Nathan here! Rebecca S. Ramsey is a former client of mine who is the author of several great memoirs, including French By Heart and her latest, The Holy Éclair. She has an incredible gift at turning real life into compelling and funny memoirs. Here’s a guest post on just that!
Within days after moving our young family to France, I knew that I had to write about it. During one of my early conversations with my new neighbor, Madame Mallet, the old lady looked at Baby Sam on my hip and said, “I prefer cats to children, though I do have a great nephew who isn’t too annoying.” When I smiled and nodded, (and wondered if I had translated her correctly) she added, “I call him Le Spermatazöide because he “was conceived by artificial insemination.” Just to be sure I understood, she added a series of strange charades.
Crazy stories were one thing, but a memoir was another. Could I tackle a project that big? Still, I kept writing, collecting stories that meant something to me. Four years later, as we packed our life into a shipping container and got back on the plane to South Carolina, I began to see the story arc underneath. After much wrestling and struggle, this larger story became French By Heart.
Now, years later, I’ve returned once again to the house on the corner of allée des Cerisiers to tell a story that I didn’t share in French by Heart, a more personal story whose characters have been whispering and shouting and stomping their feet inside my head for ten years. Even though this sounds like mental illness, I finally decided to give in and let them speak. In The Holy Éclair, Signs and Wonders from an Accidental Pilgrimage, I reveal how the town prostitute, a French chef, a homeless Brit, Vincent van Gogh himself, and a band of other ragtag saints turned my faith upside down during that first year in France, revealing the wildness of God’s love and teaching me the true meaning of grace.
So here I am writing memoir again. Does memoir appeal to you? Does your life hold a story that nags you for attention? Are there voices inside your head too, begging you to tell the stories you have in common?
If so, I have a few thoughts that might be helpful.
Determine the story arc and stick to it.
Write your stories, all the ones that mean so much to you, and then give them a serious look. What is your journey, the big change you experienced that you want to share with the world? What were the little struggles and big struggles that got you from the beginning to the end?
This wasn’t clear at first for me with The Holy Éclair.
I didn’t realize it then, but I’m pretty sure now that I started The Holy Éclair on my speaking tour for French By Heart. When I shared with readers that living in France had changed my life, that I came home a happier person, more at peace with myself and more open to others, they wanted to know how it happened. I found myself telling stories that I hadn’t shared in French by Heart, stories that I had thought were too personal to share, ones that had to do with the way in which the strangers I’d met made me question how I thought about myself and about God. The writing itself revealed to me my own transformation. I’m so grateful for it!
So, back to thoughts on memoir…
Once I figured out my story arc (which I should say took years, all in the back of my head) and started editing, I made myself do the hard job of throwing out the stories that didn’t advance the arc. This sounds reasonable, but it’s tough when you love them. Do it! The voices will thank you later.
Be brave enough to be brutally honest and vulnerable.
I’m trying to not be bothered by how much people seem to love the scene in the first chapter of The Holy Éclair when I say to the pharmacist that her teething pills for my baby look too big to swallow and how do you get a baby to take pills anyway, and she proceeds to explain SLOWLY in toddler-style French in front of a long line of French people what suppositories are and how you insert them.
Get over yourself and tell the embarrassing truth. It will help your readers to buy into the story and cheer you on as you tell it.
If you’re concerned that you might come across as a jerk- or a church lady, Dana Carvey style- tell the truth anyway. Readers need to see Jerk You so that they can watch you change.
Respect the privacy of others. But work hard to tell your story.
I always change names of everyone except my family members. With my kids, writing about them sure was simpler when they were little. When they got older and had opinions about what I wrote, I’d hand them passages to read and ask for their permission to let me share. Not too long ago, when I was blogging about taking Baby Sam off to Chicago for college, I had to sweat through some serious negotiations. In the end, we compromised. The story was still achingly true, and he and I felt good about it.
Time helps too. What kids object to now may change in a few months. Try asking again later, further down the road. (And maybe try bribery, if the story is really good?) But respect your child. One day she might write a book.
Give your story the time it needs
Speaking of time, I’m always ready to get the writing done and wrap things up so that I can move on to the next project. But giving your story the time it needs can be so important in getting it right. (Says the woman who took ten years to finally finish The Holy Éclair!) If you’re struggling, put it away and come back to it. See it with fresh eyes. Sometimes time can help you transform the story into something really meaningful. And sometimes writing that story can make a meaningful transformation in you!
Thanks to Rebecca, and be sure and check out French by Heart and The Holy Éclair!
Okay, I’m weird, but your blog and this post have cranked my adrenaline way up. This is my first comment on a writer’s blog. I am ready to retire from a lifetime of teaching and am about to finish writing my first memoir’s manuscript. I hesitated clicking on your blog, because I didn’t sense it would have anything about memoir. Ha! Now I believe it to be a sign to let me know I am heading down the right path. Thank you for the time you took to share today’s post.
Good luck on your memoir!
Hi, Rebecca, thanks for these helpful technique tips on writing a memoir. And, I must say, how beautifully you write. Your books would be a treat for the eye and the soul, especially when written from a rich and fascinating culture that is France and about events and people that touched you deeply.
Actually I did start writing a sort of memoir about a fascinating character from my life. However, it petered out when I was called interstate to care for my mother for several years then when I returned, this sweet, although cantankerous elderly character was placed in aged care where it was difficult to reach without transport which I didn’t have at the time. It has been four-five years since last in touch with her, and I’m rather afraid she might have past away. The last time I rung her, she’d lost her grip on reality, and it was difficult to have a conversation. I visited her a few days later, but I felt awful at the way things panned out during my visit. I didn’t handle her imaginary world with the tact and respect I should have. And then it was miles to the nearest bus stop, enroute to which I got lost and then missed the last bus home (I live in country Australia), so I called in at the nearest police station for assistance and was transported in the high speed pursuit car. Because of all this drama, and my current heavy work schedule, I haven’t returned to see her again although I feel I should especially as I’ve now a car. Perhaps I’ll drive over today even though my accountant is threatening dire consequences if my BAS isn’t handed in by tomorrow. I’ll ring first to make sure she is still there.
Mmmm…eclairs! The chocolate ones are the holiest, of course.
Oh yes. Definitely.
But seriously, thanks to Rebecca S. Ramsey and Nathan for this.
🙂
Rebecca, this is some of the most concise memoir-writing advice I’ve ever seen and very helpful to me today! I’m presently fighting with my second memoir and almost exactly on the issues you brought up: cutting the parts that don’t serve my story arc and being vulnerable on the page, even when it gets ugly.
This reminds me that the most important work we do in memoir is being able to think about our lives as storym, about the arc. When I’m able to serve that, I have a book. When I don’t, I just have a giant overblown manuscript/journal thing that will never leave my computer.
Thanks again.
You’re very welcome, Linda! Best of luck to you on your work!
Becky, Thanks for your helpful and insightful post. It took my DH, Michael Harris, fifty years to write The Atomic Times: My H-Bomb Year at the Pacific Proving Ground. TAT was published by Random House and nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Michael’s observations about writing a memoir might also be of interest—
*Make sure you have enough distance from the experience to have perspective on what happened. Exposure to radiation and the resulting reactions–anger, terror, incredulity–produce powerful emotions that take time to process.
*Figure out how to use (or keep away) from your own intense feelings. In the case of the H-Bomb tests, anger and self-pity were emotions to stay away from. So was the hope of somehow getting “revenge.”
*Sometimes the unexpected works. For me, finding humor in a tragic situation– the abject military incompetence in planning and executing the H-Bomb tests–freed my memory and allowed me to write about horrific experiences.
*Figure out (most likely by trial and error) how much or how little of yourself you want to reveal.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004H1TLQ2/