Okay, but are you writing a memoir of a bio? This seems like a long way to go in a memoir. The goal of a memoir is to tell a relatable story about a big moment in somebody's life that others can identify with and use as an avatar for their own journey. This seems like at least 2 memoirs, or a biography to get this much happening.
Okay, but are you writing a memoir of a bio? This seems like a long way to go in a memoir. The goal of a memoir is to tell a relatable story about a big moment in somebody's life that others can identify with and use as an avatar for their own journey. This seems like at least 2 memoirs, or a biography to get this much happening.
I do agree that you're looking at two different transitions.
You should probably come to out event tomorrow and ask this question to the people in the memoir panel who can advise you better.
I would be surprised if they didn't tell you this was two memoirs, and not one, but I do not write memoir.
Thanks Russell. I do plan to be at the memoir part of the event, I wasn’t sure if there would be a time to ask questions though - so that sounds promising! 🤞
And actually, I’ve wondered the same thing in terms of how “far” into the story I should go. The focus so far is on the arc of earlier life events - but I suppose I’ve struggled to believe that those will hold as much punch without sharing some of the later life events/themes. (Or maybe I just really wanna write about the later life stuff so I’m convincing myself it needs to be told 😝)
If I were to focus it more on the early arc, and for example, stop/close the story after college graduation - I guess I’m still not sure the best way to position my Substack angle to support such a seemingly narrow theme of “overcoming hard things”? Or more importantly, do I even need to?
Glad to hold off on the other questions until tomorrow though🙏 Thanks for your response!
It’s just like fiction. What is the structure where you have a win. Either you are telling a poor to college, a struggle through college to graduation, or a no connections to business powerhouse story.
Are you telling Maid, pursuit of happiness, or the devil wears Prada. I know it’s not fiction, but it’s still a story.
This is fair. I’ve been listening to and reading a lot of memoirs to see how other authors handle it. Most do end after the initial arc, with perhaps one chapter covering “everything after”.
But a few go further. Glass Castle for example went further into adult life even though the story was clearly centered around her childhood. It seemed to work. But another I listened to recently did the same, and I had to admit it felt like a bit too much.
(Clearly I should have written this back in my 20’s when I felt like I’d reached the “peak” and didn’t yet know that adulthood would still be one damn thing after another 😝 )
Anyways, very good advice to try to recenter myself on the “story” aspect of it and be sure I’m clear on that and don’t get too distracted away from the central theme.
Oh, and for publishing purposes, I think if you tell your publisher that your book will alienate 1 of your two audiences, they would think that's not a great idea and you will likely have to rewrite it extensively before publishing. Of course, I love me so chaos, so I'd love to see you throw a big neutron bomb just for the lols, but as a publishing expert (I guess) everything you are saying tells me that is not gonna be supermarketable to publishers or on the open market.
Okay, but are you writing a memoir of a bio? This seems like a long way to go in a memoir. The goal of a memoir is to tell a relatable story about a big moment in somebody's life that others can identify with and use as an avatar for their own journey. This seems like at least 2 memoirs, or a biography to get this much happening.
I do agree that you're looking at two different transitions.
You should probably come to out event tomorrow and ask this question to the people in the memoir panel who can advise you better.
I would be surprised if they didn't tell you this was two memoirs, and not one, but I do not write memoir.
Thanks Russell. I do plan to be at the memoir part of the event, I wasn’t sure if there would be a time to ask questions though - so that sounds promising! 🤞
And actually, I’ve wondered the same thing in terms of how “far” into the story I should go. The focus so far is on the arc of earlier life events - but I suppose I’ve struggled to believe that those will hold as much punch without sharing some of the later life events/themes. (Or maybe I just really wanna write about the later life stuff so I’m convincing myself it needs to be told 😝)
If I were to focus it more on the early arc, and for example, stop/close the story after college graduation - I guess I’m still not sure the best way to position my Substack angle to support such a seemingly narrow theme of “overcoming hard things”? Or more importantly, do I even need to?
Glad to hold off on the other questions until tomorrow though🙏 Thanks for your response!
It’s just like fiction. What is the structure where you have a win. Either you are telling a poor to college, a struggle through college to graduation, or a no connections to business powerhouse story.
Are you telling Maid, pursuit of happiness, or the devil wears Prada. I know it’s not fiction, but it’s still a story.
This is fair. I’ve been listening to and reading a lot of memoirs to see how other authors handle it. Most do end after the initial arc, with perhaps one chapter covering “everything after”.
But a few go further. Glass Castle for example went further into adult life even though the story was clearly centered around her childhood. It seemed to work. But another I listened to recently did the same, and I had to admit it felt like a bit too much.
(Clearly I should have written this back in my 20’s when I felt like I’d reached the “peak” and didn’t yet know that adulthood would still be one damn thing after another 😝 )
Anyways, very good advice to try to recenter myself on the “story” aspect of it and be sure I’m clear on that and don’t get too distracted away from the central theme.
Oh, and for publishing purposes, I think if you tell your publisher that your book will alienate 1 of your two audiences, they would think that's not a great idea and you will likely have to rewrite it extensively before publishing. Of course, I love me so chaos, so I'd love to see you throw a big neutron bomb just for the lols, but as a publishing expert (I guess) everything you are saying tells me that is not gonna be supermarketable to publishers or on the open market.