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how to write an autobiography

Writing a Memoir

April 23, 2019

By Dawn Brookes, bestselling author of  Hurry up Nurse: memoirs of nurse training in the 1970s.

Dawn Brookes, author

Recently I gave a talk at a local church to an interesting group of people, most of whom could write great memoirs if they had a mind to. We all have a story to tell, so if you’ve ever considered writing your own memoir but don’t know where to start, read on…

Memoir or Autobiography

First of all you need to decide whether their focus is on your whole life story (an autobiography) or on one aspect of your life, bringing in themes, memories and anecdotes that highlight that theme (a memoir). To be honest, unless you’re famous or writing for posterity, a memoir is likely to be more readable that an autobiography! Having said that, who knows?

Reasons for Writing

People have different reasons for writing a memoir or autobiography, some of which are listed below:

  • Personal–writing for posterity, family
  • As branding –e.g. running a business
  • Teach something
  • Publishing–writing to publish

You don’t have to be famous, but it helps!

This was a screenshot of the top 17 books listed in the bestseller list of Amazon’s memoir/biography section at the time I prepared my talk. Spot the famous people! That said, there are some who weren’t well-known prior to writing their biography or memoir.

When you niche down, it makes a difference as shown in this screenshot of the bestsellers in nursing category where two of my books feature in the top 18! If I’d taken a screenshot of the US Amazon store, niching down, my book would be top, where it has been for the past 16 months, but hey, that’s just showing off!

My point is, you can do well within your area of expertise if you’re writing a memoir. This only matters if you’re considering publishing of course. When I started writing my first memoir, it was more about getting my memories written down for posterity.

Niches

Here are just a few niches where memoirs are popular, but the list is not exhaustive:

  • Career–e.g. Medical/Nursing – think Adam Kay, Jennifer Worth, Monica Dickens; lawyer; teacher; train driving; councillor; vicar, sport etc
  • War –WWI; WWII; Gulf wars; Afghanistan etc
  • Conflict–Ireland; Spain etc
  • Romantic–love story; loved & lost; cross-cultural etc
  • Rags to Riches –e.g. Cliff Richard
  • Addiction–ex addict; child of addict etc
  • Difficult background to happiness, profession, faith etc
  • Wealthy background to poverty, mental health issues, addiction etc
  • Ordinary but have a story to tell
  • Different viewpoint –war from German perspective, 
  • Religious–missionary etc
  • Travel–travel memoir
  • Pet stories
  • Worked somewhere of national interest or for famous person etc
Nursing Memoirs

Even within those niches you can niche down again e.g. historical account. This image from the UK Amazon store shows bestsellers listed under biographical history.

Making it Interesting

People want to engage with an author’s story and the book needs to be worth reading. This is just as true if you are only writing for family, the story still needs to resonate. People are more likely to engage with stories that are gritty; painful, true stories; relatable e.g. medical nursing (most people experience the health sector at some time); about abuse although this might be difficult to write; insider secrets; pet stories. Whatever the theme, if some aspects of the above are included, you are more likely to grab peoples’ attention!

Make it Unique

In one way, there is nothing new under the sun, but in another, your story is unique and you need to bring that originality throughout. Mindmap the memories associated with your story and choose carefully what to include and what not to include. Choose with care how much detail to go into if you’re considering publishing. Initially you will write a whole lot more than you need.

There are some things you need to be cautious of and these include:

  • Identifying people
  • Venting your anger at an individual or workplace
  • Defamation of character
  • Glossing over the surface
  • Too much detail
  • Not enough detail
Hurry up Nurse memoirs

My memoirs are about my work as a nurse and therefore it was important for me to protect the confidentiality of those involved, particularly patients. In most circumstances, changing a name isn’t enough in such cases so I had to change names, times, places and sometimes, gender in order to protect people from being identifiable. This doesn’t alter the truth of the content and you will need to state that you have done this at the beginning.

This also works if you do need to talk about someone who has hurt you or damaged a work environment if these things are a necessary part of your story.

Some tips you might want to consider:

  • Change characteristics e.g. gender, time, place, details
  • Get release forms signed if using real names
  • Ask friends if they are happy for you to use their names or a pseudonym
  • Include disclaimer at the front of the book
  • Don’t hide the bad bits but disguise the people responsible

Show don’t Tell

Contemporary fiction writers use a ‘show, don’t tell’ way of telling a story and such skills are just as important when writing a memoir. Take a look at the example below:

Tell:

‘The night sister walked onto the ward and told me to join her for the ward round.’

Show:

‘The loud clopping sound of heels reverberating off the marble floor outside the ward filled me with dread. As the night sister rapidly approached, the knot in my stomach told me it was time for the ward round.’

Likewise, as with writing fiction, a memoir is made more interesting by the inclusion of dialogue; description with good use of adjectives; conflict; tension; anecdotes; emotion and pacing. I read lots of memoirs, biographies and autobiographies and the better ones use all of those elements.

You also need to be real. People like you to be honest, show vulnerability, and personality. If you like humour, use it, include jokes and funny stories. Swearing will put some people off, but if that’s you, it will make the story more real to use your potty mouth. Also build the narrative, adding tension as the story progresses.

Mistakes to Avoid

  • Poor structure
  • Too much detail
  • Being a show-off/arrogant (for some this will work, but for most, it won’t)
  • Being superficial
  • Missing your topic, theme
  • Unrelateable
  • Hiding your mistakes (don’t pretend to be perfect)

Tips for Producing Your Memoir

  • Introduction
  • Sections/chapters relevant to your topic
  • Chapters named or numbered
  • Keep chapters similar lengths (not always possible but aim to do this)
  • Conclusion
  • Choose a catchy title
  • Get a good book cover (particularly if publishing)
  • Get an editor/proofreader (vital, even if self-publishing)
  • Word count 40,000 –90,000 words

Conclusion

Medical biography

This short article might give you a start, but is not exhaustive by any means. You never know where it might lead to, I have re-invented myself in my fifties and now write children’s books and cosy mysteries.

If you do decide to write a memoir, autobiography, I’d be interested to hear how it goes for you. Thank you for reading this article.

Writing a Book Outline

April 19, 2018

Writing a Great Book Outline and Writing to Target

I have recently finished my debut novel so don’t consider myself an expert on this but I was greatly helped by using a system for writing the book. This system kept me to time and was just what I needed. The system I used I have adapted from one I learned from a course on Udemy called Reverse Engineer Riveting Fiction

The first thing I need to say is that I did veer off but not hugely and you will see what I mean when I explain it.

Storyline

Obviously before you can develop a plan there needs to be a story in your head. My story evolved but I had the basics of the plot before I started writing.

I had a main character (initially it was 2), sub-characters important to the plot, a scene (set on a cruise ship), a theme – murder mystery (initially thriller but turned out to be cosy as I don’t do graphic), a beginning, a middle and an end (I had two in mind).

Word Count

The next thing was to decide on a rough word count. There is some debate over words needed but in general they are as follows:

Quote

Word Counts are not written in stone

Depending on what you read there are different opinions on how long a book should be so I have gathered a few together but they are just guides. Publishers will have minimum and maximum word counts for different books and generally frown on shorter novels and those that are too long.

  • Novel 40,000 words or over (generally 60,000 for mystery, 90,000+ for non-series novel). Some authors and publishers recommend 50,000+ with a maximum of 120,000 but Harry Potter and the order of the Phoenix is over 250,000 words!
  • Young Adult 40,000 to 80,000 words
  • Biography & general non-fiction 50,000 to 120,000 words
  • Memoir & self-help 40,000 to 90,000 words
  • Novella 17,500 to 39,999
  • Novellette 7,500 to 17,499
  • Chapter books for children start at 16,000
  • Short story under 7,500
  • Flash fiction 500 to 1,000 words
  • Children’s picture books 400 to 800 words (some of mine are 1,200)

Splitting the Story

Splitting the word count to write the book

In my case I opted for 56,000 words (it has ended up being nearer the 60,000). As this was my first novel and I wanted to keep to time, I decided to aim for the same number of words per chapter using a table system.

The book had to have a beginning, a middle and an end and I wanted tension to build until the climax so this had to be factored in.

The grid or table includes the number of chapters split into one quarter for the beginning, one half for the middle and one quarter for the end. These quarters are then divided into 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and so on, depending on how long the book will be and how many chapters you want to include.

So for example for a 60,000 word book using a 6 grid system 6 x 4 or 24 chapters.

60,000/24 = 2,500 words per chapter (guide only, can be flexible)

There would need to be 6 chapters in section 1, 12 in section 2 and 6 in section 3

In this example there will need to be at least 24 chapters of 2,500 words each split into sections.

I outlined each of the chapters with points that would be included in each, building on the story and adding tension as the story developed. By the halfway stage the tension was building and by three quarters it was higher with no resolution in sight. The final quarter then built on that tension but arrived at resolution.

Quote

Writing in this way kept me to time 

I used 56,000 with the 5 grid system 5 x 4 or 20 chapters 

56,000/20 = 2,800 words per chapter. 

Writing the outline for each of those chapters helped me meet the target of writing the 2,800 per day. I didn’t stick to 20 chapters and have ended up with over 30 but that didn’t matter. The system helped me write the required number of words per day because I knew what I wanted to include in each of those grids.

Writing at a slower pace or writing more words

If you want to write at a slower pace you can write half the amount per day e.g. 1,400

If you want to write a much higher word count you will want to choose a higher number of grids resulting in more chapters. For example:

9 grid system 9 x 4 = 36

100,000/36 = 2,778 (give or take) words per day or half if you want to write slower

Conclusion

This is a system that has helped me and I hope that it helps you. If you want to learn more about this system check out Reverse Engineer Riveting Fiction by Geoff Shaw where he explains it much better and outlines plot building within the system.

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