In
writing your memoir, you must craft every aspect well, but your beginning could
make or break your entire book.
Because
of that, you’ll need to create curiosity, draw readers in, and keep them
reading.
An
opening is probably the hardest for all of us to create, whether we’re
composing a book, vignette, newspaper or magazine article, blog post,
inspirational talk, or sermon.
Brian Clark drives home that point:
“Master
copywriter Gene Schwartz
often
spent an entire week on the first 50 words. . . .
Those
50 words are the most important part
of
any persuasive writing,
and
writing them takes time.
Even
for the masters.”
Read
that again: “ . . . writing them takes time. Even for the masters.”
How
are you doing on crafting your memoir’s beginning?
Here
are a few tips:
Remove your scaffolding. (Don’t miss that link!) Your first few paragraphs must be the
correct ones.
Be
sure your beginning doesn’t give away the ending. This might seem like a
no-brainer, but too many people goof on that.
Prolific author and New York Times bestselling author Cecil Murphey says, “I once read
more than one hundred of the entries for Christmas Miracles, a compilation
book. The major flaw in at least a third of them was that they told us the
ending before they told us the story.” Cecil gave this example: “The worst
Christmas of my life became the best Christmas ever.”
Instead
of giving away the ending, intrigue your readers: Entice them to keep reading
so they’ll discover how your memoir ends.
When
I teach memoir classes, I encourage people to do what I did when I was a
journalism student (and still do today): Study openings written by pros.
Be
an eager student: Go to the library, or browse around a book store, or look
through your own stack of books, or look inside memoirs on Amazon—but only
those written by pros. Study how they do it.
Scrutinize
the start of everything you come across—newspaper articles, magazine articles,
literary journals, fiction—anything written by pros, and study how they do it.
Once
you’ve acquainted yourself with professionally composed openings, look at how
non-pros write them.
By studying beginnings penned by
both pros and beginners,
you’ll recognize what works
and what doesn’t.
And you’ll become more skilled
at creating your own
memoir’s opening.
Remember:
Plan to take plenty of time to create just the right beginning.
The
first part of your memoir can make or break the whole book.
An effective start can motivate a person
to keep reading,
but a weak one could persuade him
to close your memoir and walk away.
Put
in the hard work needed to make your opening zing.
