Although based on actual events, memoir is more like fiction than non-fiction. To be publishable, a memoir must make use of fiction techniques that pull the reader along and elicit an emotional response. A good memoir begins with the author’s perspective but doesn’t end there. It leaves the reader with a decision to make or an action to take.

If you are not a celebrity, you need to be able to write extremely well in order to place a memoir with a publisher. Memoirs can be very complex pieces of work.

Memoir vs. Autobiography

First-person accounts of people’s lives are often categorised into two main genres: autobiography and memoir. An autobiography covers the trajectory of an entire life, while a memoir is just one story from that life.

An autobiography spans one’s entire life; it’s much like a ‘historical document’ and is more formal than a memoir because it strives for factual accuracy. Autobiographies often tell stories close to or exactly how they happened, which means they often feature straightforward language and chronological narration. Autobiographies usually cover multiple themes. There’s not just one life lesson learned, but many; not just one significant event covered, but several.

A memoir usually revolves around one or few significant memories; it’s rarely all-encompassing. Where autobiographies emphasise facts, memoirs focus on personal experience, intimacy and emotional truth. These most often concern a specific time, or an event, or series of events, or a choice that changed the course of a person’s life, all of which are tied together with one theme. A memoir is heavily thematic, and this overriding subject is often the moral, i.e. the lesson learned, or a significant transformation of self (e.g. finding out you’re adopted, or losing a leg to a shark attack), as examples.

The requirement for a strong autobiography is a life that’s out of the ordinary in some way, whereas a memoir can be about an ordinary existence told with profound insight; it doesn’t depend on having lived a traumatic, eventful or dramatic life.

Choose a theme

The starting point for writing memoir is to pick a theme, occasionally more than one, from your life that you feel is worth writing about. A theme is a universal idea we all grapple with, something anyone can understand; it answers the question, “What is this memoir about?” Having a theme not only helps your reader connect to your work, but also makes the writing process much easier.

What you shouldn’t do when writing a memoir is tell a bunch of stories tentatively connected in some way. A memoir is more than that. Good narrative non-fiction always connects the reader to a deeper truth. Use your theme to tie events together and include only those stories that illustrate the theme.

Narrow your focus and develop a plot line

Identify one or perhaps a few events in your life to develop the plot line, the story you tell to illustrate the theme, the ‘big universal thing’ your story is about. ‘You’, as the subject, is not what the story is about. The story is about something universal and you are its illustration.

Of course, our lives are not comprised of solitary, isolated bundles of experience. Rather, the repercussions of our life choices and events all form threads which bind together to create experience. But it is necessary to select one or a core few to focus the plot around.

According to highly regarded academic, teacher and writer William Zinsser: “My final [reducing] advice can be summed up in two words: think small. Don’t rummage around in your past — or your family’s past — to find episodes that you think are ‘important’ enough to be worthy of including in your memoir. Look for small self-contained incidents that are still vivid in your memory. If you still remember them it’s because they contain a universal truth that your readers will recognize from their own life.” [1]

Establish a story arc. The best way to accomplish that in a memoir is by showing how you, the main character, grew and changed as a person. Even though it’s a story about your life, it still has to have some of the elements and structure of fiction to make it compelling. You need character development, a compelling struggle and a resolution.

Your memoir is not all about ‘you’

Your memoir should focus more on a story than simply your own subjective experience. It should be about the lesson you’ve learned and your insights that can be share with others. Readers will become bored hearing only about you; it’s too egotistical. But don’t ram your lessons down their throat, either; be subtle.

A memoir is about something bigger than you. It’s about a part of life we can all connect to. Your story’s details are conveyed in such a way that readers can enjoy the universal elements within your own personal experience.

Don’t begin at the beginning

It’s recommended that you start your memoir from the end or at the point of highest drama. Don’t tell your story chronologically; that’s too predictable. And don’t include every detail of your life. Readers become impatient with memoirs that meander through a backstory to get to the interesting parts. Some memoirists find it helpful to start from the end of their story first. Write about how you got to where you are.

Or, begin your memoir with an incident that is powerful and makes an impact. Even if this means beginning in the middle of the story, you can retell events out of chronological order. Perhaps start with the major turning point, and cycle back to explain how you came to that point later, or simply progress from this point to the resolution.

Be honest and fair

Vanity and self-obsession can ruin your memoir. Don’t embellish try to make yourself look better or appear more interesting, or ignore your own flaws and faults, or fabricate to justify your past. Doing so makes your memoir sound biased or even self-pitying. Memoir demands that you write about what really happened and what you’ve learned. It’s about retrospection, trying to figure things out, about exploring the truth as seen through your eyes.

The value of your story is in its raw and vulnerable honesty. It’s okay to be human and it’s required when writing a memoir. Readers will sense when you’re lying anyway. Your memoir should strive for your personal emotional truths, and it should feel far more personal that an autobiography.

What to keep and what to cut

Carefully choose what to leave in your memoir and what to cut. The most important elements to keep are any concerning transformation, growth or transcendence. It’s a minimum requirement of the genre. Don’t confuse transcendence in this context with a religious or spiritual experience: it’s more about progressing, even evolving.

It is important to understand the turning points (i.e. the events which have inspired the memoir) which are significant to the story and require deep examination to succinctly convey their emotional significance.

Make your book episodic, describing in detail events that are of interest or highly poignant to your story. Cut all meaningless details and the mundane (unless it is an intrinsic part of building the scene) which have no relation to your overarching theme. What this means is that at times you may have to skip forward months or even years in your narrative to deliver only the aspects which are relevant to the wider message you want to convey to your readers. A memoir can have a short or long timespan. The events could happen in days or over a lifetime, but the focus must remain on those events and be tied to the theme.

Have a target audience

Not everyone will enjoy or be drawn to your memoir, and that’s understood. You’re not trying to reach all readers, only those who relate to or benefit from your story. Write for that target audience as if you’re speaking directly to them. Memoir readers are not interested in rambling, self-indulgent pieces. Memoir readers tend to prefer:

• A sympathetic main character
• Vividly depicted scenes
• Emotional tension
• Increasing sense of drama/conflict
• A satisfying ending

They like evocative content that provide a glimpse into someone else’s life. They want writing that enlightens them on experiences which they may not have had, and with a moral, a lesson or a message attached.  

Don’t use real names

Whenever possible, use a pseudonym rather than the real name of a character in your memoir. Also avoid sharing easily identifiable information about the ‘characters’ you mention.  This is the one time when it’s better to blur the truth. Using real names can get you in a lot of trouble and become a legal wrangle. You could face a defamation lawsuit even if you’re telling the truth. Just as serious, you could damage close relationships by your portrayal of them.

Editing is essential

Most of us don’t have the objectivity or, perhaps, the skill needed to strip away parts of our story to find the true turning point or the core of our truth. Even though you have distance from the events in your memoir, it’s still a part of your experience.

That’s where an editor plays a role. Because memoirs are so personal, you need a fresh, impartial perspective to help you create a stronger narrative. I can help you fine-tune your memoir ‒ developing a theme, selecting life events, learning writing technique and so forth.  Contact me to discuss your project. M: +64 29 1230 158 and email: renellj@proofperfect.co.nz

Final Thoughts

Keep in mind that a memoir doesn’t necessarily need to be strictly about your own life. It can also be about a person other than the writer, or about a given place, or it can be a ‘hybrid memoir’ combining a personal story with other non-fiction subject areas; it can cross genres, too.

Renowned authors Jeanette Winterson and Helen Macdonald state that a memoir does have to ‘fit the genre’ ‒ it can cover more than one genre if the writer is skilled. Nor does a memoir have to “conform to chronological order; both [authors’] books whip sometimes furiously from past to present, in an order set by a progression of emotions and themes, not constrained by a linear idea of time”. [2]

[1] ‘How to Write a Memoir’ by William Zinsser, The American Scholar, 12 May 2015: https://theamericanscholar.org/how-to-write-a-memoir/#.XcEicDMzYT5

[2] ‘How to write a memoir: Jeanette Winterson and Helen Macdonald’, by Alex Clark and Sian Cain, The Guardian: 4 June 2015: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jun/04/how-to-write-a-memoir-jeanette-winterson-and-helen-macdonald

What is tone?

Tone is an aspect of writing style that refers to the author’s attitude or approach toward the reader and the subject matter or central theme in the literary work. It is expressed through the author’s writing and is a powerful tool that a capable author can wield to great effect.

To be more precise: Tone in fiction is the attitude of the narrator or viewpoint character toward the theme, story events and other characters. In non-fiction, tone is the author’s attitude and approach toward the subject matter and the reader.

Note that literary tone and literary mood are not the same, although they are closely associated. Tone has to do with the way the author approaches the theme or subject matter, whereas mood is how the writing makes the reader feel.

In The Oxford Essential Guide to Writing (originally published in 2000), Thomas Kane describes it as a “web of feelings stretched throughout the essay”. Kane also says: “Tone … is unavoidable. You imply it in the words you select and in how you arrange them.” In brief, tone is the author’s feelings on their subject as represented by the text.

All writing has a sense of tone, and since tone describes an attitude, adjectives are used to describe tone. The tone of the writing may be formal, informal, serious, humorous, sarcastic, cynical, sincere, melancholy, sad, cheerful, playful, angry and so forth — the whole range of human emotions. Writing’s tone is akin to a speaker’s tone: when we speak, we can say one sentence in a number of ways to produce different meanings; so too for writing. The author’s intentions, emotions, and personal ideas about the theme or subject matter reveal themselves in the tone of their writing.

Consider the following example of tone:

The last stanza of The Road Not Taken, a poem by Robert Frost.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Frost tells us about his past with a ‘sigh’, giving the lines an unhappy, melancholy tone. This tone suggests that the speaker in the poem had to make a difficult choice and is reconciled, even at peace, with the decision he made.

How tone operates in fiction

The tone may remain constant throughout the written piece, or it may at times vary in degree of intensity, or it may perhaps shift entirely at some point, but when the written piece is viewed as a whole, the overall tone should be purposeful and consistent.

While tone can change over the course of the story ‒ since the viewpoint character/narrator grows or their perspective changes, or the plot becomes more complicated or dramatic, etc. ‒ every scene should have a recognisable tone that’s generated by the attitude of the viewpoint character, and that could hold fairly steady for much of the story. A scene that has few tone indicators or that has a mixed tone will either fail to engage readers or leave them confused. The story as a whole, however, should still have an overall tone, a particular feel. Works of fiction, though, can have more than one overriding tone ‒ there may be more than one tone that an author takes toward a work at the same time. For example, a novel can be both humorous and dark, or both sentimental and formal.

In fiction, tone within a chapter, section or scene is created or altered by the way the viewpoint character or narrator interacts with the storyline’s complications/conflicts and other characters, and by the way he/she responds to the events surrounding him/her. Tone can be manipulated by changing what the narrator focuses on and through the narrator’s changing reactions to what is going on in the story as well as by the choice of words used for his/her thoughts, action and dialogue. The tone of a scene, for example, can be affected by manipulation of the sensory elements. The viewpoint character’s perception of and reaction to sensory stimuli helps to create the tone.

The function of tone

Tone determines the lens through which the reader views and comprehends the piece of writing. Tone clues readers into the essence and the purpose of what they’re reading. Authors set the tone of their work to match not only the content of their writing but also to suit the purpose they intend for it to serve. The tone stimulates the reader to read the piece in the manner the author had in mind ‒ as a serious, or light-hearted, or cynical, etc. piece of writing.

In this way, authors make use of tone to demonstrate their attitude toward, or views about, their subject matter, often driving a particular point of view or agenda, such as one sees in social, economic or political commentary. Tone is one of the many methods an author uses to communicate their argument. And, if the author creates a tonal shift in their work, he/she must be mindful that they are doing so. Even a tonal shift should support the argumentative purpose.

Plus, tone lends shape and life to a piece of writing because it creates a mood: it suggests how readers should feel while they are reading it. Authors use tone as a useful tool to shape their readers’ experiences. For instance, if an author wants their readers to feel happy, they will use words and imagery with certain positive connotations to create a bright, cheerful tone.

How is tone conveyed?

Tone is conveyed largely through diction (word choice), syntax (sentence structure and word order), point of view and level of formality, though other writing mechanics, such as punctuation and word styling (e.g. bolding, capitalisation), can help convey it as well. The tone of a piece of writing depends on a confluence of different factors, including:

Diction: the words that the author chooses. A word can have an emotional charge or association that creates a secondary meaning (its connotation), in addition to its dictionary definition (its denotation). In fiction, for example, word choices have to match the character and the moment to create a tone that works in each scene.

Figurative language: is there a lot of metaphor, hyperbole or alliteration? Does the language sound lofty and poetic?

Syntax and ‘sentence sounds’: how words are arranged in a sentence to form its ‘shape’ and how the sentence sounds in readers’ minds when they read it. According to Robert Frost:

In writing, we can’t indicate body language, but we can control how sentences are heard. And it is through our arrangement of words into sentences, one after another, that we can approximate some of the intonations in speech that tells our readers not only information about the world but also how we feel about it, who we are in relationship to it, and who we think our readers are in relationship to us and the message we want to deliver.

Imagery: the pictures that an author creates suggest the tone; descriptive language helps us understand what the author thinks. The descriptive details in the setting, such as colours, time of day, weather, season, sounds and symbols, all suggest feelings, set a tone and create a mood.

The mood: how does the language make you feel, as the reader? This can reveal a lot about the tone of the piece.

Characterisation: tone bestows voice to characters and throws light on their personalities and state of mind, helping readers understand them better. In addition, the various elements of characterisation are a way for the author to send messages, create meaning and set the tone. This is done through the characters’ actions, reactions, thoughts, dialogue, appearance or even what other characters say about them.

Plot: what tone is created by the way the author structures the content and arranges the sequence of events that occur? What feelings are created by the conflict, the climax and the denouement?

Theme: consider the author’s approach and orientation ‒ what attitude comes through in the author’s main point and conclusion?

All these elements work together to determine the tone of a piece of writing. After collecting evidence in all these areas, a reader forms an opinion about the overall attitude or feeling that the author is expressing in these subtle ways.

Final Words

As you examine your own writing, decide whether you are using all the tools available to create a unified tone for the work as a whole and for the various chapters, sections and scenes. The tone (and attitude) used in your writing can be detected and identified by an attentive editor, who can help you figure out how your reader might interpret your writing, and how to refine the tone.