"An autobiography is really the story of a whole life," she says. ![]() ![]() In Roach Smith's mind, there's a big difference between an autobiography and a memoir. We each have many areas of expertise, but if you want anyone to read your memoir, the key is focusing on one. She says memoir writing is about territory about writing what you know. "These are the decisions all memoirists have to make," she says. The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text For Writing & Life When her mother was diagnosed in the '80s, Roach Smith says she believed Alzheimer's was on its way to becoming the greatest health care concern of the 20th and 21st centuries, and she felt adding details about her mother's infidelity would have taken the story in the wrong direction. "I had a responsibility to tell a story about Alzheimer's," she says. In the resulting memoir, Another Name For Madness, Roach Smith discussed her mother's alcoholism, but left out the details of her infidelity. She says that's what she did when she decided to write about her mother being diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease when Roach Smith was 22-years-old. ![]() She tells NPR's Neal Conan that a useful memoir writing exercise is to consider what's worth including and what's best left out for the story you'd like to tell. In her memoir writing guide, The Memoir Project, Roach Smith argues that too many aspiring memoirists focus on cramming every memory onto the page, instead of focusing on relating their story to broader themes. Marion Roach Smith asks her memoir-writing students to look for little details that illustrate their stories, and through them, chart a course to broader themes.Įveryone has a story to tell, but writer and memoir writing instructor Marion Roach Smith says making those stories interesting and readable is harder than it looks.
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