An Interesting Life(?)
You don’t have to be famous to write a memoir, but how do you be as interesting as they are?
While I’ve primarily been a fiction writer most of my life (and still am), in recent years I’ve discovered a wholly new interest in an entirely different genre of writing: creative non-fiction, with an emphasis on memoir and autobiography. I’ve been spending time working on this aspect of my writing skill, and I’ve been surprised at the results of taking a novelist’s approach of some of my own real-life experiences and seeing what comes out on the page.
I might be able to guess what readers are thinking: who the heck are you? Why should I be interested in anything to do with your life? Have you done anything worthwhile?
In that case, ya got me. I’m no movie star, sports star, or best-selling author. I’ve set no world records, scaled no large peaks, haven’t made a million dollars before thirty (although I got four years left on that; anything can happen), and I have not made a considerable mark on the world…at least not yet…
Of course, with great accomplishments comes great clout, which does a world of good when a publisher want to axe scores of trees to fill endless covers with endless pages with the recollections of someone whose name carries quite the cache in our world. It’s a solid investment, which is why celebrity memoirs won’t be dying out anytime soon as long as we keep idolizing them and paying them to do what they do best. The recent release of Will Smith’s memoir, and its glowing reviews on Amazon, are a testament to that.
But what of the rest of us, who may not have the great access to public attention like those in the public eye? Aren’t we interesting as well; aren’t we filled with stories, lessons we could pass on?
Well, I’ve got good news for ya: if you’re a resident human being and you’ve lived on this Earth for a good amount of time, chances are you’ve got a story or two in your life worth jotting down. We are, after all, storytelling creatures: it’s in our genetic makeup.
No one’s life is truly boring or devoid of any experiences, least of all a writer! In fact, more than anyone, we’re the ones predisposed to finding the little narratives in our terrestrial roaming. A number of factors go into crafting a good memoir outside of having an advertising advantage because there are certainly people out there who have led interesting lives but may not have the trappings of fame or the coffers of HarperCollins to help push it into the public eye. The memoir has become a popular style of writing amongst the “non-famous” crowd, even having publications solely devoted to showcasing the musings of “regular folk.”
So if they can find their life interesting enough to write about, you sure as hell can, too.
Voice
Like good fiction, good non-fiction needs a voice; something a reader can recognize as distinctly you. Since a memoir is the most intimate form of first-person storytelling, having your reader hear you as you hear yourself is crucial to expressing your experiences.
Personally, I always gravitate towards more semi-informal, conversational non-fiction: the writing style and syntax have a clear voice that gives me the experience of having the author sitting with me, holding court like a classic raconteur as they spin their yarns. I’ve adopted the same kind of style: often interjecting my tales with humorous asides and sarcastic jabs at the situation, myself, or whomever. I think of myself as a funny guy, and I like to tell funny, rambling stories. To be effective, I infuse my chosen voice with my writing, and it gives my memoirs a fresh authenticity that I believe keeps people turning the page or keeps them scrolling.
As an example, this excerpt I wrote about the experience of performing in drama club during high school gives some illustration into the conversational style I’ve been developing for myself:
When I moved up into senior year, re-auditioning for that year’s production was a no-brainer. Most of the kids who got together for the dual play the year before were also guaranteed returns. This time, the chosen play was truly a classic: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “The Sound of Music.”
I have this inkling that for anyone involved in the dramatic arts, “The Sound of Music” serves as this rite of passage if one wants to take a nose-dive into the theater, much like “Citizen Kane” is for film students. Inevitably, it’ll crop up along the way somewhere; the only question is a matter of “when.”
Having made my bones as Asher [in the prior production of “The Giver”], I decided to aim for another high role: Rolf, the little Nazi snot and love interest of Liesl von Trapp. I knew that part came with the unavoidable “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” number, so I had to whip some semblance of a singing voice into shape. I dragged Hannah into the school’s music room where they had a piano, and she did her best to coach me in trying to hit all the high notes with finesse…less hitting the high notes as opposed to shattering them like a bull in a china shop.
Sinatra I was not.
When I went and auditioned, I yet again ended up not getting what I initially came for…but in a twist worthy of M. Night Shyamalan, I got placed in an even better character: the Captain von Trapp himself. I was now the Christopher Plummer of the production, so I already had some ginormous shoes to fill. If only I had the chiseled jawline Plummer had in the movie version, I could’ve been all set…
But it didn’t matter, this was a pretty big deal for me, the lion’s share of dialogue I had to memorize notwithstanding.
Introspection
A memoir or an autobiography is more than just “I did X with Y back in 19-Z-Z;” yes, recalling what happened where with whom is important as it is your side of whatever story you’re telling, but surface details are only half of the equation. The rest of it comes with the interpretation of those events, and the feelings you felt while the experience was happening.
In ancient times, what we now know as the genre of autobiography was more of an apologia; a public defense of one’s beliefs or why they did what they did or thought what they thought. As time went on, the literature became more confessional in nature when dealing with the interpersonal related to outside life events.
While baring your naked soul before the world is not a prerequisite to writing good memoir, it helps to give internal context to whatever story you’re sharing. For example: how did you feel in the moment when you were telling your first crush that you loved her? What thoughts shot through your mind like bullets? What was the voice in your head saying at that pivotal moment?
Or, to take another moment: how did you react to the first time laying eyes on the waterfalls at Yellowstone? Did you feel dwarfed by the vastness of nature? Or did you feel as one with it? Did its beauty move you to tears? Did the roar of the rushing water overpower you?
These are the kinds of questions I would ask myself about any of the memories of events I have, and they help provide more rich value to the sharing of the experience outside of “oh, I visited a national park and saw a waterfall.” Hell, Walden is about a guy who spent two years in his buddy’s cabin on a lake only a stone’s throw from Concord, Massachusetts, but Thoreau’s rich, philosophical reflections on the experience and its connection to nature and man is why his glorified camping trip is still a gold standard of good memoir.
I can guarantee many of us out there have been emotionally moved by the sight of nature: all in slightly different ways, but just similar enough to relate to someone else’s epiphany.
Yes, people are reading your memoirs because they may want some wild and juicy tidbits, but they’re also reading to understand: understand the choices you made, why you made them, how they affected the course of your life, and what you learned from them. You don’t have to be a celebrity to have any of those. For example, who hasn’t had anxieties and frustrations with the career grind:
As a perfectionist fueled by feelings of inadequacy, self-loathing and a fear of failure, I always expected the best of myself in everything I did. Whenever it didn’t drive me to bedridden fits of depression, that expectation was actually pretty effective in getting the proverbial “shit” done. The key ingredient for me was reminding myself why I was in this journey for the long run, and making myself want it; want it so badly that I’d twist my stomach into frustrated knots because I was bucking so hard against all the crap holding me back. Sure, I could talk all about putting together pitches, writing scripts, designing concept art, think endlessly about who I needed to seek out, email and network with, and spill all my hopes and dreams to a willing ear ’til the cows come home and the fat lady sang. But was I putting my money where my mouth was? Not nearly enough! I was due for a breaking point, because if I truly believed myself to be destined, no — born to create — then I needed to finally shut up and put up.
Syntax
This one goes hand in hand with developing a voice; your writing, sentence structure and word choice must be arranged in a way that is as representative of your true authorial voice as much as possible. If you use a particular slang or dialect, write out the words like how you’d pronounce them. If you have a tendency to drift into somewhat-relatable tangents that eventually make their way back to the main point you were on before, channel that structure. It should sound like you’re telling the story yourself.
One of the best ways I’d advise strengthening this skill, as a technique I’ve praised before, is to keep a journal and write in it as often as you’re able to make entries. At the very beginning, look beyond just writing about “today I did x and y…”, strive to reflect on those actions and daily experiences. Even more so, write about what may be on your mind, or what you’re currently going through at this season in your life.
Before you know it, you’ll be putting out page after page: speaking as someone with over a thousand journaled pages in almost ten years, it can be a great resource for a memoirist to look back at those events as they happened in real-time and extract good, reflective writing from the journal. It’s certainly helped me make sense of my life experiences.
Conclusion
So, what’s the short of it?
No, you don’t have to be famous to write a memoir people will read.
And no, you’re more interesting as a complex human being than you may be giving yourself credit for.
While I’ve yet to master the marketing and advertising side of the publishing business — that I won’t be of any help to you in — I’ve been developing a pretty good idea of how to draw out the raw material within ourselves and put in down on paper in a way that has the potential to stand out amongst the rest.
Thank you for reading my piece; I hope you got something out of it! What points of view do you have on this subject? Let’s have a discussion in the comments!
And speaking of interesting lives, here’s the inspiring story you should read of a young woman who rediscovered an understanding of herself, and the disability she faces, through the catharsis of writing. Read Shabnam Ferdowsi’s piece “On Being Legally Blind: Why I Started Writing” here on Coffee Times!
