Sad Memoir
I recently had a self-published memoir foisted on me by someone close to the author. After reading the first page, I couldn’t help but groan, which is a shame because I love well-written memoirs. I find it fascinating to read about the lives of strangers with interesting stories and people I admire. Fortunately, the book was under 200 pages, so I read my way through it in fits and spurts. At least now I can tell you a couple of things not to do if you ever write your memoir.
First, the whole book felt like a bunch of diary entries stitched together, not always chronologically, which it pretty much was. Although I’m guessing this publishing process was good for the author’s closure, it’s not appealing to a stranger. This is why at YeahWrite, we talk about the importance of a “so what?” You need to make readers who aren’t your friends and family care.
Second, the writing was extremely colloquial, with a huge overabundance of italics, explanation points, and mostly-irrelevant asides in parentheses. There were even a few allcaps and hashtags. The author clearly thought they were being funny, but I didn’t laugh even once. Whereas some of these techniques work very well in MUCH (see what I did there?) smaller doses, it’s exhausting and jarring to the reader to encounter them at every turn. You want to keep your reader in the story.
There is a reason we stress the importance of beta readers. Especially if you are writing a book you want to sell, you need people you trust to be critical to read your drafts, including experienced editors and/or people trained in writing. This author clearly had family and friends read drafts–these are the folks giving this not-worth-reading memoir five-star reviews on Amazon the week it appeared. They may have really enjoyed reading this book because they already know the author and the story, but that’s a small club of people. The book is unlikely to succeed, and that’s too bad.
-Stacie
Welcome to Week 410
We’re kicking off the week in style at YeahWrite with both our competitive challenge grids in one post, plus prompts, tips, tricks and more. You asked, we answered! Keep scrolling down cause it’s all right here.
Submissions for this week’s challenges open on Saturday at 12 midnight and close on Wednesday at 10pm ET. Voting will then open immediately thereafter and close on Thursday at 10pm ET. The winners, as always, will be celebrated on Friday.
Having trouble getting started? Hop on over to our quick guide. And don’t forget to doublecheck the full submission guidelines before you hit that button.
Technique Toolbox: Year of Fearless Writing – Finding a place to submit your work
Ready to take yourself seriously as a writer? Not sure how, or not convinced you’re ready? We think you can, and are, and will be. This year is our Year of Fearless Writing, where we’re going to focus on the craft of writing, not the art, to take you from “I write” to “I’m a writer.”
Our February focus will be getting something onto your submissions spreadsheet. We’re talking about how to find a market that wants to publish the things you like to write. You probably have a “dream publication” that you’d love to see your name in, but there are dozens if not hundreds of markets looking for your work right now. Learn how to find them and take this month’s YFW challenge, right here!
Nonfiction: Optional Prompt
The nonfiction grid has no mandatory prompts. However, each week, we will give you an optional prompt in case that helps your mostly-true story juices flow. This week’s prompt is to speculate about what happened to someone from high school. Have fun!
Fiction|Poetry Mandatory Prompt
Prompt Up is our mandatory weekly writing prompt for the fiction|poetry challenge! Here's How It Works! February is for experimenting! I just made that up, but why not? We’re going to use prompts from Brian Kiteley’s The 3 A.M. Epiphany. Not gonna lie—they’re challenging, but the new year is still fresh and horizons aren’t going to broaden themselves!
The writing style prompt, chosen by our YeahWrite #408 fiction|poetry winner, Nate, is: Create a character who is not present, who is offstage for the entire piece.
Paraphrasing from the book: If you think about it, we live our lives in the wakes of other people’s actions everyday. Who just left the room? Who is about to enter? How do they like their desks arranged when they leave their jobs at night? What gift could the MC buy that would make them happy?
The second prompt, chosen by the YeahWrite editors, is an object that must be worked into the story. The object prompt is: a locket. If you’re not sure what a locket looks like, you can find a handy definition here.
Poets: February’s poetry slam is ekphrastic poetry- check it out right here, and write a poem in that style. Or you can write a poem incorporating our writing style prompt or our object prompt. Or all three! (Just not neither- you have to pick at least one prompt.)
Poetry Slam - Ekphrastic
Tired of writing about writing? Write about art instead, with this month’s poetry slam. Ekphrastic poems take a piece of visual art and envision a scene for it, describing the art and imbuing it with extra meaning. Give it a shot!
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Our tiniest challenge with the biggest bang is open the first Wednesday of every month from midnight to 10 p.m.
YeahWrite Super Challenge
The final round of Super Challenge #11 (nonfiction!) is now officially underway! Good luck to all our participants as they anxiously await the results. Miss out on this Super Challenge? Make sure you sign up for our email blast so you don’t miss out on any Super Challenge announcements.
Winners’ Round-Up
In case you missed them, you can find last week’s YeahWrite staff picks and crowd favorites all laid out for you on last Friday’s winners’ post. Leave the winners some love in the comments. They will love you right back, we guarantee it.
About the author:
Stacie joined YeahWrite as its Fiction Editor in early 2013 before becoming YeahWrite’s Executive Editor in 2016. She blogs at Stacie’s Snapshots and Tidbits and was thrilled to be honored as a 2015 BlogHer Voice of the Year (VOTY) for this post. Before retiring, Stacie’s career involved developing new medicines for cancer and autoimmune diseases, work that resulted in more than twenty publications in scientific journals. Now, she enjoys daily hikes with her dogs and spending more time with her youngest son while her oldest is off at college.
Much as I love the attention, the fiction prompt is linking to my blog as the winner rather than Nate’s. 🙂