Finding Your Memoir's Structure (independent study)

Creating a satisfying narrative arc out of your own life story is challenging—partly because you're still living it. How do you write a story where there is no real "end," and when life doesn't actually develop in a series of "aha!" moments? There’s a certain amount of translation necessary to condense a sliver of the messy, complex, ongoing story of your life into something that fits into one book, and feels narratively satisfying to a reader.

This independent study course will help you find the central arc in your story despite the fact that real life is never that simple, and create tension that will keep readers turning the page. Exercises will also help you determine whether your story needs to break the mold of the straightforward narrative arc, and look at some options for how to do that without sacrificing narrative momentum. (Plus a section to guide you through the process of writing a memoir outline.)

Note: This is a fully independent, self-paced course with no live component or feedback.

Course Outline

0: Prepare an Outline

To do the exercises in the following lessons, you'll need a detailed outline of your memoir. If you already have an outline, skip to Section 1. If not, here are some guidelines and prompts to help you write one.

Step 1: Getting it all on the page

Step 2: What makes a chapter?

Step 3: Building it up

Step 4: Polishing

1: Starting with the basics

What's a narrative arc, and does your story have one?

Lesson 1

Assignment 1

2: Beginnings

Figuring out where to enter the story can be the most challenging part of the structure—you need to grab the reader's attention right away, and introduce your main themes.

Lesson 2

Assignment 2

3: Endings

Having a sense of where your story is going to end up can go a long way toward helping you figure out how to get there.

Lesson 3

Assignment 3

4: The Middle

There are two important ways to think about maintaining narrative tension throughout your story: The work each chapter is doing to further the overall narrative arc and maintain the tension of the main story, and the internal tension and arc of each chapter on its own.

Lesson 4

Assignment 4, Part 1

Assignment 4, Part 2

5: Multiple storylines and subplots

Plenty of memoirs include more than one storyline, running alongside each other. Is that the best option for your story? If so, how do weave multiple narratives over the course of a book?

Lesson 5

Assignment 5

6: Next steps

Once you've honed your narrative structure in outline form, how do you translate to a manuscript, or polish the outline to include in a book proposal?

Lesson 6

Assignment 6, Option 1 (revision tool)

Assignment 6, Option 2 (book proposal or feedback)

Testimonials for "Finding Your Memoir's Structure"

"Lilly Dancyger's narrative arc class was a transformative experience for me. Lilly’s uniquely-tailored lessons helped me craft chapter summaries that were thorough, robust, and that captured the heart of my story. Shaping my memoir through this course was an empowering experience for me and I’m forever grateful for all I’m taking away."

"I definitely recommend this class to future students!!! I walked away from it with the first finished outline of my memoir. Seeing my story go from being a vague idea to a book-shaped scaffolding was a wild experience."

"I knew I wanted my memoir to be non-linear but was feeling lost and overwhelmed trying to make a nontraditional story structure that was still engaging and easy to follow. Lilly's memoir structure course helped me unlock the internal logic of the story I was trying to tell, and follow it to the perfect structure!"