How Unique Does My Memoir Need to Be?

So You Want to Write with Suzette

You have a personal story you are burning to share with the world but you’re worried you don’t have anything new to say. Haven’t there been enough cancer journey memoirs? Abuse memoirs? Addiction memoirs? [Fill in the blank] memoirs? How do you know if your story is worth writing? How can you make it stand out from all the other memoirs on the same subject?

In this episode of So You Want to Write a Book, Suzette discusses the number one key to writing a memoir that works. Your memoir needs to be your unique story—the story only you can tell—AND it needs to have a message with universal appeal. Listen as Suzette shows you how to move your memoir from a tedious recitation of “this happened and then this happened” to a book that makes meaning out of a life. Are you ready to write your story? Let Suzette help you find the way.

DO I HAVE ANYTHING NEW—OR WORTHWHILE—TO SAY? 

First, it’s your story. Your story is unique. You are the only one who has lived it… No one else has lived this exact story in this exact way. If you write compelling scenes with specific details and dialogue, your story will come alive and meet the uniqueness test. 

The other way to ensure your memoir is completely unique is Your writing Voice: Your voice is your unique style, how you “sound” on the page. It’s vocabulary, tone, point of view, and syntax that makes your writing flow in a particular manner.

KEEP IN MIND:

 To write an effective memoir: Know what your memoir is “about” and understand where it belongs. That’s one way it’s “exactly the same.” The other way your memoir needs to be “exactly the same is this: It can’t just be about the things that happened to you.  Your memoir must have a universal message.

This is where less experienced writers really get tripped up. They think their book is about what happened to them, not why it mattered. Their manuscripts read this way: And then this thing happened. And then this happened. And then this … Which turns into a deadly recitation of facts that no one really cares about unless you make meaning out of them.

Be sure to listen or watch our latest show for more tips!