Focus On The Personal/Family Memoir

The story of your own or your family’s history is likely to be the most personal, emotionally satisfying and potentially overwhelming writing project you’ll ever undertake. You’ve collected all the oral history, personal memories, journal entries, photographs, letters and countless other documents – now find out how to weave them together into a compelling story.

Work with a published author to write and revise chapters of your memoir (up to 12,000 words) and develop a working outline for the remainder of the entire book.

Course level:  Intermediate

Required Books:

Workshop Length:  14 weeks

Tuition:  $425.00 ($382.50 for VIP)

Start Date: View Focus On The Personal/Family Memoir Course Schedule

Course Structure
This workshop will consist of seven two-week sessions. Each session will include online lectures (text based) and associated textbook reading assignments, along with a writing assignment related specifically to your memoir, which will be submitted to the instructor for private review at the end of the first week of the session. During the second week of each session, work will be posted for group review and feedback. Throughout the workshop you will be able to participate in asynchronous lecture discussion and encouraged to take advantage of ongoing informal discussions and posted self-directed writing exercises. (2.8 CEUs)

You will learn:

  • To identify the types of personal and family memoirs
  • To define the scope and theme of your book
  • How to decide what to put in – and what to leave out of your book
  • To develop a dateline and working outline for your book
  • How to stay on track and keep your book from “sagging” in the middle

Who should take this course:

  • Individuals seeking to understand the various approaches to person / family memoirs
  • Writers who want to write and revise chapters of their memoir and develop a working outline for the entire book
  • Aspiring memoirists looking for key insights and feedback on their work from a Published Author

Focus On The Personal/Family Memoir Writing Workshop

Course Outline

Session One: Defining Your Book and Your Intended Reader

  • The different types of personal and family memoirs
  • Deciding what your book is and who it is for
  • Defining the scope and theme of your book
  • Who is the main “character”?
  • Who is the narrator?

Writing Assignment: A narrative summary of the memoir you want to write, including why you want to write it, who you are writing it for, and what you want the book to “say” about you or your family (maximum 500 words).

Session Two: What to Put In and What to Leave Out

  • Using a dateline to establish the chronology of your book
  • Putting your memoir into historical perspective
  • Planning your research strategy
  • Making smart—and tough—decisions about what belongs in your book, and what doesn’t

Writing Assignment: The dateline for your book (maximum 750 words); a description of the research you’ll need to conduct (maximum 500 words)

Session Three: Conducting Research & Developing Your “Characters”

  • Genealogical and historical research
  • Defining your characters and their relationships
  • The careful use of dialogue

Writing Assignment: A “cast of characters” for your book, with a brief description of each one’s relationship to the central character (maximum 500 words); a scene from your book that puts a character into historical perspective (maximum 500 words).

Session Four: Organizing Your Material Into a “Plot” for Your Book

  • Organizational ideas
  • Turning your dateline into a working outline for your book
  • Using scenes as the building blocks for your plot
  • Transitions

Writing Assignment: A working outline for your book (maximum 1,500 words) and two scenes connected by a transition of time and/or place (maximum 750 words)

Session Five: The Opening Pages

  • Opening devices
  • Hooking your reader in the first paragraph
  • Establishing the time and place of your story

Writing Assignment: The opening pages of your personal or family memoir (maximum 3,000 words)

Session Six: A Plan for Finishing Your Book

  • How to stay on track and keep your book from “sagging” in the middle
  • Revising and rewriting

Writing Assignment: The next 3,000 words of your book (or a revision of the first 3,000 words based on the feedback you’ve received).

Session Seven: Keep Writing

  • Workshop wrap-up

Writing Assignment: Additional chapters of your book, either picking up where you left off with the Session Six assignment, or starting from the beginning and incorporating revisions (maximum 6,000 words total).