Welcome to Episode 61 of Published. Today, I'm speaking with one of Greenleaf’s editors, Lee Reed Zarnikau. Lee will tell us how to piece together a memoir and give us her insights into the dos and don’ts of memoir writing from an editor's perspective.

Welcome back to Published! In this episode we’re talking about memoirs and how to best turn your personal journey into a book.

• If you have an interesting life story you may have been told that you should write a book, but many authors struggle to put their experiences on paper in an authentic way. This is where an editor's insight is helpful. In today's episode, Lee will tell us how authors can make their memoirs stand out.

• A memoir isn't just a collection of anecdotes, it's also a narrative. Lee explains how she guides authors by helping them identify their narrative arc and what makes their memoir unique.

• Sometimes authors are torn between which genre to go with: memoir or self-help. These two genres share similarities with the inclusion of personal story and anecdotes, but their audience and impact can be very different.

• Lee will share her insights on this topic in our episode today and give any perspective memoirists her best advice on how to get started.

• Let's get into the interview!

1:50 – Lee, thank you so much for joining us today on Published! How about you start by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do at Greenleaf Book Group.

• I'm an editor with Greenleaf so I help our authors with their content. That could mean that I'm working with them on shaping their content or that I’m kind of like a sherpa for them as their book goes through the book process. Either I'm helping, advising, guiding, or working with them directly on how to shape their words.

• One of the most important parts of that role is that I'm a proxy for their reader. I'm the person that can tell them, I know what you're trying to say but this is how it's coming across to your reader. I can help them find that connection between what they want to say and what's going to make the best reader experience.

3:10 – What do you enjoy about editing memoirs as opposed to other genres?

• I find people fascinating and I love hearing their stories. I love memoirs because it is a story; it's a true story but it is a story. You are getting a double experience. You're learning about a person but you're also being entertained. It's a wonderful package.

• One of the other things I love about memoirs is that memoir authors are brave. They're offering up their personal story as a gift for readers, and I feel honored to help them with that journey.

4:03 – Can you share with our listeners who aren't as familiar with memoirs what some of the characteristics or standard elements of a memoir would be?

• Even though you are telling your personal story, you're telling it for a reason. There's a theme or message that the reader is going to gain from the memoir. It is vulnerable, honest, and true to what's happening.

• Memoirs tend to be relatable and relevant, something that connects to what people are going through today. They need to have drama, conflict, some kind of storytelling that helps them be engaging.

• A key element of memoirs is voice. This is somebody's personal story, so it needs to sound like a personal story.

5:03 – What are some of the author’s responsibilities when writing a memoir?

• There are three key things for authors to think about. One is the responsibility to the reader. You need to be honest and vulnerable with the reader. You are asking them to invest time in your story, so you need to meet that expectation and tell them the full truth. You need to do it in a way that connects and engages.

• They have a responsibility to the rules. You can't say whatever you want about real, living people. There are laws to follow. It's hard to tell your story without talking about other people so authors need to be flexible about their word choice. They need to be ready to do research to back up their characterizations. They may have to have tough conversations with people about what they're putting in their book.

• The third thing is authors have a responsibility to themselves. This is because you are being open, honest, and vulnerable. You have to take care of yourself. This is going to be a very emotional journey. You’re reliving big parts of your life, both in the writing process and again when you edit. I encourage authors to think about how they are going to care for themselves as they go through that emotional journey.

7:22 – What are some of the common mistakes that you see authors make when writing a memoir?

• As I mentioned, don't forget the reader’s experience. You want the reader to be invested and not only buy your book but also tell everybody else it's fabulous and that they should get it too. You have to put yourself aside and think about what will make the best reader experience.

• Remember this is not an autobiography, meaning it's not a step-by-step chronology of your life, even if we end up telling it in chronological order. It's not an encyclopedia entry or an Oscars acceptance speech. We're not looking to skim over the highlights. We're not looking for a lecture where you're teaching the facts. That teaching should come from the experience. We're not looking for a diary. We're not looking for every thought that comes out of your mind without any arc to it.

9:06 – I think a lot of listeners might not realize that a memoir isn’t necessarily an autobiography. Can you further explain that difference?

• In an autobiography you're talking about steps of your life. I was born here, this is the town I grew up in, this is who my parents were, and so on all the way through your life. It’s the very linear and descriptive facts about your life. You're laying it out there for anyone who wants to research you.

• For a memoir you have something to share, you have a message that you think will help someone else. You cherry pick from the parts of your life that help convey that message. I like to think of it more as a series of anecdotes that support that key theme or key message, rather than every single thing that's happened in your life.

10:19 – You also mentioned that there's a need to balance the personal elements of their story with being authentic and keeping the reader in mind. How can an author find that special balance of personal elements and a compelling story and do you have any examples you can share?

• The most important thing is to know your message. A lot of times when I'm working with an author, whether it's on a memoir or any other genre, we work on what that message is. I have them put it somewhere so they can see it while they're writing and remember that their goal is to tell this message.

• Then I encourage people to look at the different anecdotes they want to include and evaluate them. If it doesn't support the overall message and it isn’t adding to the atmosphere or tone of the story, it’s probably not meant to be there.

• I often encourage people to write their vignettes, their anecdotes, out of order. That helps break that habit of putting things in that don't serve the message. It helps you focus on what's important about each vignette.

• Another helpful way to look at it is to think about a movie, or even better a play. The director and the screenwriters have made choices about what they show you because they only have so much time. And in a play, they only have so much set to work with and so many actors. They curated the story for your experience. So, think like a director.

• Some of the examples that I love often don't put things chronologically or they have a chronological arc, and they employ a lot of fiction tools, such as flashbacks and reveals.

• Toil and Trouble by Augusten Burroughs really stuck with me. That's an unusual book and he is talking about being a witch. He uses chronology about a storm that's coming their way, the house that he and his partner have purchased, and a tree that he knows is unhealthy though nobody else can see it yet.

• That tree is a marker in the book of the fact that he can see and understand things that other people don't pay attention to. When we're talking about the tree it's not just a tree. We actually understand that the tree means something. And what’s revealed about his story with his partner comes along in pieces that show how he understands things before other people.

• A lot of people know Cheryl Strayed’s Wild. She takes you on the chronology of her hike on the Pacific Northwest trail, but you learn about her personal life before then in small snippets, well-chosen moments that fit the drama of what's happening on the trail.

• You can even look at books that are only partial memoir and are designed to teach. I think of William H. McRaven's The Hero Code. It’s not a traditional memoir, it's more of a set of lessons, but it is his anecdotes from his personal experience. Again, those are great, short, focused vignettes. They start when they need to, and they end when they need to. They cover the key points he wants to show you.

14:52 – Great, those are wonderful examples and you've added to my reading list there. I know that in those, and in many of the memoirs that we love at Greenleaf, there's a very distinct author voice that's so important to developing a compelling read, whether it's funny or aspirational or serious. Do you have any guidelines or advice as to how an author can find their own unique and distinct voice?

• Memoir authors can learn a lot from fiction authors. They often do the same thing with creating compelling, engaging stories, showing rather than telling, and finding their voice. You can use the same tools as fiction authors.

• First, finding a place or time to write where you can be authentic. For me when I do my personal writing my family cannot be in the house. I cannot go deep while I'm listening to and worrying about what's going on with my family. Find that place and time where you can truly be you and not have any outside worries.

• Another technique that fiction writers use that works for memoir authors is free writing, meaning you sit down and force yourself to write for a certain amount of time. Don't worry about what you're saying. Don't pick a topic that’s necessarily even in your book.

• Set it aside, come back to it a week later, read it with fresh eyes and highlight what you like. You'll start to see your voice.

• For some of our authors who have had business careers where they’ve had a speechwriter, they can have a conversation with that speechwriter and ask, what did you do to create my voice? Or go back and look at the speeches that were written for you and see what you like and pull that as well.

17:07 – Celebrity memoirs are obviously very popular, but most authors don't have that advantage in their court; they don't have this huge platform of readers waiting to read their story. Are there things they can do within the manuscript itself to better engage their readers and to ensure that not only do they read it, but they tell a friend who also buys it?

• I think it’s knowing what you have to offer and not being shy about it. A lot of times people, especially women, do what I call the reverse Wonder Woman. We put on those reflective bracelets that she uses to push off bullets and we do that for ourselves. We think, I'm good at this but won’t say so, I need to be humble.

• Go ahead and own what you have to offer and think about your unique perspective. Do you have unflinching honesty? Do you have an untold story on the problem of today? Do you have a captivating voice? Some people know or they’ve been told that they have a great way of telling a story.

• Know what you have to offer. That is something you can bring out in your story when you're deciding what vignettes to include but also, when you're working with your book team on your marketing copy. Be able to state clearly what the book offers to the world.

• That's again the place where an editor can help, and where a book team can help. Sometimes you may not see it but when we listen to you talk, have conversations, and read your work we might be able to see it and help you with that.

19:41 – You talked about what an author wants to achieve in telling their story. Something we often see in memoirs is that an author wants to teach their readers some lesson that evolved in their life. These books can start to straddle the line between memoir and self-help. It's prescriptive at times as much as it is memoir. That can create some challenges when it comes to publishing and figuring out which genre it is. Can you give any advice to help an author understand when they should veer one way or the other? If they're dead set on memoir, how can they incorporate that type of advice and still stay true to the memoir genre?

• Think about your goal. Do you want to teach, or do you want to inspire and share? Which one is your bigger driver?

• If your biggest driver is to teach, then we need to look at either self-help or business leadership. Even if you're teaching, like Ta-Nehisi Coates, and there's a lot of memoir elements in there, if he's going to talk about how he sees race in society, that's more essay and nonfiction.

• If the goal is to inspire and share, meaning you want to offer it up and let people take from it what they will, then that's memoir.

• Some ways to ask yourself what you want to do is to consider, do I want to tell people what to do and give them an approach? That's teaching with self-help. Do I want to show them what it's like and share my experience? That’s memoir.

• If you're writing a mixture of both that's where an editor or book team can identify you're straddling two camps. Either that's okay, and we're going to market it in a specific way, or we refine, and we pull it more into one camp or the other.

• The other question you need to ask yourself is, where do you get your authority? Is it from your lived experience? That's memoir. If your authority is from your acquired knowledge or your professional career, it might be either self-help, nonfiction, or business leadership.

22:53 – For our listeners who are interested in starting work on their own memoir, how would you suggest they get started?

• It depends on personality. People will talk to fiction writers and ask are you a plotter or a pantser? Meaning, do you have to write everything out and outline it or do you go by the seat of your pants? I think actually in reality most people are plantsers, a combination of both, because you need a sense of where you're going, or you'll feel like you're spinning your wheels, but you also need to allow yourself to grow as you go.

• This is my in-between approach as to how people can get started. Come up with a premise. It doesn't have to be perfect, but you need to know where you want to go.

• I have people fill out a sentence like this:
  • My [fill in type] reader will find my book [inspiring, intriguing, enlightening, reassuring, etc.] because I can [show, entertain, etc.] about [my slice of life, situation, experience, background, etc.].

• Create a sentence that shows what the book is going to do for a reader because of what you can show. You can also think about what you can make them feel.

• Brainstorm a list of anecdotes from your life that support the theme and write about each one, not necessarily chronological order. Then read it over and see what's taking shape. That's where a good developmental editor can help you start seeing that arc.

• Some people who are outliners might want a proper outline for the arc, but they need to take care that it doesn't become a linear chronological story. That's why I like brainstorming the anecdotes. Start writing each anecdote and see what comes to life.

• If people come from more of a marketing background, they might think of it as a call to action. I often tell people to think about what they want their reader to know, understand, feel, or do. Then use that to help you come up with a premise statement.

25:54 — Do you have any parting advice for our existing or aspiring memoir listeners today?

• I would say don't be daunted by anything we talked about today. Sometimes people are a little scared to get started. Go back to that responsibility to yourself and take care of yourself. Part of taking care of yourself is knowing that even though this is work it's rewarding work. Find your way to help yourself, take the plunge, and go for it.

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ABOUT LEE

Lee Reed Zarnikau has been working with words for over twenty years. Her editing and writing experience includes freelance work with a wide range of independent authors, businesses, and nonprofits, plus over twenty years’ experience in sustainability strategy and communications. She has a BA in English and an MBA in Sustainable Development from the University of Texas at Austin and a certificate in editing from the University of Washington.

In her spare time, Lee is one of the archery coaches for her daughter’s middle school team and is easily talked into school volunteer work. She used to do triathlons but now is a recovering couch potato. A lifelong Texan, Lee has travelled to twenty-six countries across five continents, but has only managed to live in Dallas, Houston, and Austin. Lee writes book club fiction, middle grade mysteries, and has self-published a picture book that she both wrote and illustrated.