Whether you like it or not, your family shaped you. The people in your life, the ones you loved and maybe the ones you struggled with, they made you who you are. So, writing about them isn't just about telling their stories; it's about understanding yourself.
Let me start with a question that might make you feel uncomfortable. Think about someone from your past: a parent, a sibling, a grandparent, an aunt, a friend, a partner. Choose someone who mattered, someone who changed you.
What made them memorable?
It's rarely the obvious things or the big moments. Sometimes it's just a gesture–the way your grandmother's hands looked when she was braiding your hair; how your father laughed at his own jokes; or the friend who always knew when you needed them without you asking.
These small details are gold in memoir writing. They're what make a person real on the page.
Here's what I want you to think about. When you remember this person, what do you value most about them? I don’t mean what you think you should value. What actually matters to you. Maybe they were generous; maybe they were stubborn and taught you how to stand your ground; or maybe they hurt you, and that wound taught you something about yourself.
People are complicated. Your family members are probably more complicated. And that complexity makes for compelling writing.
As you think about the person you've chosen, ask yourself this: How did they influence my life? What did I learn from them, whether they meant to teach me or not? Did they show you how to love? Did they model something you wanted to become? Or did they show you something you absolutely didn't want to become? Both matter.
Some of you might be nervous about writing about family. I get it. I was. In fact, I found it difficult to write openly about my parents until they had both passed away. The celebrated memoir writer David Sedaris found writing about his father difficult. A lot of what he has written was written after his father died in 2021. In a Guardian article he wrote in the months following, Sedaris recalls the difficult relationship with his father. He writes, “As long as my father had power, he used it to hurt me. In my youth, I just took it. Then I started to write about it, to actually profit from it. The money was a comfort, but better yet was the roar of live audiences as they laughed at how petty and arrogant he was” (read the full article here).
You might worry about what family or friends might think if they read what you really think of them. You might fear stirring up old conflict or old pain. That's normal. But know this: writing your truth, even the difficult stuff, is part of your story. You don't have to publish it. But you can still write it.
Family relationships involve conflict. Love and conflict often exist in the same space. The parent who pushed you too hard because they believed in you. The sibling you fought with constantly because you cared. The friend who disappointed you. These moments teach us about ourselves. They shape how we see the world and how we show up in relationships.
So here are five writing prompts to help you get started writing. Choose the one that speaks to you. Write for fifteen or twenty minutes. Don't edit. Just let the memory come.
Prompt One: The Memorable Detail
Choose someone from your family or an important relationship. Don't describe them in general terms. Instead, write about one specific detail that brings them to life. How they moved, what they wore, a habit they had, or a phrase they always used. Let that detail be your entry point. Write around it until the person appears on the page.
Prompt Two: What I Valued
Write about someone who mattered to you. What did you value most about them? Be specific. Not "they were kind" but rather "they remembered my birthday every year even after I moved away" or "they made me laugh when everything felt heavy." What quality did they have that you wish you had more of in yourself?
Prompt Three: The Influence
Think about how someone shaped you. Write about a time they influenced you, whether you recognized it at the moment or only later. Did they teach you something? Did they show you something? Maybe they changed how you saw yourself or the world? Write one scene that shows this influence at work.
Prompt Four: Love and Conflict
Some of the richest relationships contain both love and conflict. Choose someone and write about a moment when you felt both. Maybe you were angry at someone you loved or maybe you disappointed them. Did the two of you have a disagreement that mattered? Write the scene. Show what happened. Let the reader feel both the love and the tension.
Prompt Five: The Question
If you could ask this person one question, what would it be? Write out the question. Then write their answer as you imagine it. What would you want to know? What might they tell you?
One more thing before you go. Some of you have asked me, “What if I can’t remember exactly what happened or what was said?”
My reply is something along the lines of, “When you write about relationships, you're not trying to get the facts exactly right. You're not writing a biography or a documentary. You're writing about what these relationships meant to you. How they felt and what they taught you. Some details you'll remember perfectly while others you'll fill in with what feels true about that person and that time.”
That's the work of memoir. It's honest. It's your story. And most of all, it's your truth.
Take your time with this exercise. Write about more than one person if you want to. This is the beginning. You're gathering material. You're listening to the people who made you who you are. And when we read what you’ve written, we’re learning about the influence they had on making you who you are. That's what writing a memoir is all about.
If writing about family is something you'd like to do more of, why not purchase my "Voices from the Family Album" workbook. "Voices from the Family Album" is a gentle, practical. 24-page mini-course for writers who want to approach family stories with more courage, compassion, and clarity. In this self-guided PDF course, you will learn how to frame family memories with care, ask wise ethical questions before writing or sharing, and shape one family moment into a short reflective memoir piece. Find out more by clicking here.
Confused about the difference between memoir and autobiography? Discover why memoir might be the perfect choice for your personal story.
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This is a frequently asked question. How do I start writing my memoir? Where do I start? Our minds are full of memories and stories. Which one should we start with? Do I need a plan? How do I structure my memories? Should I join a writing group or find a memoir coach?
The question of how and where to start can feel so overwhelming that many simply give up and put off the idea. Yet, here you are in my class, wanting to share and make sense of your precious life. Good. Hang in there. The fact that you’re reading this suggests you’re serious about getting started. I’ve got a few tips that might help you.
Memoir vs. autobiography
First, it’s important to differentiate between an autobiography and a memoir. An autobiography is an account of your entire life from birth up until the current time. A memoir focuses on a specific experience, event, or transition in your life: overcoming an illness, the breakdown of your marriage, a move into a new career, looking back on an important accomplishment or change of some kind during which you experienced a transformation.
The Memoir Formula
My memoir coach Marion Roach Smith offers a sort of algorithm or formula that can help. “My memoir is about A as illustrated by B to be shared in a C.
A = is the universal theme or idea that your story reveals
B = is your specific experience told in story form
C = is where you are going to share the story (i.e. in a book, a private notebook, as a legacy document for the family, as a podcast, a personal essay, etc.)
Example: My memoir is about learning to let go of an old story in order to become who I was meant to be as illustrated by my transition from an academic to becoming a travelling storyteller to be published in a collection of short stories.
Start with a Scene
I recommend that my students begin not by thinking in terms of chapters but in terms of scenes. Pick one turning point, one pressure that you faced, or one question that your life keeps circling around. A memoir needs focus, and it usually starts at the beginning of the story, not at birth.
After my father died, I found myself wanting to write about our relationship, but where should I begin? I wanted the story to be about a son overcoming his anger and resentment of his father as illustrated by the time I spent with him in hospital when he was dying. I envisioned the story becoming the basis for a one-man performance on stage.
After considering a lot of scenes, I settled on a scene from the hospital during the final hours of his life as the place where I would begin. That scene opened with my anger at his inability to communicate with me and ended with a brief connection between us that was conveyed in a gesture of gallows humour.
Taking the First Steps
A good first step:
Write a one-sentence focus for the book. Use Roach-Smith’s algorithm or formula above.
List 10 scenes that shaped that focus.
Pick the 3 scenes with the most emotional charge.
Write one scene in full, with details, dialogue, and action.
Put the rest aside for now.
You do not need the perfect opening first. Many memoir writers gather material first, then decide where the book begins after they know the shape of the story. If you get stuck, write the version of your life story you always tell, then go deeper and ask what changed, what was lost, and what was learned. Remember, that readers want to see your transformation. Memoir is essentially about what happened and how you were changed by what happened and how it’s contributed to who you are today.
Focus on a Moment or Event
For a memoir coach-style start, ask these three questions:
- What event changed me?
- Why does this story matter now?
- Who is this for?
A simple first page exercise helps:
Write about one ordinary day that sits close to your bigger story.
Stay with one scene. Use specific sensory detail. End with a small shift, a question, or a new realization.
Working with Writing Prompts
Starting small is why I use writing prompts. A prompt can help the mind discern what is important within a particular context and time restraint. I usually suggest prompts of 7-minutes. I find relatively short time restrictions keep the inner critic at bay. I urge my students to keep the pen moving or the fingers typing. Trust that what needs to come out, will come.
I’m not suggesting you use prompts to write your entire memoir (although I’m sure it could be done) but my students find them useful to get tucked into their memories and begin sorting out what might be useful later on. The writing is more spontaneous and doesn’t require a lot of scaffolding beyond what the prompt asks for.
Your goal at the start is not structure. Your goal is material. Write enough to find the true spine of the memoir, then shape it afterward. It’s like a sculptor throwing down a mound of wet clay. The sculptor begins to move it about shaping it, getting an idea of what will work and what won’t. He or she begins to take some of the clay away or move it about adding it somewhere else until a shape forms in the mind. Eventually, the whole will emerge.
So, start with a moment and let the moment guide you. Enjoy the journey and let the destination take care of itself.
If you’re interested in getting started on your memoir or personal essay, explore my resources and courses at the Memoir Studio. If not already, become a paid subscriber and receive weekly writing prompts, tips, and techniques to support your writing practice.
For a long time, I’ve described Memoir Studio as a place to teach memoir. After all, I spent years as an English teacher, lecturer, and tutor, teaching students how to write. I saw what I was offering at the Memoir Studio as a kind of curriculum—a set of techniques, frameworks, and skills designed to help people move their stories from memory to the page.
But after conducting a market discovery investigation, I’m not so sure.
Inspired by the work of authentic business coach George Kao, I recently re-examined the feedback I’ve received from students, customers, and participants in my memoir and storytelling courses. According to Kao, market discovery is the process whereby you discover what your customers really want as opposed to you assuming what they want and need. You make calls, conduct polls, and begin conversations online to find out what attracts people to your services. Let them describe their wants and needs. And use their language to market your business.
The feedback I received from a market discovery viewpoint shifted my perspective. They weren’t talking about sentence craft or publishing logistics. They were talking about safety, courage, connection, and transformation. They talked about the importance of feeling witnessed and acknowledged for who they were.
The gap between my expectations and my clients’ feedback is what Kao refers to as the distance between the “mountain top” and the “riverbank.” He describes the “mountain top” as the place “where you stay in your head, with your ideas, frameworks, and content. You reflect, write, record, and refine your own thinking there.” According to Kao, if you stay there locked in your own language and assumptions about what you think people need, “you often get “crickets” because you are not checking how real people describe their problems or what they are ready to pay for.” (Check out George’s podcast)
I realized that I had been speaking from the “mountaintop”—my own academic view of the writing process—while my participants were describing the experience from the “riverbank,” the place “where your people already flow in daily life, with their habits, their words, and their spending patterns” (see Kao on Instagram). As it turns out, my business isn’t just about teaching writing as I had assumed; according to what people are actually telling me, it’s about creating the conditions where writing becomes possible. It’s about an experience.
The “Riverbank” Perspective
When participants shared what they actually valued, the common denominator wasn’t my curriculum; it was the environment or conditions I created and what they experienced that was important. They described profound, personal shifts. Phrases frequently used in the feedback included the following:
- “I found my voice.”
- “I found a way to write what couldn’t be named.”
- “I gained courage.”
- “I felt witnessed”
- “I found deeper insight.”
- “Sharing in a small group was so important.”
- “I enjoyed the journey.”
They arrived with varied, specific questions—where and how to start, how to navigate difficult family stories, how to blend mysticism with memory—but they left with similar experiences of feeling freer, seen, transformed, and honoured.
What Memoir Studio Actually Offers
Based on this feedback, I am shifting how I define the work I do. Memoir Studio is not a school for writing; it is a community for people who want to discover the deeper meaning of their lives through the act of writing.
Together, we are finding that the “work” isn’t just the writing itself. The writing is the visible outcome of something deeper that happens first. And thanks to market discovery, that “something” uses my clients’ expressed values as a foundation.
- Safety: A reflective, respectful space that allows participants to write honestly in small, intimate groups.
- Reflection: Valuing the preparation—the meditations, the deep listening, and the atmosphere—as much as the writing itself.
- Community: The realization that listening to others isn’t just a benefit; it is a fundamental mechanism of the transformation process.
- Gentle Expertise: Providing both the technical knowledge to guide a story and the kindness to hold the person writing it.
A New Way Forward
My participants have made it clear: they aren’t looking for another introductory course on memoir writing. They are looking for continuity, accountability, and continued companionship.
Moving forward, Memoir Studio will organize its offerings not so much around products, but around the stages of the writer’s journey:
- First Steps: Finding a starting point through workshops and simple invitations.
- Deeper Exploration: Exploring memory with greater honesty.
- Staying the Course: Staying connected through ongoing circles and gentle coaching.
- Mapping the Journey: Crafting a complete manuscript with one-to-one support.
- Leaving a Legacy: Sharing stories with family and the world.
The most important discovery I’ve made is that my business isn’t about teaching people how to write a memoir. It’s about providing a place where they feel safe enough to tell difficult truths and find the courage to keep going. That is a much rarer, and much more meaningful promise.
To that end, I will, in the weeks ahead, create a community membership. For an affordable monthly fee, members will have access to the Memoir Studio and its resources. More importantly, they will have access to fellow writers and opportunities to work in small, intimate groups to share their writing and encourage one another. Stay tuned for the details.
I’d appreciate your comments and/or suggestions. As a writer, what is it that you want and need when considering a personal writing course? Leave your comments and suggestions below.
To learn more about how “market discovery” can transform your business, visit George Kao’s website at www.georgekao.com or sign up for his “Clarifying Your Calling: Authentic Market Discovery” course.
