{"id":190,"date":"2017-03-08T05:38:31","date_gmt":"2017-03-08T05:38:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/petergibb.org\/?p=190"},"modified":"2017-03-08T05:38:31","modified_gmt":"2017-03-08T05:38:31","slug":"makes-memoir-great-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/petergibb.org\/makes-memoir-great-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"What Makes a Memoir Great? Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

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What Makes a Memoir Great? Part 1<\/strong><\/p>\n

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photo credit: Pixabay.com<\/p>\n

\u00a0The question itself – what makes a memoir great? – is highly subjective, so I invite you to weigh in, agree or disagree with me. But over the next few weeks, I’m going to propose a theory of memoir. I’m going to give you my bottom line, the absolute musts for a great memoir. Let’s start at the top.<\/p>\n

#1. A great memoir must hook you emotionally.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Readers want a satisfying emotional experience. Some readers want to be inspired. Some want to be scared. Some like\u00a0to feel tears well up. Some want to feel romantically, or sexually, stimulated. Some readers want to be dragged down into the dirt and then rescued.\u00a0Some\u00a0may not \u00a0know what they’re looking for, but deep down, readers want\u00a0an emotional experience. We want to be moved in some way. We want to re-capture the intensity, the thrill, the breathlessness that we felt on\u00a0our first roller-coaster ride, in\u00a0our first romance, or the first time we faced real danger, or even the sadness we felt after a\u00a0loss. Such experiences may be thrilling or painful, but we know we are alive and living in the moment. They excite us and connect us with the most basic proof that we are alive: we feel.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 I feel; therefore I am.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 I read; therefore I feel. Sure you could be\u00a0watching a movie, going to theatre, listening to music etc. But we’re talking memoir here. Job #1 of the memoirist is to entertain. When we say we want some entertainment, we mean we want to be carried away to some farther land, wrapped up in a blanket of feelings.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 Of course, the immediate question is, “So how do I do this?” how do I write something that will evoke genuine emotion in my readers? And the answer is that it’s a mixture of many ingredients, \u00a0all of which can be summed up in one word. Story. To be great, a memoir must tell a great story.\u00a0\u00a0If you fail on this one, all the bells and whistles in the world won’t rescue your book.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0A great story has one central, driving question.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>There are many fine books about story. I can’t begin to summarize them here, but if you haven’t read at least one, do so. Now. I have a number of favorites, but the one I go back to most often is Robert McKee’s\u00a0Story.\u00a0https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/s\/?ie=UTF8&keywords=story+structure+by<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>It’s a heavy book, an expensive book, not an easy book, and it’s aimed primarily at screenwriters. But if you really want to write a great memoir, this book will repay your investment of time and money many fold.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0You have to keep the reader turning the pages. You have to get and keep your reader hooked on the story. There should be one, central driving plot question, something that the reader wants to know and will keep turning the pages to discover. Even better if you, the writer, are searching for the answer to the same question. I mean really searching. Really using the writing to discover some heretofore unknown. If you and your reader are genuinely after\u00a0the same pot of gold, you’ll stick together.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0In my memoir,\u00a0King of Doubt,\u00a0<\/em>I, the narrator, from page 1, am\u00a0searching for a sense of inner peace, a way of dealing with the demons of self-doubt. I alternate chapters between youth and adulthood because I want to show how the search continues, how patterns of childhood reappear in adulthood, over and over, year after year, until you find whatever it is, that you’re searching for. This question\u00a0kept me moving and searching for a lifetime. I think \/ hope that it keeps the book and the reader moving forward through the story. I know that I, the writer, can’t stop writing until I find the elixir and bring it home. If I do my job well, the reader can’t stop reading either.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Tune in next time for Part 2. What do you think that will be? See, the driving question for this series of blogs is, of course, “What makes a great memoir?”\u00a0This is the first part of my answer. How would you answer this question? Let me hear from you.<\/p>\n

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