STRUCTURE The Backbone of

Your Memoir Linda Joy Myers & Brooke Warner

www.writeyourmemoirinsixmonths.com

Thanks for joining us! Linda Joy Myers, PhD is president of the National Association of Memoir Writers and the author of Don’t Call Me Mother, The Power of Memoir, and Journey of Memoir. Brooke Warner is publisher of SHE WRITES PRESS, and president of Warner Coaching Inc. She’s the author of Green-Light Your Book, What’s Your Book? and How to Sell Your Memoir. Together, Linda Joy and Brooke are the co-authors of Breaking Ground on Your Memoir and the co-editors of the just-out The Magic of Memoir.

What Is Structure and Why Does It Matter? Without structure: —Your memoir will be hard to follow —Editors and agents know something is wrong, but they don’t always know what With structure: —You can have more confidence in your narration —Your story holds together better —You will have a more cohesive narrative

How to Think about Structure without Overwhelming Yourself

• Don’t over-extend yourself • If this is your first memoir, don’t overcomplicate • Use the tools we introduce in this webinar • Be willing to make a change that supports new findings and/or supports a streamlining of your themes

Tools That Support Structure

Your timeline—a visual tool

Tools That Support Structure Turning points

• Find moments of big change • Write the stories of these moments • Sort, brainstorm, and sort some more • Ask yourself, how do these moments inform my theme/s? • This helps create the spine of your memoir

Tools That Support Structure Scaffolding—Cliff Notes Version of Your Story

• Scaffolding helps you build out your memoir a little bit at a time

• Scaffolding is modifiable • Scaffolding will help you remember where you’ve already been, which will help you as you move forward.

Chapter 1: Horses coming back into my life via Amy (my middle daughter) Scene 1: Walking into barn with 10-year-old Amy to start her proper lessons, introduce her, have exchange/connection with her. Scene 2: Give my context, that I am a mother of three, describe other kids, myself. Scene 3: Flashback: Running my horse as 15-year-old, free of rules that ruled my home life Scene 4: Show the pang of loss. How I was passionate about horses and how I got lost.

Tools That Support Structure Chapter titles and Table of Contents

• Create a Table of Contents, even if it’s a working draft�• Identify chapters and give them chapter titles�• Start labeling your chapters as chapters, and with titles if you have them�• Let your work-in-progress take the form of a real book

Types of Structures

Linear

Braided

Associative

Framed

Circular

Outliers

• A chronological story—from point A to Point B, but unlike the framed memoir in that there will be fewer flashbacks �• The main storyline is the “now” trajectory and what happens from one scene to the next�• Can be a year or 20 years—not limited to a particular timeframe per se�• Most coming-of-age stories are linear

Linear Structure

—EXAMPLES— �Eat, Pray, Love,

by Elizabeth Gilbert �Angela’s Ashes,

by Frank McCourt

• Weaves together two (or sometimes three) parallel timelines—generally a past and a present �• Possibilities for braiding happen every other chapter (past, present, past, present) or you can braid within chapters or more sporadically, like a music score �• Sometimes a braided timeline meets up at a certain point and continues on a present timeline till the end of the book

Braided Structure

—EXAMPLES— The Color of Water,

by James McBride Pieces of My Mother,

by Melissa Cistaro

• Associative uses “associations” to move the reader through your book �• Writers rely on turning points—big events, often thematic—to propel them forward �• Associative structures are often used for highly thematic books, allowing you to bounce around, more focused on theme than timeline  ��

Associative Structure

—EXAMPLES— �Devotion, by Dani Shapiro �

Drinking, A Love Story, �by Caroline Knapp�

• Choose a period of your life to focus on that comprises the beginning (point A) and end (point B) of your memoir �• Framed memoirs makes use of memory and reflection to exit the narrative often, always returning to the “now” of the current framed timeline �• Different from linear in that it almost always covers a shorter period of time. Chronological with a lot of backstory woven in.

Framed Structure

—EXAMPLES— �Wild, by Cheryl Strayed �

The Memory Palace, �by Mira Bartok�

• Keep coming back to a particular episode or meaningful point in the story�• Make departures to explore the terrain of your story, but often for the point of informing the central episode at the heart of the memoir. �• One form circular narratives take is called “en media res,” where the story begins in the middle of the action—and circles back around to explain this midway through the memoir

Circular Structure

—EXAMPLES— �The Liars’ Club, by Mary Karr�

H Is for Hawk, by Helen MacDonald �

Definition: The chronological construction of a plot composed of exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.� �Plot: What happens. ��Character development: How you make sense of what happens and are changed by it.��Character Arc in Memoir: Focus on a protagonist having a struggle, entering a low point, or dark night of the soul, then finding a way to confront and learn from the struggle, which then leads to a new path in life. �

Traditional Story Arcs and How to Fit Your Memoir into Them 

• Components of a story arc�• Finding an arc in memoir—creating your 3 acts

Traditional Story Arcs and How to Fit Your Memoir into Them 

Continue on with us! Write Your Memoir in Six Months starts Weds, January 4.

$150 discount to all students who register by EOD tomorrow.

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Details and curriculum are at: writeyourbookinsixmonths.com/program-details

**from our homepage go to 6-Month Program**

Find out more about what we’re doing:� www.MagicOfMemoir.com

www.WriteYourMemoirInSixMonths.com

Follow us on social: �@brooke_warner @memoirguru

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