How to narrow the focus of your memoir

One of the main issues I have found with memoir writing is not lack of material, but rather too much. Each day has moments worthy of notice and attention. If you add a lifetime of days together, that is a ridiculously overwhelming volume of material to work with.

Another problem is, that although there are moments from your life that are incredibly important to you on an individual level, they may not be at all important to your memoir on a story level. So how do you narrow your focus?

I heard a piece of advice (from a podcast I listened to years ago and I can no longer find- doh!) that helped me enormously in this process. The wise person said that she saw memoir as a piece of non-fiction writing where you are making an argument for something, and your life story is merely an illustration of the point you are trying to make. The example she gave was that someone could write a memoir making the argument, ‘Life is better when you share it with a cat.’ You would then go on to draw examples from your own life that demonstrated this.

I love the way this concept stops your memoir merely being about you as an individual and broadens it into something larger and richer. When I took her idea and applied it to my own book, it took me months of driving myself bananas to come up with something that I thought really captured what I was trying to communicate. I decided the ‘argument’ of my book was: ‘If we don’t look after veterans, it is not just them, but their families, who pay the price.’

This was a very effective way to separate out the stories that needed to be included in my book from the ones that didn’t. That’s not to say it was easy. Some of the stories I left on the curb were favourites of mine. ‘Killing your darlings’ takes on a whole new meaning when the story you are abandoning is very personal and intensely meaningful… but it is necessary.

A memoir is not a journal. It is something you are writing for an audience. If you can’t make tough decisions about what belongs and what doesn’t, you will never create the clarity necessary to transform a bunch of stories into a book.

What about you? What techniques have you found helpful to help narrow the focus of your memoir?

A few memoirs to get you started

If you are new to memoirs and looking for a few recommendations, these books are well worth a look.

If you like witty hilarity and outrageous extremes, read 'Running with Scissors' and 'Dry' by Augusten Burroughs. His writing is amazing as well.

Like a beverage or two? I do not mind a drink myself, and I am now desperate to go out drinking and hanging on every word Judith Lucy says after reading 'The Lucy Family Alphabet'. To be fair I have wanted to go out drinking with Judith Lucy ever since I first saw her comedy…

One of my favourite books from childhood, 'The Story of my Life' by Helen Keller, stands the test of time. An amazing piece of writing, and an insight into living in the world as a deaf and blind person.

'Angela’s Ashes' by Frank McCourt plunges you into the wet misery of extreme poverty in Ireland. Set amongst a backdrop of Catholic guilt, and told with wonderful lyricism and humour, it was one of the books that changed the way we now think of memoir. Read this if you love a good tale, well told.

If you want to run away and live in an abandoned villa in the Tuscan countryside (yes please!), read 'Under the Tuscan Sun' by Frances Mayes

I was transfixed by A.B. Facey’s, 'A Fortunate Life', when I read it as a teenager in the Rocky High library. Such an open, emotionally vulnerable account of a child’s relationship with his mother, especially given the era. Read this if you want to learn something about Australian history and hardship and how to keep rising above the circumstances you find yourself in.

I was completely captivated by the way James Frey described his rage in 'A Million Little Pieces'.  I don’t care if he made up some of the book, his emotional truth is indisputable.

If you like Amy Poelher, you will love her part memoir/ part manifesto, 'Yes Please', for its wisdom and laugh-out-loud moments.

I wanted to become part of Ahn Do’s family after reading his memoir, 'The Happiest Refugee'. Some of his stories made me snort with laughter, others made me cry. Read this if you love a positive take on life.

If you like the idea of going on a pilgrimage from the comfort of your own home, you will like 'Wild' by Cheryl Strayed. Wonderfully written, it made me want to take off into the bush on my own, though I did spend the entire book thanking my lucky stars that it was she, not me, carrying her ridiculously heavy backpack.

I have always loved Alan Cumming as a performer, but I mostly loved his book 'Not my Father’s Son', as it is one of the few memoirs I have read that covers the terrain of a child’s experience growing up with a violent father, and the way that relationship evolves into adulthood. I related to so many aspects of his life. 

'Too Close to the Falls' by Catherine Gildiner was an absolute pleasure to read. A wonderfully quirky story of a girl who didn't fit the normal mold, but carved a niche for herself regardless. Read this if you love beautiful writing and delightful characters.

Magda Szubanski’s 'Reckoning' is a wonderful memoir. Though Magda is a celebrity, this is not the story of her public life. It is a far deeper and more meaningful search for authentic identity and a quest to understand more about her father, a World War II veteran, all underpinned by a love for her family that was palpable throughout.

I could go on, but these are a few to get you started.

Where do you work when you write?

When I initially decided 2014 was the year I was going to finish my memoir, I went to the office to work (my husband and I are business partners in a graphic design/copywriting studio, Mono Design, where we share space with architects, event managers, film makers and exhibition designers). But after a few weeks, I came to realise that while I can stand constant interruption when I am copywriting, it is not the same for me with creative writing.

When I am inhabiting a scene, tuning into sights and sounds, capturing voices, feeling the way my body is responding to the world I am creating, I don’t want company, or any other version of reality infringing on my headspace. When I am boiling down the essence of what something means to me, I might spend over an hour trying to get a sentence right. I can’t afford to have any other words in my head except my own, otherwise I might miss the click when the world suddenly shifts into alignment and everything sounds exactly the way it is meant to. So I have spent the year working alone at home in blissful silence.

Where do you work when you write?

The Shame Game

I recently read the document Change the Story: a shared framework for the primary prevention of violence against women and their children in Australia.

It states:

Australia has a choice. We can change the story that currently sees a woman murdered every week by a current or former partner…

Violence against women and their children is not an inevitable or intractable social problem…

Although there is no single cause of violence against women and their children, the latest international evidence shows there are certain factors that consistently predict – or drive – higher levels of violence against women. These include beliefs and behaviours reflecting disrespect for women, low support for gender equality and adherence to rigid or stereotypical gender roles, relations and identities…

What this framework makes clear is that gender inequality is the core of the problem and it is the heart of the solution.

Discussing this report with some people at a barbeque the other day, someone floated the idea of shared responsibility. They suggested that if we witness a man inflicting violence against a woman, even if it is their intimate partner, and we do nothing to act, then we have to consider ourselves part of the problem.

In some ways, this seems like a valid idea. I know that when I was a child and people witnessed my father acting violently toward me, I interpreted their not stepping in to mean they thought I deserved to be treated that way. As a reaction to this, throughout my life, I have stepped in on multiple occasions and told men off for acting like arseholes. But I have to admit, in doing so, I think I probably put myself in dangerous situations that I was lucky didn’t turn seriously bad.

Since I have had kids I know there is no way I would be willing to put them at risk in this way. If they were with me, the best I could do would be to call the police. And given how stretched they already are dealing with domestic violence, would that end up being effective?

I also wonder, if I brought to a man’s attention, whilst he was already in the middle of a violent rage, how wrong he was, how badly I was judging his behavior, would that make the situation turn out better for the woman? Might he not be likely to punish her more when he got home? Would I also be in some way responsible for that?

I am a massive fan of Brene Brown’s work. (If you don’t know her, start with her Ted talk The Power of Vulnerability. Seriously mind blowing. https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability?language=en) One of the things Brene’s work as a shame researcher has revealed, is that shame is highly correlated with violence, aggression and bullying. This is the result of decades of research in the area. So I think it is safe to say that heaping shame on people who are already acting violently is unlikely to achieve the outcome we want.

It breaks my heart to read ‘in Australia, at least one woman a week is killed by a partner or former partner’. It appalls me that ‘intimate partner violence contributes to more death, disability and illness in women aged 15 to 44 than any other preventable risk factor.’

Obviously things need to change. And though I wish we could wave a magic wand and stop the violence now, I know this not going to happen. This situation has been going on for a long time. It makes sense that it will take a long time to effect real change upon it. But since Rosie Batty won the 2015 Australian of the Year, it feels like we are at last owning up to the problem. That is always the first step.

But there is one more thing we can all work toward. If, as Change the Story suggests, inequality is the ‘core of the problem’ and ‘heart of the solution,’ as a society we can work together to make it completely unacceptable to treat women as less than. This means respecting their value on every level, ensuring they have equal rights, equal pay, and access to services that allow them make appropriate decisions for themselves and their children.