Nancy Shohet West
Where to follow Nancy
  • Home
  • About
  • Memoirs
    • Individual Memoirs
    • Micro-Memoirs
    • Birth Stories
  • Articles
  • Essays
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Frequently Asked Questions about the Memoir Process
  • Services

How about an "instructional memoir"?

3/13/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Most of my memoir clients want to tell the story of their life – a memoir as a chronological autobiography, essentially.

Occasionally projects come along that take other approaches, though. One example is what I call an “instructional memoir,” a personal narrative in which the subject combines a retelling of her life – or some segment of her life – with information about how to do something, offering useful instructions that the reader might be able to apply directly to his or her own life.

Last spring I started working on a book with Rachel Geller, a certified cat behaviorist and pet chaplain. Rachel was brimming with expert knowledge about cat behavior, true. So what made this more than just a “How to care for your pet” manual?

That’s where the memoir part came in. Rachel started the narrative describing how she became such an animal lover. She evoked the Maine forests and fields she walked through on her way home from school, and how stray cats who followed her home were welcome to stay – “No microchips for tracing them back to an owner in those days,” Rachel pointed out.

She also illustrated the origins of her skill at reaching out to those in need. The daughter of a popular rabbi, she frequently accompanied her father on pastoral visits. She worked in a speech pathology practice as a teenager, becoming fast attuned to the unique needs and frustrations of the patients and developing an aptitude for reaching out to them in just the way they most needed. As a young professional, she assumed guardianship of an aunt with dementia and took on the Massachusetts State House in order to get a bill passed into law regarding certain aspects of elderly care.

Rachel’s book about cats combines both instruction and memoir as she offers readers her insights on cat behavior while also using anecdotes from her life to win the reader’s trust and engagement. Working with Rachel gave me the chance to do two of the things I enjoy most as a writer: informing readers by providing tangible, useful details, but also bringing the narrator’s voice to life by drawing out her experiences and background to show her as a complete person and not just an objective commentator.

Can you imagine sharing your particular area of expertise through an instructional memoir? Did you invent something, start a business or develop a nonprofit? Have you traveled through a remarkable part of the world? Are you a skilled cook or teacher or technician – with a personal story underlying your expertise? If so, maybe an instructional memoir is the right format for your story. Please be in touch any time to talk about getting the process of your memoir started!


0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Reflections, news, comments, questions, and links related to memoir writing and other kinds of narrative nonfiction.

    Archives

    December 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    October 2019
    September 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    August 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.