Organizing your thoughts around your story isn’t easy. Here’s a little tip.
Writing a nonfiction story is complicated. Far more so than fiction. While in fiction we assume the imagination of the writer has reigned in the story, nonfiction is a personal reflection of the author. Therefore it is more than just merely putting words on the page.
What do you put into the book, what do you leave out? Will anyone understand you? Will anyone want to read your story? Will they be bored with your story? Worse still, will they judge you by your story?
Why is it so hard?
Writing is a certain form of organizing thoughts, but it’s an artform that has to be learned and then honed. To become a really good essayist you need to have your writings critiqued, edited and rewritten. Since the US educational system neglects essay writing beyond the basics, most people are truly at a loss of where to begin when they finally decide to write their memoirs. By contract, the educational system in France requires a deep respect for essay writing, which ends up creating a myriad of essayist and memoir writers. By high school many students in France are writing 15-20 page essays on varies subjects. Add to that the fact that French society doesn’t have this strange phenomenon that we have in America where the average person feels obligated to give their opinion about everything. The French, for the most part, carry on with their lives irrespective of what someone else is doing. They don’t like something? They mostly shrug it off and carry on. In America, we hop on TikTok to validate our own opinions.
Bare with me, we are getting to the point….
It’s the fear, stupid…
After working with several clients (all woman over the age of 55), I have concluded that it’s the judgement that we fear the most when it comes to writing our story. The judgement from friends and family, sure. But we mostly fear the judgement of society.
First, we fear that no one will read our memoir, which to be fair, is mostly what will happen. Most writers are not natural salespeople, but you have to be to get your book published. And even if you self-publish, you need to be a salesperson to sell your book to people. With almost a million titles uploaded to Amazon Kindle every year, the market place is saturated and it takes a real go-getter to sell their book.
But even with that truth told, we fear our book not selling because that is already a judgement. It says, “NO ONE WANTS TO READ YOUR STORY.” When the reality is more likely to be: No one knows your story is in book form.
But let’s say we get past that fear. Then we start fearing that people will actually read our story. Writers have a right to fear this because the Golden Rule has long left the building in America. I was talking with another writer a few weeks ago about reviews and she finally said, “Sometimes I want to tell them, ‘oh, f*** off. You write a book or poem. Then let me tear it apart for you publicly.”
Getting someone’s opinion on your story is overwhelming and quite stressful in America because it feels like an indictment on you as a person.
One of my clients right now is writing about how she entered, and then left, a cult. She is constantly worried readers are going to think she is stupid even though the entire theme of her book is that humans are weak and easily manipulated. She wants people to know this so they don’t fall into a cult. Still, the fear doesn’t go away.
And she isn’t wrong to worry. Just imagine if her book goes viral. At that point, there would be hundreds of people giving their opinion on TikTok about how stupid she is. In fact, they would probably use a stronger adjective than that.
Yikes.
The surest thing of all is that it takes real courage to write your story.
If you want to write your story, the first thing you have to do is to reach past the fear and organize your thoughts about the story. It’s easier to do this if you keep the reader in mind (your ideal reader who loves you and your story, not the rando on TikTok ready to pounce).
The questions to ask in order to organize your story
One way I get my client to do this is to talk about the journey they envision their ideal reader going on. There are several questions I ask to get them started:
What do you want them to feel at the beginning of the book?
What do you want them to feel by the end of the book?
What do you want them to know about you by the end of the book?
What do you want them to discover about themselves by the end of the book?
What do you want them to think about as they fold laundry while reading your book?
Is there a moment where you want them to set the book down and just think about it?
Do you want them to never set the book down?
Is there a real climax to your book (this depends one memoir and nonfiction. Not all have one.)
If there is a climax, what is it and what do they need to know before they read it?
Should your story be linear? In other words, should it go from the beginning to the end in one line? Or should it jump back and forth in order to keep the attention of the reader?
If it shouldn’t be linear, what shape should their reader journey take?
There’s more and yet….
The goal of any memoir or memoir adjacent story is the same: to connect with readers, invite them into your world, and leave them changed by your story. Yes, it’s challenging, but nothing worth anything in life comes easy, right?