A Simple Tip to Organize Your Memoir Writing
Once you’ve made the decision to write your memoir, it might feel overwhelming to know where to start. In the earliest days, the best thing to do is mine your memories. Think of this like the brain dump stage of the process. You don’t need to worry about chronology or structure or even whether or not a memory is relevant to your story. You just get it all down to sort through later. I truly love this exercise!
How to Make a Scene Spreadsheet for Your Memoir
Make three columns in your notebook.
Column 1: The Memory | Give your memory a simple title (e.g. Meeting Brian for the first time, Driving to the desert, Checking into the hospital, etc.)
Column 2: Sensory Details | Jot down anything you can remember about this moment, from how you felt to what you saw (e.g. the sky was filled with stars, I felt cold and borrowed someone’s scarf, we stopped for hamburgers, the nurse had blue eyes, etc.)
Column 3: Date | If you know the exact date, great. Only the year? Just fine. This can be helpful when you start organizing more deeply and are thinking about chronology and how to play with time.
At this point, don’t worry about writing in any sort of order, just take whatever comes that may be associated with the time period you’re planning to write about. Maybe the memories won’t be relevant, but you don’t know that yet and it’s not time to decide. Open your heart and your mind, and start remembering what you can. Having a reference list of scenes will serve you well throughout the process, and might take some time to complete. There’s no rush.
I did a first pass at this exercise over the course of an evening, then continued filling it in for weeks afterwards. The more you start thinking about it, the more memories will surface, so be prepared to be reminded of something that feels monumental while you’re washing the dishes or driving to the gas station or taking a shower. (Then, of course, write it down.)
After you have a list in your notebook, you might want to transfer it to a spreadsheet to keep a digital copy. From here, you can begin writing easily. Just pick any scene and start writing. Do this in a notebook until you’ve written something for each scene you brainstormed. Then, you’ll be ready to type up your first draft.
