants
A popular style of memoir is the family memoir; this memoir is written exclusively to pass a story, a lineage, a family history down the line. A few years ago, I worked with a woman who specialized in helping people craft their family memoirs; we gathered information and then served as ghostwriters for putting the story on the page and formatting the finished product.
Tenets of the family memoir are:
Aim is preserving family stories / a lineage
Generally, not intended to be sold for profit
Intimate
Less concerned with technical perfection / accuracy
People writing family memoirs are more concerned with the content than writing a story worthy of winning the Pulitzer; however, presentation matters to some as does making a profit. There are several people such as a recent client who write a family memoir but intends to make it available for anyone who may want to purchase it and to get something out of it.
To Share a Recovery Story
Another reason to write a memoir is to contribute to a growing dialogue. Recently, especially among middle-age mothers, “quit lit” has erupted. Quit lit, for example, are memoirs about women who have reacted to the mommy wine culture by recognizing that it’s not doing them any favors and quitting drinking.
These books are a combination of researched information (facts to support claims) and confessionals. Typically, these books explain who these women were when they started drinking, why they started drinking, when things started to go south, the reckoning—realizing that alcohol had lied to them, the recovery, and the new life without alcohol.
Sometimes, often times, recovery stories focus on healing from other forms of substance abuse including bulimia and anorexia, drugs, sex, grief and loss, trauma, etc.
Typically, these books are written for commercial purposes and are targeted at others experiencing the same struggles. Caroline Knapp’s Drinking a Love Story published in the ‘90s was one of the first books of this kind. More recent publications include:
Quit Like a Woman by Holly Whittaker
Love Yourself Sober by Kate Bailey and Mandy Manners
Highlight Reel by Emily Lynn Paulson
The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober by Catherine Gray
We Are the Luckiest by Laura McKowen
Again, these books share stories of transformation and recovery; their writing is no doubt therapeutic to the author; however, the intent is to help others get out from under the same shadow that was keeping the author from living her or his best life.
To Empower & Motivate
While similar to recovery stories, books that are written to empower and to motivate such as Annie Grace’s This Naked Mind or Glennon Doyle’s Untamed are stories by experts, by people who generally have careers as motivational speakers or something similar. These works are comprised of information as well as narrative. The focus, unlike the stories above, is not to share the individual transformation story; it is rather to inform and to empower the reader.
For example, Annie Grace also quit drinking and while her memoir does share facets of her reckoning and recovery, the majority of her personal stories are used illustratively; they are surrounded by facts and other interesting, surprising information that helps the reader. Consequently, some memoirs in this category, can be thought of as self-help memoirs.
Likewise, Glennon Doyle’s Untamed is a story of empowerment and motivation. Doyle shares a series of personal stories about how she discovered happiness. While she references her experiences with bulimia and alcoholism, Glennon’s primary goal is to empower her readers to be cheetahs, to embrace their wild and their freedom. At its core, Untamed is a book about being authentic to yourself and to trust your knowing. Glennon illustrates this with stories about her own family and how she came into her own knowing through falling in love with Abby, co-parenting with her ex-husband Craig, and raising her beautiful children.
To Capture a Transformative Personal Experience or a Specific Moment in Your Life
The memoir written to capture a pivotal personal experience is one of the more traditional styles of story. These are largely narrative in style; the author is in the story the majority of the time as a character of the past; unlike in recovery and inspirational memoirs, they do not step outside of the story to explain things.
Examples of these memoirs include Julie and Julia by Julie Powell, and Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Both of these authors recount a profound moment and experience in their lives.
In Julie and Julia, Julie Powell spends a year cooking the recipes of Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking and connecting to others through her nascent blog in the early 2000s.
In Eat, Pray, Love, after realizing that she is not happy in her marriage and does not want a baby, Elizabeth Gilbert painfully divorces her husband and goes on a quest for self-discovery in Italy, India, and Bali.
To Show How People Lived During a Period in History
Lastly, and similar in their representing a specific and unique time in the author’s life, are memoirs that show how people lived during a specific moment in history. Many of us have what we understand as a “typical” upbringing. While all families are unique, for example, my family was a middle-class suburban one of stable means in the deep south throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s. We were comfortable, like many people.
This makes memoirs such as The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance, and Educated by Tara Westover to be sources for fascination for readers. These are memoirs written for purposes of entertainment to the fascinated reader. They are almost always written for purposes of broad readership and distribution.
For example, in The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls recounts her childhood growing up with artsy, renegade, and somewhat lawless parents alongside her siblings. In the story, she projects no bias on her parents for her childhood but ultimately emerges transformed as a result of her upbringing. Walls story could arguably be a family memoir; however, it is so polished and poetically written and serves a higher purpose of showing what life was like for a specific family that it belongs to a different category; further, Walls’ purpose for writing (an important facet of why to write a memoir) was never just to have something for her family to remember their experiences by.
In the same vein, one could say that J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy about his life being raised in an impoverished coal miner town and Tara Westover’s Educated about her Mormon fundamentalist upbringing.
All of these writings and similar ones are written for the purpose of being read widely and of memorializing a way of life that is aberrant to most but that may have broad representation among specific or nuanced communities.
To Give a Glimpse into the Private Life of a Public Figure
The last type of memoir I’ll detail here is the celebrity memoir. These are those written by people in the public eye. Usually, these memoirs give a glimpse into the private and personal life of the author. Some I’ve enjoyed are:
Tina Fey Bossypants
Carrie Fisher Wishful Drinking
Melissa Joan Hart Melissa Explains It All
Amy Poehler Yes Please
Drew Barrymore Wildflower
Sally Fields In Pieces
Mind, this genre isn’t relegated to A-list celebrities; politicians, newscasters, famous authors, renowned artists, etc. also fall into the category of “public figure”.
Why Do I Need to Know My Purpose for Writing a Memoir?
While this list is by no means exhaustive, the aim is to help you get started on your journey. One of the biggest failings of memoirs written by a novice memoirist is a lack of clear focus; the main purpose, audience, and context for the story are ill-defined by the author, and so the story meanders without a clear purpose.
When you write for a specific purpose and you know what the aim is for your story (ex: I am writing to clarify what happened; I am writing to heal; I am writing to inspire others; I am writing about a once-in-a-lifetime adventure; I am writing so my children know our family’s story, etc., then you can plan your story, what it should contain, and how you will write it with focus.
Knowing the destination before you begin your journey saves time and a lot of effort. If you’ve ever endeavored to write your truth before, you’ll know there are a lot of sticky spots, areas where you’re not sure how best to say something, if you should say something, or if that part of the story belongs. Knowing the reason you’re writing a memoir will help on all of those forefronts.
Finding Your Purpose for Writing a Memoir Activity
Grab a notebook and write a letter to yourself explaining the reason for the memoir you’re about to write. Tell yourself the purpose, who you most want to read it, and what you expect them to take away from it.
Anyway, that’s all for now. Peace, love, and prose, and as always, happy storytelling!
Are you a writer with a story to tell, but you’re not sure where to start? Memoir is my jam. I’ve been a writer and editor for over a decade and have worked with multiple published authors who write for all kinds of reasons. It’s free to contact me for a consultation, so we can discover your goals and tell your unique story.