Blame Aristotle.  Blame classical Greek culture. Blame all of Western Civilization. But every story must have a beginning, middle, and end. And more than that. Without narrative structure, non-fiction writing is just a boring recitation of one thing after another. You may think because it is based on your experiences, historical events, scientific experimentation, or natural observations that you don’t need a story to write a book. Think again. Fictio, from the Latin, is the heart of writing: to inscribe, shape and mold an inventive or interpretive explanation. To write non-fiction is to create a coherent tale. For a writer, there are two parts to every telling: story and plot. They are not the same thing. Plot is the structure given to the story. For example, girl meets boy. Familiar story. The plot is that girl gets a new hairdo, leaves salon, drives through traffic looking in rear-view mirror and rear-ends boy in a baby blue BMW. Love ensues. Archetypal stories, myths, and fairy tales provide a cultural pool from which to remix story structure variations, techniques, and stylistic flourishes. Shakespeare, the Bible, Greek mythology and stories in popular culture from The Wizard of Oz to the Minions. Writers need to find their story first and then figure out how best to tell it. Your job is to let the reader know what they need to know when they need to know it. Not an easy task. Some call it writing craft. Following Aristotle’s dramatic arc provides a template. Set…

Writing Memoir: Author, Narrator, Protagonist Memoir has become nearly as popular a genre as fiction. It’s the stuff of which movies are made. Almost everyone I meet thinks they have a story worth telling.  And today nearly everyone thinks they can publish their memoir. Brooke Warner, publisher of She Writes Press, recently suggested in The Huffington Post the pursuit of publication is a birthright. Finding a traditional publisher, however, is not. If you write a poem it does not make you a poet. This is not to suggest the only value found in writing poetry is in getting paid for it. The same is true for memoir. There are many reasons to write. Publishing is only one of them. A memoir intended to be sold as a book requires a writer collapse three roles into one: author, narrator, and protagonist. As an author, you write for an audience, for your readers. It means going public. Your personal life goes under review and readers judge you. Writing your story and publishing your story are two very different things. You need to write first before you can publish. But writing your story for the public may involve rewriting when you consider the ramifications of your words on those you write about and the effect it has on readers. As the narrator of the story, you write from your first-person point-of-view. The readers, however, judge a narrator on a variety of qualities, including how reliable you are.  The narrator’s style and voice may…

It can be intimidating to think about writing your life story. Relax. Memoir isn’t your entire life story. It’s a slice of life, not birth to death. Don’t confuse memoir with autobiography. Today the only autobiographies which find publishers are those written by presidential candidates, retired statesmen, and superstars. And typically written by authors who don’t trust biographers to paint their portrait in a flattering light. The classical forms of autobiography are called apologia, oration, and confession. Apologia are written as self-justifications for one’s actions. Orations are written to document one’s literary talents in description of one’s successes. And confessions are written about racy events or radical ideas with self-criticism like Augustine and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. First-person accounts which serve to protect ego, flaunt id, or appease superego misses the mark of the memoir genre. Gore Vidal described memoir as how one remembers one’s own life experiences. It is not fiction even though the genre employs many of the same literary conventions and devices. If you want to start writing a memoir, start by closing your eyes and draw upon those crystal clear recollections from your lifespan. Moments you can’t forget. The ones that a smell can invoke. Memories jogged by the weather, or how a garment feels, or the taste of a seasonal dish. Engage your senses in the recollection. Begin here. With one snapshot moment from the past. Lisa Dale Norton calls these moments “shimmering images.” Those lucid memories that you can bring into the palm of your hand and can…