What did you learn at the deathbed of your mother? What did you learn at the ballgame with your son? What happened to your heart when you adopted that puppy? How did you make the cultural change from the bigotry of your family of origin to someone whose sense of community is one of inclusion? What did you learn after calling up those old boyfriends? Maybe you learned that closure is a myth. Wisdom, well, that is something we simply cannot get enough of in this life, don’t you agree? Why isn’t memoir about you? Because that’s not enough to drive a story. But it’s about the wisdom, no matter how large or small the wisdom may be. Or it’s what you know after what you’ve been through. Memoir is about something you know after something you’ve been through. You argue something, meaning simply that you tell us what you know after some experience, whether that experience be something as soothing as learning to meditate or as hair-brained as tracking down a passel of bad boyfriends in order to obtain closure. And, as you know, all non-fiction is an argument, particularly memoir. Let’s look back at my bad idea to get in touch with the old boyfriends. I’ve hinted at this before in prior posts, but I’m ready to needlepoint it onto a pillow and, if I can find the time to do so, I will. As a result, I now have this observation. In the years since I devised that little algorithm, I’ve put thousands of people through the uncomfortable exercise of shifting them from thinking that memoir is about them to knowing it’s about one, big universal for which they are the illustration. In this, the x factor is what the story is about – never you and instead, always a universal concept the y factor is the scenes from your life you will use to illustrate what it’s about, and the z, well, that’s the length or form you will use, whether it be a blog post, essay, Op-ed or book. Want an example? Here’s one: It’s about how closure is a myth, as illustrated by making the unsteady decision to get back in touch with every old boyfriend and the curious results of that escapade, as told in a book. Fill that in and watch how every one of your stories becomes about something as illustrated by your experience, and not the other way around. It’s this: It’s about x as illustrated by y to be told in a z. To make you feel the full “not-about-you” force, I have this little algorithm that you may already know. It is about something and you are its illustration. What Memoir is Notįirst off, memoir is not about you. And, let’s agree that while I could be wrong about this, at least I do not think I am. The new definition of memoir I’ve concocted comes after more than 20 years of teaching memoir, reading somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 individual manuscripts, helping to publish more than 40 books of students and clients, assisting in the publication of hundreds of essays and Op-eds, and generally thinking of very little but the question of what is memoir? So let’s just agree that I’ve given this a great deal of thought. And I’m not so sure that most books on writing get this right, either, including the dictionary which, it turns out, is not the best place to look for help on how to write in our favorite genre. When speaking to others, it quickly gets even murkier. When defining what is a memoir, one can scour the internet and get some really useless definitions, it seems. Send us feedback.I HAVE A NEW response I give when asked how to define memoir and I’ve been testing it on people, hoping it resonates. These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'memoir.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Mia Galuppo, The Hollywood Reporter, 1 Feb. 2023 The shocking story of how a young woman and her psychiatrist ignited the global Satanic Panic with their bestselling memoir Michelle Remembers. Jessica Geltstaff Writer, Los Angeles Times, 2 Feb. 2023 Epps is heartened to see this activism - in fact, the modern movement is part of what inspired him to write his memoir in the first place. 2023 Princess Margaret's close confidant, Anne Glenconner, is back with her second memoir. 2023 Spears is also expected to release her own memoir, having landed a landmark deal for a tell-all book. 2023 Loving spent the next 20 years conducting research for the Air Force, retiring in 1982 and publishing his memoir in 1994. 2023 Her memoir digs into how she's dealt with poverty, bullies, race, sexism and the impossible beauty standard that plagues Hollywood. 2023 Harry and Meghan have kept a low profile since his memoir Spare was released worldwide last month. Recent Examples on the Web The legendary performer officially completed her EGOT with a Grammy for Best Audio Book, Narration, and Storytelling Recording for her memoir, Finding Me.
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