Back to Basics: “Make ‘em wait”

  

Continuing with

“Make ‘em cry, make ‘em laugh, make ‘em wait.”

Wilkie Collins (1824-1889)

 

Why should you avoid opening a story in the following way? 

 

“We eventually found Old John, alive, buried under four feet of tree limbs—the elephant had buried him the way elephants bury their own—but for six hours we didn’t know if we’d ever find him, dead or alive.”

 

If you begin your story this way, you have given away your ending. That weakens the power of your story. It diminishes readers’ involvement.

 

Giving away the ending spoils 

an essential element of a good story: 

suspense.

 

Remember this definition:

 

A quality story “will consist of a real person who is confronted with a significant problem, who struggles diligently to solve that problem, and who ultimately succeeds—and in doing so becomes a different character” (Jon Franklin, Writing for Story). Note the tension and suspense: (1) a significant problem which (2) the character struggles diligently to solve.

 

In other words, “A story consists of a sequence of actions that occur when a sympathetic character encounters a complicating situation that he confronts and solves” (Jon Franklin, Writing for Story). Note the tension and suspense: (1) a complicating situation which (2) the character confronts. (Jon Franklin is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and a well-known pioneer in creative nonfiction.)

 

Writers develop what Franklin calls “a sympathetic character” and “a real person” when they make readers cry and laugh, which we covered in previous blog posts, based on Wilkie Collins’ quote, “Make ‘em cry, make ‘em laugh, make ‘em wait. (See recent posts if you missed them.)

 

Today let’s take a closer look at Collins’ advice to “make ‘em wait” for resolution.

 

After all, as you lived the stories in your memoir, you endured a time lag—maybe months, maybe years—before you found resolution.

 

You didn’t know how the incident would end.

You had to wait. Make your readers wait, too.

 

Here’s why: Readers open the pages of your book because they want to learn from you. They know you weren’t handed an easy fix—that’s not the way life or God work—so they don’t want you to offer them a trite, instant, easy fix.

 

“We desperately want our situation solved. We want resolution. But God unfolds the plot in his own time. It is in our months or years of waiting that our story comes to maturity” (Dan Allender, To Be Told).

 

James wrote about coming to maturity when he penned, “the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its good work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:3-4).

 

Readers know you came to the maturity

that James and Allender highlight

—they just don’t know how—

and they want to discover it.

They want to mine the gems that formed

during your coming to maturity.

 

Pat answers or platitudes won’t do.

They want the real thing:

 

They want to tag along with you

to see how, step by step, you dealt with your problem

so they can deal with theirs.

 

Step by step means you let readers experience the suspense you experienced. “Make ‘em wait.”

 

Perhaps your calamity, your unwelcome surprise, your tragedy arose from cancer, or an addiction—yours or someone else’s.

 

Maybe, like friends of mine, you were kidnapped by Marxist guerrillas.

 

Perhaps you were a victim of road rage or of a mass shooting.

 

Or maybe you said, “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15), and that led to being misunderstood and scorned, and it required sacrifice and courage beyond your expectation.

 

Perhaps your child got into trouble with the law, or your spouse betrayed you. Or you lost your job and health insurance, and then you lost your house.

 

Whatever your incident, spell it out for readers.

 

Keep in mind that making ‘em cry

will be a companion to making ‘em wait;

they will be intertwined.

Specify, in sufficient depth,

why your crisis made you “cry”

and invite readers to “cry” with you.

 

Just be sure to hold readers captive.

 

Explain what was at stake. What were the possible outcomes? Which did you hope for? Why? Which outcome did you fear most? Why?

 

Detail the complications and disappointments and setbacks.

 

Share your doubts.

 

Unravel the story as you lived it—unable to see into the future—and let readers unravel it with you.

 

Pull readers in. If you gave in to despair, write in such a way that readers experience your despair with you.

 

Admit to weeks or years of faltering faith.

 

Tell about your tears, sleepless nights, and prayers.

 

Describe the times God seemed silent.

 

Keep your frustrated goals before your readers. Leave them hanging.

 

Make them curious: Leave readers wondering about the outcome.

 

When they finish a chapter of your memoir, make ‘em worry for you. Make ‘em wonder what will happen in the next chapter.

 

Save the resolution for the conclusion. When that time comes, tie everything together. Make sense of your crisis.

 

In good memoir form, tell how you changed and matured, how you knew God better than before, how you came to understand His ways and His love. How did the experience strengthen your faith for future situations? What new person did you become as a result of the experience?

 

Keep up the suspense.

 

Don’t tell readers the end until the end!

 

Back to Basics: Have you thought about writing an essay-type memoir?

 

The memoir you want to write will be packed with rich material for your family, friends, and maybe even strangers—after all, your story is important—

 

but to impact readers,

you must help them understand your story—

even  more than that,

you want them to enjoy and benefit from reading your story.

 

That’s why you need to structure—to arrange—your memoir carefully.

 

Richard Gilbert writes that memoirists must “focus not just on the story they want to tell but on how best to present it.”

 

Charlotte Rains Dixon explains the importance of structure this way:

 

“A piece of creative writing without structure

is like bread without yeast. Or a pen without ink.

Or coffee without caffeine in it.

 

“Picture a clothesline with a string between the two poles

all loose and wavy. No way can you hang clothes on it.

Now think of that same string as pulled taut,

and it accepts your shirts and shorts and underwear just fine.

Structure allows your [story’s] scenes

and characters and plot points to hang on.

Otherwise, they are just dangling in the wind.”

 

Last week we began looking at how to structure your memoir. (Click on Are you paralyzed by the thought of writing your memoir?) We looked at one option—arranging it chronologically.

 

But not all memoirists write their stories chronologically. Today let’s look at writing an essay-style memoir—a compilation of stand-alone essays.

 

For an essay-type memoir, you could use a poem to establish your structure.

 

While you read the poem below, notice: Each line could be a separate chapter in which you tell readers what you’ve experienced or what you’ve watched someone else do, and how you, the memoirist, changed as a result:

 

“If: A Father’s Advice to His Son”

 

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

 

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;

 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings,

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor living friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

(Rudyard Kipling)

 

A poem like Kipling’s could provide you with an effective framework—and result in a powerful memoir.

 

Here’s another idea for writing an essay-type memoir: Choose a Bible passage as your structure. For example, each of the Beatitudes could serve as the topic of one chapter:

 

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

(Matthew 5:3-10)

 

Using each Beatitude as a chapter, you can write accounts that illustrate (a) what the Beatitude means and (b) how to live it out in everyday life—chapters about your own experience or about something you’ve witnessed in others.

 

For example, for the first Beatitude, define “blessed.” Explain what Jesus meant by “poor in spirit.” Then write about your own experience of living a poor-in-spirit life—or about someone else who lived such a life, a person who served as a role model for you.

 

Next, define what Jesus meant by “kingdom of heaven” and show what that looks like in the lives of those who are poor in spirit. And then, in good memoir form, conclude by explaining how living according to that verse shaped you into a different person.

 

And then begin writing about the second beatitude. If you continue writing, using the rest of those verses as chapter titles, you can write a whole memoir!

 

 

A good structure can be your friend, your helper.

 

It holds your story together.

 

And it helps readers embrace your messages and lessons.

 

Jon Franklin points out that your memoir, like all quality stories, can teach readers:  “. . . The deeper satisfaction comes when the reader learns with the character [that’s you, the writer]. The reader, like the character, thus becomes a better and wiser person.” (Writing for Story)

 

And that’s what you want, right?

 

Dedicate time to choosing a good structure for your memoir.

Your readers will thank you.

 

Back to Basics: Are you paralyzed by the thought of writing your memoir?

 

“Most people embarking on writing a memoir are paralyzed by the size of the task,” writes William Zinsser.

 

“Where to start? Where to stop? How to shape the story?

 

“The past looms over them in a thousand fragments, defying them to impose on it some kind of order.

 

“Because of that anxiety, many memoirs linger for years half written, or never written at all.” (William Zinsser, How to Write a Memoir)

 

Does that describe you?

If so, take a deep breath.

Let me offer you some help.

 

I recommend that you begin by coming up with a structure for your memoir.

 

“The structure is the framework you write into,

your security blanket, your assurance that all your hard work

will result in a completed manuscript.”

(Priscilla Long, The Writer’s Portable Mentor)

 

When we talk about structuring your memoir, then, we’re talking about its organization. You’ll need to determine the best sequence of events.

 

Remember our earlier post about story arc? Click on Your memoir’s all-important story arc and Your memoir’s middle and end.

 

To jog your memory, let’s review a story arc, as well as the basics of story:

 

Memoirs read like novels (but unlike novels, they are true accounts). Jon Franklin (Writing for Story) explains: “A story consists of a sequence of actions that occur when a sympathetic character encounters a complicating situation that he confronts and solves.”

Franklin says, in other words, that a quality story “will consist of a real person who is confronted with a significant problem, who struggles diligently to solve that problem, and who ultimately succeeds—and in doing so becomes a different character.”

Dr. Linda Joy Myers says it this way: “The main character . . . —in a memoir it’s you!—is changed significantly by events, actions, decisions, and epiphanies. The growth and change of the main character is imperative in any story, and is the primary reason a memoir is written—to show the arc of character change from beginning to end.”

 

The story arc is like a thread, a path from beginning to end, making clear that character change.

 

Okay, back to your memoir’s structure:

 

I recommend that you tell your story chronologically—with a beginning, a middle, and an end. It’s straightforward: Arrange chapters according to date. That will be your structure.

 

With that in mind, let’s talk about flashbacks.

 

Tiffany Yates Martin offers this succinct definition of flashbacks: “. . . [S]eparate, self-contained scenes that serve to fill in essential backstory. . . . [They are] events . . . that happened before the events of the current story. . . .”

 

So how, specifically, could a flashback work in your memoir?

 

Two ways.

 

The first way: Some memoirists, even though writing a chronological account, begin their books with a flashback.

Here’s how that works: Place a compelling segment of your story in Chapter 1 (or perhaps in the first part of Chapter 1)—something intriguing or mysterious that will hook your readers. Something riveting or gripping.

 

After you’ve sufficiently developed that attention-getting opening, flashback to what led up to that experience—to where and how it all got started.

 

Note:

Often writers signal to readers

that they’re entering a flashback scene

by using the word “had.”

 

Here’s an example from my friend Shel Arensen, who was a college kid at the time, trying to get home for Christmas. Notice the word “had” in the sixth paragraph. That signaled to readers that the paragraph was a flashback—he was offering readers some background info.

 

Alone in Amsterdam, by Shel Arensen

 

I opened my eyes, suddenly awake. An eerie sense of uneasiness crept over me. Had I heard someone moving in the room? It was too dark to see. Then I heard the door click.

 

I sat upright in bed, straining to see who might have invaded the barracks-style hostel room where I was staying in Amsterdam, Holland. I sat perfectly still, hardly breathing, for several minutes. No one else stirred.

 

“I must have been imagining things,” I told myself. . . .

 

I decided to lie on my stomach. . . . When I turned over, I noticed what was wrong!

 

My pants, hanging on the wall near my bed, were twisted, and the lining of my pocket was hanging out. . . . I reached for my wallet. It was gone!

 

My misfortunes had started the day before when I arrived at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. I was to make connections there for Kenya, where my missionary parents lived.

 

“I’m sorry,” the voice of the ticket agent had grated in my ears, “but tonight’s flight to Nairobi is full. We can’t take any more passengers. . . . I will confirm your ticket for the next plane to Nairobi.”

 

“When will that be?” I questioned.

 

“Next Thursday—Christmas Day. Here’s your ticket. Enjoy Amsterdam. Who’s next in line, please?”

 

. . . Stunned and bewildered, I wandered over to a bench to collect my thoughts. . . .

It was Sunday night. . . . Now I would be unable to leave Amsterdam until Christmas—four days later. . . .

 

Did you notice the word “had” in the fifth paragraph? Using the word “had” in your manuscript will alert your readers that you’re going to take them back in time and offer significant information.

Here’s the second way of using flashbacks: While writing a chronological account, you can insert flashbacks throughout your memoir.

In other words, at key places you’ll interrupt the chronological order by flashing back to something that happened earlier—because you want to explain something to readers about that.

 

Here’s an example of a brief flashback from my memoir, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir. I was sitting in the co-pilot’s seat next to the pilot, Roland, in a small plane in the skies over South America. 

 

Dipping low, three or four seconds from touchdown, the wing on my side catapulted into the air and we veered to the left, the lopsided plane convulsing, engines roaring. Red lights flashed in the cockpit. A buzzer bawled somewhere. Roland jerked levers and slapped switches and punched buttons.

 

Dear God! I prayed, but I couldn’t say more. I couldn’t breathe. Of all the potential dangers I’d worried about—kidnapping, murder, drug cartel and guerrilla activity—I’d never imagined a plane crash.

 

Because our pilots often flew into the riskiest places on earth, they had been trained to have the engines at full throttle when approaching an airstrip in case they had to abort the landing. Grazing animals, curious children, or downed trees were common reasons to abort. Some landing strips clung to mountainsides and others were dangerously short. And sometimes armed insurgents swarmed remote airstrips. All were good reasons to be revved up at full throttle and ready to liff back into the air.

 

So, when that wicked horizontal wind shear jerked the plane vertical and tried to smash us to the ground, Roland wasn’t about to let that happen. His extensive training kicked in and he yanked the plane, vibrating and throbbing, into a steep climb heavenward.

 

After a brutal thirty seconds or so, Roland leveled the plane and it stopped trembling. “Whew,” he wheezed, sucking in a breath. “That was a sharp side wind. It blew in from nowhere.”

 

Notice the word “had” in the third paragraph. That’s how I pointed toward the upcoming flashback.

 

Here are phrases that could give you ideas for announcing you’re taking readers into a flashback:

 

“Before I had been invited on the trip. . . .”

“The year before, she had. . . .”

“Seven weeks earlier we had. . . .”

 

Question: Did you notice where I transitioned out of the flashback? It began with “So, when that wicked horizontal wind. . . .” With that phrase, I alerted readers that we were transitioning out of the flashback and returning to the chronological story.

 

That’s what you’ll want to do, too. Toward the end of your flashback, make it clear you’re transitioning out of it. Avoid confusing your readers: Write your way back to the scene you and the reader were in before you began your flashback, and then continue the chronological order of events.

 

Flashbacks can be very effective, but they’re not easy to pull off well. After all, you’re interrupting the reader’s involvement in your story.

 

Your job is to take readers back in time with you, and then smoothly, gracefully invite them to re-enter the main flow of the story.

 

Your desired outcome is

to hand your readers a coherent,

organized, satisfying memoir.

 

So set aside time to experiment with your memoir’s structure. Remember: You’ll no doubt revise your rough draft several times before you find the best structure.

 

You can do this! Yes, you can!

 

Back to Basics: Your memoir’s all-important story arc

 

“When I began work on my memoir . . . I didn’t know a thing about arcs,” writes author Adair Lara.

 

“I thought, I lived this story. I’ll just write it down the way it happened. . . .

 

“It was as if I decided to build a house and just started nailing together boards without giving a thought to blueprints. I put up some strange-looking houses that way, in the form of inert drafts filled with pointless scenes.

 

“I would have saved myself a lot of time if I had drawn an arc.”

 

Adair admits, “Back then, I hadn’t even heard of an arc.”

 

Maybe you haven’t heard of a story arc either, so let’s get started.

 

To give you a good grasp of a story’s arc,

first you’ll need to understand the basics of story.

 

Memoirs read like novels (but unlike novels, they are true accounts). Jon Franklin (Writing for Story) explains: “A story consists of a sequence of actions that occur when a sympathetic character encounters a complicating situation that he confronts and solves.”

Franklin says, in other words, that a quality story “will consist of a real person who is confronted with a significant problem, who struggles diligently to solve that problem, and who ultimately succeeds—and in doing so becomes a different character.”

“The main character . . . —in a memoir it’s you!—is changed significantly by events, actions, decisions, and epiphanies. The growth and change of the main character is imperative in any story, and is the primary reason a memoir is written—to show the arc of character change from beginning to end” (Dr. Linda Joy Myers).

 

The story arc is like a thread, a path from beginning to end.

It carries the memoirist and the reader:

From the BEGINNING,

to the MIDDLE,

to the END of the story.

 

Today we’ll concentrate on only your memoir’s BEGINNING, in which you’ll tell readers about something you wanted or needed and the obstacle that was hindering you.

 

Take in Diane Butts’ words here:

 

“A story needs a main character who wants something. . . . This want gives forward motion to the story. There also needs to be something that prevents your main character from getting what they want. This creates conflict. . . .

 

“A story needs to have conflict,” Diane writes. “No conflict = no story. If there is no conflict, then it’s just a list of facts. . . .  Conflict [is] something that needs to be dealt with, a problem that needs to be overcome. . . .

 

“A story starts by showing the main character’s ordinary world—things as they are before any conflict happens. Then something happens that changes the ordinary world and sets the story in motion. That incident incites the story” (Diane Butts).

 

So, are you ready? Let’s go!

 

In your memoir’s beginning, introduce yourself to your readers and tell them, specifically, what you wanted or needed or planned or dreamed—but you also tell them about a problem or a challenge that surfaced and threatened to mess everything up.

 

Perhaps you were hit with a financial setback, a mental health issue, a spiritual need, or a relationship struggle.

 

Maybe something or someone threatened to undo your career or destroy your reputation.

 

Maybe, like me, you married a person who longed to live a nontraditional, adventuresome life, but all you wanted was a conventional life that didn’t require you to be courageous and daring.

 

Pinpoint your obstacle. That’s what must change. Make it clear to your readers what you wanted or needed or longed for, and how that was hindered or threatened.

 

Ask yourself:

What set my story in motion? What was the inciting incident?

What was it that I wanted?—wanted to accomplish? to be?

to solve? learn? overcome? discover? escape?

What kept me from getting what I wanted/needed?

What was the challenge, the obstacle?

To achieve my goal, what needed to change?

 

If you haven’t already started writing your memoir, begin today. Don’t be too hard on yourself. This will be your rough draft—for your eyes only. You will no doubt revise it several times. Just get started!

 

If you’ve already started your rough draft, make revisions according to today’s information. (Revising is not punishment! It’s how you polish your memoir and make it shine.)

 

Next week we’ll look at your memoir’s MIDDLE and its ENDING.

 

“Make ‘em wait”

 

Continuing with

“Make ‘em cry, make ‘em laugh, make ‘em wait.”

Wilkie Collins (1824-1889)

 

Why should you avoid opening a story in the following way?  

 

“We eventually found Old John, alive, buried under four feet of tree limbs—the elephant had buried him the way elephants bury their own—but for six hours we didn’t know if we’d ever find him, dead or alive.”

 

If you begin your story this way, you have given away your ending. That weakens the power of your story. It diminishes readers’ involvement.

 

Giving away the ending spoils essential elements in good stories: tension and suspense.

 

A quality story “will consist of a real person who is confronted with a significant problem, who struggles diligently to solve that problem, and who ultimately succeeds—and in doing so becomes a different character” (Jon Franklin, Writing for Story). Note the tension: (1) a significant problem which (2) the character struggles diligently to solve.

 

In other words, “A story consists of a sequence of actions that occur when a sympathetic character encounters a complicating situation that he confronts and solves” (Jon Franklin, Writing for Story). Note the tension: (1) a complicating situation (2) the character confronts. (Jon Franklin is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and a well-known pioneer in creative nonfiction.)

 

Writers develop what Franklin calls “a sympathetic character” and “a real person” when they make readers laugh and “make ‘em cry,” which we covered in previous blog posts, based on Wilkie Collins’ quote, “Make ‘em cry, make ‘em laugh, make ‘em wait. Click on those links if you missed them.

 

Today we’ll look at tension and suspense, and Collins’ advice to “make ‘em wait” for resolution.

 

After all, as you lived the stories in your memoir, you endured a time lag—maybe months, maybe years—before you found resolution. You didn’t know how the incident would end.

 

You had to wait. Make your readers wait, too.

 

Here’s why: Readers open the pages of your book because they want to learn from you. They know you weren’t handed an easy fix—that’s not the way life, or God, works—so they don’t want you to offer them a trite, instant, easy fix.

 

“We desperately want our situation solved. We want resolution. But God unfolds the plot in his own time. It is in our months or years of waiting that our story comes to maturity” (Dan Allender, To Be Told).

 

James wrote about coming to maturity when he wrote, “the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its good work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (James 1:3-4).

 

Readers know you came to the maturity that James and Allender highlight—they just don’t know how—and they want to discover it. They want to mine the gems that formed during your coming to maturity. Pat answers or platitudes won’t do.

 

They want the real thing: They want to tag along with you to see how, step by step, you dealt with your problem so they can deal with theirs. 

 

Step by step means you let readers experience the suspense you experienced. “Make ‘em wait.”

 

Perhaps your calamity, your unwelcome surprise, your tragedy arose from cancer, or an addiction—yours or someone else’s.

 

Or maybe you said, “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15), and that led to being misunderstood and scorned, and it required sacrifice and courage beyond your expectation.

 

Perhaps your child got into trouble with the law or your spouse betrayed you. Or you lost your job and health insurance, and then you lost your house.

 

Whatever your tension-inducing incident, spell it out for your readers.

 

Keep in mind that making ‘em cry

will be a companion in making ‘em wait;

they will be intertwined.

Specify, in sufficient depth,

why your crisis made you “cry”

and invite readers to “cry” with you.

 

Hold readers captive.

 

Explain what was at stake. What were the possible outcomes? Which did you hope for? Why? Which outcome did you fear most? Why?

 

Spell out complications and disappointments and setbacks.

 

Share your doubts.

 

Unravel the story as you lived it—unable to see into the future—and let readers unravel it with you.

 

Pull readers in. If you gave in to despair, write in such a way that readers experience your despair with you.

 

Admit to weeks or years of faltering faith.

 

Tell about your tears, sleepless nights, and prayers.

 

Describe the times God seemed silent.

 

Keep your frustrated goals before your readers. Leave them hanging.

 

Make them curious: Leave readers wondering about the outcome.

 

When they finish a chapter of your memoir, make ‘em worry for you. Make ‘em wonder what will happen in the next chapter.

 

Keep up the suspense.

 

Just don’t tell them the end until the end!

 

Save the resolution for the conclusion. When that time comes, tie everything together. Make sense of your crisis. Tell, specifically, how you and God succeeded in reaching a good conclusion.

 

In good memoir form, tell how you changed and matured, how you knew God better than before, how you came to understand His ways and His love. What did you learn from the times God was silent? How did the experience strengthen your faith for future situations?

 

What new person did you become as a result of the experience?

 

Let readers feel the same surprise and joy and hope you did.

Prepare to be amazed: What your process of writing can reveal

“What is your journey,” Rebecca S. Ramsey asks memoir-writers, “the big change you experienced that you want to share with the world?”

Rebecca’s question is important because memoir is about change, transformation. Your memoir needs to include your transformation.

Jon Franklin can help better understand what we call “the story arc.” He writes that a quality story “will consist of a real person who is confronted with a significant problem, who struggles diligently to solve that problem, and who ultimately succeeds—and in doing so becomes a different character.”

In other words, “A story consists of a sequence of actions that occur when a sympathetic character encounters a complicating situation that he confronts and solves.” (Writing for Story, Jon Franklin, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and a well-known pioneer in creative nonfiction)

So, the big question for you is:

What new person did you become

because of your experience?

Rebecca Ramsey asks it this way: “What were the little struggles and big struggles that got you from the beginning to end?”

You’ll need to articulate that in writing before your memoir will be ready to publish. But that’s easier said than done—many people struggle to identify those turning points and defining moments.

Rebecca herself admits the answers weren’t clear when she began writing her memoir, The Holy Éclair: Signs and Wonders from an Accidental Pilgrimage.

How did she figure out that transformation in her life?

After much work (writing The Holy Éclair took her ten years), she discovered this: Writing helped her answer those questions. Something about the process helped her recognize the ways her life changed.

You don’t need to have all the answers

before you start writing.

Give yourself time to discover your story and write it—

even if it takes ten years like it did for Rebecca.

Within the process of writing,

ask yourself Rebecca’s questions

and search for the answers.

They are there.

Don’t give up. You’ll find them!