Are you feeling stuck with your memoir, drowning in scenes or content without any clear direction for what to do next? It's likely you need to get clear on the structure of your memoir--and there are multiple viable choices you can make. Whether you need clarity or a total overhaul where structure is concerned, this hour-long memoir is just what you need to execute a readable memoir your readers will love. Watch the video at: https://youtu.be/PiYcshFwQ2E

1. STRUCTURE
The Backbone of
Your Memoir
Linda Joy Myers & Brooke Warner
www.writeyourmemoirinsixmonths.com

2. Thanks for joining us!
Linda Joy Myers, PhD is president of
the National Association of Memoir
Writers and the author of Don’t Call Me
Mother, The Power of Memoir, and
Journey of Memoir.
Brooke Warner is publisher of SHE
WRITES PRESS, and president of
Warner Coaching Inc. She’s the author of
Green-Light Your Book, What’s Your
Book? and How to Sell Your Memoir.
Together, Linda Joy and Brooke are the
co-authors of Breaking Ground on Your
Memoir and the co-editors of the just-out
The Magic of Memoir.

3. What Is Structure and Why Does
It Matter?
Without structure:
—Your memoir will be hard to follow
—Editors and agents know something is
wrong, but they don’t always know what
With structure:
—You can have more confidence in your narration
—Your story holds together better
—You will have a more cohesive narrative

4. How to Think about Structure
without Overwhelming Yourself
• Don’t over-extend yourself
• If this is your first memoir, don’t
overcomplicate
• Use the tools we introduce in this
webinar
• Be willing to make a change that
supports new findings and/or supports
a streamlining of your themes

5. Tools That Support Structure
Your timeline—a visual tool

6. Tools That Support Structure
Turning points
• Find moments of big change
• Write the stories of these moments
• Sort, brainstorm, and sort some more
• Ask yourself, how do these moments
inform my theme/s?
• This helps create the spine of your
memoir

7. Tools That Support Structure
Scaffolding—Cliff Notes Version of Your Story
• Scaffolding helps you build out your memoir a little bit at a time
• Scaffolding is modifiable
• Scaffolding will help you remember where you’ve already been,
which will help you as you move forward.
Chapter 1: Horses coming back into my life via Amy (my middle daughter)
Scene 1: Walking into barn with 10-year-old Amy to start her proper lessons,
introduce her, have exchange/connection with her.
Scene 2: Give my context, that I am a mother of three, describe other kids,
myself.
Scene 3: Flashback: Running my horse as 15-year-old, free of rules that ruled my
home life
Scene 4: Show the pang of loss. How I was passionate about horses and how I
got lost.

8. Tools That Support Structure
Chapter titles and Table of Contents
• Create a Table of Contents, even if it’s
a working draft
• Identify chapters and give them chapter
titles
• Start labeling your chapters as chapters,
and with titles if you have them
• Let your work-in-progress take the
form of a real book

9. Types of Structures
Linear
Braided
Associative
Framed
Circular
Outliers

10. • A chronological story—from point A to Point B, but unlike
the framed memoir in that there will be fewer flashbacks
• The main storyline is the “now” trajectory and what
happens from one scene to the next
• Can be a year or 20 years—not limited to a particular
timeframe per se
• Most coming-of-age stories are linear
Linear Structure
—EXAMPLES—
Eat, Pray, Love,
by Elizabeth Gilbert
Angela’s Ashes,
by Frank McCourt

11. • Weaves together two (or sometimes three)
parallel timelines—generally a past and a present
• Possibilities for braiding happen every other
chapter (past, present, past, present) or you can
braid within chapters or more sporadically, like a
music score
• Sometimes a braided timeline meets up at a
certain point and continues on a present timeline
till the end of the book
Braided Structure
—EXAMPLES—
The Color of Water,
by James McBride
Pieces of My Mother,
by Melissa Cistaro

12. • Associative uses “associations” to move the reader
through your book
• Writers rely on turning points—big events, often
thematic—to propel them forward
• Associative structures are often used for highly
thematic books, allowing you to bounce around, more
focused on theme than timeline
Associative Structure
—EXAMPLES—
Devotion, by Dani Shapiro
Drinking, A Love Story,
by Caroline Knapp

13. • Choose a period of your life to focus on that comprises
the beginning (point A) and end (point B) of your
memoir
• Framed memoirs makes use of memory and reflection
to exit the narrative often, always returning to the “now”
of the current framed timeline
• Different from linear in that it almost always covers a
shorter period of time. Chronological with a lot of
backstory woven in.
Framed Structure
—EXAMPLES—
Wild, by Cheryl Strayed
The Memory Palace,
by Mira Bartok

14. • Keep coming back to a particular episode or
meaningful point in the story
• Make departures to explore the terrain of your story,
but often for the point of informing the central episode
at the heart of the memoir.
• One form circular narratives take is called “en media
res,” where the story begins in the middle of the action
—and circles back around to explain this midway
through the memoir
Circular Structure
—EXAMPLES—
The Liars’Club, by Mary Karr
H Is for Hawk, by Helen MacDonald

15. Definition: The chronological construction of a plot composed of
exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.
Plot: What happens.
Character development: How you make sense of what happens and are
changed by it.
Character Arc in Memoir: Focus on a protagonist having a struggle,
entering a low point, or dark night of the soul, then finding a way to
confront and learn from the struggle, which then leads to a new path in life.
Traditional Story Arcs and How
to Fit Your Memoir into Them

16. • Components of a story arc
• Finding an arc in memoir—creating your 3 acts
Traditional Story Arcs and How
to Fit Your Memoir into Them

17. Continue on with us!
Write Your Memoir in Six Months starts Weds, January 4.
$150 discount to all students who register by EOD tomorrow.
Details and curriculum are at:
writeyourbookinsixmonths.com/program-details
**from our homepage go to 6-Month Program**

18. Find out more about what we’re doing:
www.MagicOfMemoir.com
www.WriteYourMemoirInSixMonths.com
Follow us on social:
@brooke_warner @memoirguru
warnercoaching || LindaJoyMyersAuthor