Is in-between writing ruining the structure of your memoir?

As you work on your memoir this year, don’t make the mistake of letting your “in-between writing” ruin your structure. In between writing is remembering all the things that happened that aren’t necessarily relevant or interesting to the reader. It’s recounting a story exactly as you remember it.

Let me give you an example. Let's say you're writing about a family vacation to Los Angeles. You have a scene at your mother-in-law’s house and a scene about getting accosted by Goofy at Disneyland.

The problem comes in when you write about everything happening between those events.

• You go out to eat with your family
• You buy a star map
• You get lost on the way to Disneyland

When you recall everything that happened to you, you’re not creating a story. You’re just recounting a bunch of random events. Instead, you need to pick just the events that matter. And if the event matters, it needs to be turned into a scene. 

If you're not letting us live through an event with you, your reader doesn't want to hear about it. 

This is one of the most important things to keep in mind when it comes to writing your book. Anytime you mention something happening in your book, your reader wants to experience it with you in the form of a scene.

***

Here is another example of the kind of writing that doesn’t work but which I often see in my students’ assignments:

From Minneapolis, it was a four hour drive to Des Moines. Once we arrived in town we pulled into the first cheap hotel, we unpacked our clothes and went for cheeseburgers at a diner. After dinner, we filled up the car and bought snacks at a nearby gas station. We decided to go to a carwash as well.

At the hotel, we had a restless night. In the morning, I was hungry, but we skipped breakfast because Jaime wanted to get on the road. We drove for three hours more when it started to rain. Finally, we made it to the border of South Dakota.

In this example, the writer is recounting all the stuff she remembers, but it doesn’t need to be in the book. 

Instead, think about how your reader wants to live through moments with you through your scenes. In short, if you can’t turn it into a scene, just leave it out of your book.