I recently read, The Memoir Project by Marion Roach Smith. In it she emphasizes that a memoir is not about the author. It is about a central theme, and a select portion of the author’s life simply illustrates that theme. Marion explains, “Understanding this essential shift is the difference between writing good memoir and boring our socks off.” Haven’t we all listened to friends who can’t tell a good story because they don’t know how to leave out all the details we don’t care about?
Marion’s insight also releases us from the awkward sense of self-promotion. These carefully chosen episodes from our lives are simply the vehicle God has given us to share his truth. It’s not about us. It’s about Him.
She’s even provided an algorithm to figure out precisely what it is we are exploring. Basically, we are writing about Y by illustrating X through Z. Knowing this helps us identify and refine our theme so we can go back through our manuscript and edit or delete any story lines that don’t compute.
In my case, my Y, or theme, is recovering from shame. My X, or illustration, is how my Leave-it-to-Beaver childhood collided with my Woodstock adolescence, so I no longer considered myself a “good girl.” My Z, or genre, is a memoir, Back to the Garden, a Search for Home, True Love, and God. Set in a time when religion was considered a stale vestige of the establishment, the unlikely resolution to my identity crisis, was discovering Jesus and his mind-blowing mercy for women like me who no longer felt clean or worthy of love.
Marion’s book teaches that by taking the me out of the theme, it becomes universal. And yet the universal is expressed through specifics. Throughout history people have longed for unconditional love, and worth. Every era has its own half-truths and lies that act as land mines. Do your own thing and free love, were mine, but no one escapes this life unmaimed by some kind of shame.
So thank you Hope*writers and Marion Roach Smith for helping me calculate the truth I have to share with my readers instead of boring their socks off.
