Back to basics: What is a memoir?

Sometimes in the midst of writing our memoirs, we need to make sure we’re on the right track. That’s why from time to time we must remind ourselves what a memoir is.

A memoir is so much more than spinning yarns and passing on tales.

Since the genre of memoir confuses some people, let’s get back to basics: What is a memoir?

A memoir is not autobiography, which documents your life beginning with the day of your birth.

Instead, a memoir focuses on one segment of your life—a specific theme or time period.

You can write a memoir on a theme, like coaching Little League baseball, or volunteering, or foster parenting.

Or you can write a memoir about events that occurred during a specific time period, such as the three years you worked in a fast-food restaurant, or the first five years of parenting triplets, or your tumultuous college years during the hippie revolution.

Whether your memoir is based on a theme or a slice of your life, you’ll explore your topic in depth. And you’ll include only details that belong—only people and events relevant to your story.

A key component of writing a memoir is reflection. If you want to write a memoir, “reflection” must be your middle name.

Instead of simply recording facts about what happened on the surface, you must reflect: ponder, examine, muse, unravel, disentangle, and then make sense of it all—put everything back together in the right order.

Reflect: Look back, go deep, relive key experiences and relationships. Inspect them all. Do some soul-searching. Reevaluate your experience.

Most would-be memoirists need to work on reflecting adequately because it takes time and it can be painful. Richard Foster observes, “The sad truth is that many authors simply have never learned to reflect substantively on anything.”

Reflect: Look for significance you missed in the past. Search for those profound lessons you overlooked years ago. Make time to discover insights, healing, and blessings that were there all along.

And notice what God was doing. Find His footprints and fingerprints—they’re all over the place.

I’m not suggesting we all have supernatural experiences to share, stories that would make the evening news and get tweeted around the world. Nor do I believe Christian memoirists need to mention God on every page.

Here’s my point: Whether or not you knew it at the time, God was with you during each event you write about—not just watching from afar, but working on your behalf, working out His good plans. Spend time discovering what He was doing, and from time to time, let your readers know. Discover the higher, wider, richer stories in your experience.

What was God doing as you see it now, in retrospect? Look for deeper lessons God had for you in the events of your memoir.

• Looking back, what did you learn about yourself?
• What patterns in your faith did you discover that you hadn’t noticed before?
• What did you learn about God?
• Do you now have a better understanding of God’s purpose for your life?
• How did the experience change your life? What new person did you become?
• How did the experience strengthen your faith for future challenges?

God can use your stories to help others—not just kids and grandkids, since not all of us have them—but also siblings, cousins, aunt and uncles, nieces and nephews, coworkers, church friends, neighbors, and even people you’ll never meet.

“As Christian writers,

we can rarely change the circumstances of others—

but we can change their outlook on life.

Every day the headlines proclaim more tragedy,

more bad news.

Every day we wake up to more heartache and heartbreak.

It’s easy to feel defeated. To want to give up. To lose hope.

That’s where the job of the Christian writer comes in—

we need to constantly hold out hope

in this desperate world….

Christian writers: Do your job.

Be the light. Hold the torch of hope high.”

Kate Motaung

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