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Here's the Memoir Mini-course Video 2

In this video we look at three mistakes to avoid as you write your memoir, so that readers don’t leave your story feel annoyed or unsatisfied.

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Video 2 Transcript

If you'd rather read than watch, we understand. Here's the transcript of this video.

Hi, It’s Cecily Paterson from the Red Lounge for Writers with you.  Welcome to the free Write Your Memoir mini course.

In this video I’m going to share with you three mistakes you should avoid when you’re writing your memoir

First mistake: telling too much

If you’re like me, you get bored when someone’s telling you a story and they get stuck on the details that don’t even matter.

Who cares, right?

The tiny details of your life can be interesting, but too much bogs your readers down. It’s a mistake to bore your readers.

Second mistake to avoid in your memoir: telling too little

I know – it’s the opposite of the first mistake of telling too much, but it’s important.

Of course, we don’t want to bore our readers, but also, it doesn’t work if we short-change them. We don’t want our readers to feel unsatisfied by our stories – we don’t want them to think, ‘there’s something missing there.’ The stories we tell have to be long enough and detailed enough to have impact. We need to make sure we tell the whole story, with all its glory.

But back to this video – and the third mistake to avoid as you write your memoir. The mistake is that many people don’t respect the fact that in writing their memoir, they are actually writing a story. Avoid this.

Respect the fact that memoir is a story.

Yes, a memoir is fact, not fiction. Either way, it’s a story. And stories have rules attached to them. They need structure. They need tension and build up. They have a climax and a resolution.  There are things that happen in a story, and they happen in a particular order. If you don’t understand this as you write your memoir, all you’re really doing is listing a bunch of things that happened.

Which is fine. But it’s not memorable. It’s not interesting. And It doesn’t speak to anyone’s soul.

Let me summarise. As you write your memoir,

1.      Don’t tell too much.

2.      Don’t tell too little.

3.      Respect story structure.

Now, there’s one more free video in this course.

In it, I’ll be talking about how figure out exactly what to put in your memoir. Funnily enough, it’s often the biggest problem people have when they think about writing their memoir.

I’m Cecily Paterson from the Red Lounge for Writers. Thanks for watching. I hope you found it useful.

Looking for Video 3?