Your memoir’s value to readers: Recognizing their story in yours

Our “stories all overlap and mingle like searchlights in the dark. . . .” writes Frederick Buechner. “My story and your story are all part of each other. . . . All our stories are in the end one story, one vast story about being human, being together, being here.”

And he asks what every memoirist must ask: “Does [my] story point beyond itself? Does it mean something?” (The Clown in the Belfry)

The memoirist must be able to answer “Yes.”

You see, it’s tempting to think a memoir is all about you but, at some point in your writing, take a high, wide look from above. For your readers’sake, identify your story’s universal principles, truths, struggles, quests, and values.

Why? Because when your experience exemplifies universals, readers recognize their story in yours. 

A good memoir “always connects the reader's heart with a deeper truth,” writes Jeff Goins. “Memoir is about something that is bigger than you. It's about a part of life we can all connect to.”

Human lives overlap. We all hover within universal human emotions, conditions, and happenings. We all experience joys and sorrows, triumphs and failures, courage and cowardice. We all have chosen wisely as well as foolishly. We are proud of certain moments and ashamed of others. 

Readers, like all of us, feel alone in their wobbly efforts, false starts, dead ends, and meandering lives. One reader might think she's the only one longing to find love or acceptance or success. For another reader, personal transformation hurts and it’s easy for a man to assume he's along in worrying through times of change. Another reader might be struggling to overcome fear.

When readers pick up your memoir, whether they realize it or not they want to see where their lives intersect with yours. They want to relate to you. Within your story, readers can discover they aren't alone: They’ll recognize themselves in your story when you write about issues that concern them, when your story is about more than you. They want to learn from you and apply what you learned to their own lives. Your job, then, is to look for ways your story resonates with all of us.

This is an example of what I mean: “During my intense grieving moments, other people’s stories gave me words to describe the ache that was indescribable. They gave me hope that a new day would dawn, and I would not be stuck in the black forever.” (Dana Goodman, author, In the Cleft: Joy Comes in the Mourning)

In that way, memoirists have the privilege of being what Anaïs Nin calls “the guides and mapmakers.”

Within your story, look for universal principles and truths about honor, tenacity, valor, generosity, kindness, commitment, self-discipline, sympathy, integrity—the list could go on and on.

Stories need takeaways, gifts you offer readers, those “A-ha” moments when the lights come on, when they identify and apply your life’s lessons to their own lives.

Your memoir’s universal appeal and takeaways

can spark defining moments in your readers—

inspiring them to take action, opening for them new opportunities—

and leaving them changed for the better.

As a memoirist, you have the privilege of lighting their way.