Your Life As Story:
Writing Narrative Nonfiction
Dancing the Memoir Dance

Think of it this way: Memoir is like a dance where the partners move from heated embrace away from each other into a moment of private reflection, then back into embrace, away into reflection. Back and forth. As writers we narrate the story. Full speed ahead, embracing it, we tell our readers what happened. Passionately, we reel out the where-we-were-with-whom-and-how-it-all-unfolded. Rich details and juicy action spill forth as we careen through our remembrance.

And then we stop. We release the embrace and step back. The dance of memoir carries us away from the action. We sit in our chair, gaze out the window, and like the dancer pulling away from the partner, we withdraw. We remove ourselves from the narrative, all that heated action. We become reflective, meditative. We ponder the story just shared.

We narrate as a player in the unfolding scene.

Narrate.

Reflect.

It’s really that simple.

If you want to write your life story, begin there. Choose a moment, a bright shining memory. Write what happened. Then stop. Think about what it means to you now. Why did it happen? Why did you choose the actions you chose? What kind of sense can you make of it now? And if you can¹t make sense of it, you can say that. The memoirist has that right. Big and loud you can write: “And you know, after all these years I still don’t understand it.” That kind of honesty can be freeing for a reader; it is a simple, human way of saying: Some of what happens here on planet earth is very murky.