It is sometimes suggested that you shouldn't write a memoir if nothing has happened to you. A memoir doesn't have to be about your whole life. Leonard Nimoy wrote at least three and Madeleine L'Engle wrote five or six. However, the memoir I am working on right now is about how a single experience affected the rest of my life.
Memoirs are currently one of the most popular genres of book out. As reality T.V. teaches us, you don't really have to have an interesting life to write a memoir worth reading. Even Eat, Pray, Love is just her thoughts about some experiences that were not run-of-the-mill, but not particular standouts, such as Robert Leon Davis (Running Scared), the man who lived as a fugitive longer than any other, or Princess Diana. Most are not actually written by the person who experienced it, though. You can be a great man or woman, and still not write a great memoir, as Ulysees S. Grant proves. There are the Teddy Roosevelts and Winston Churchills who wrote eminently readable autobiographies. But, most people, even those who write for a living, will often hire someone to write about their experiences.
I was doing the exercises in a book that either my son had as a college textbook, or my husband got for me from the used bookstore. It is entitled Imaginative Writing. The author has a chapter on memoirs because, to be readable and engaging, a memoir tells a story, with all the visceral description of a murder mystery. It was a relief to read that. It It gave me permission to be as personal in my memoir as I would be in getting inside a character's head.
Have you ever tackled a memoir?
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