So you want to write a memoir. Maybe your children or grandchildren have been urging you to do so, or you have stories that you want to pass down to family and friends. Maybe you’ve even made a few attempts at writing about your life, only to quit in despair.

Yes, writing is hard. But you can write a memoir that people will want to read, and that will live beyond you, if you break the task into manageable steps.

1. Set your parameters.

Memoir is not autobiography, which starts at a person’s birth and ends in the present. A memoir is a sharply focused story with a beginning, middle and end. It should feature a high point (which is called a “climax” in literature), which can be any life-changing decision or experience. A memoir might focus on a soldier’s war experiences, a divorced woman’s years raising her children alone, or a doctor’s practice in Alaska.

That said, a memoir does not have to be organized around time. The doctor, for example, might write about “10 memorable cases” (the names, of course, changed to protect people’s privacy). The woman who raised her children alone might divide her memoir into thirds – one section for each child. A soldier recounting his service in World War II might write a chapter for each bombing mission he completed.

Perhaps the topic of your memoir is simply your childhood, which was spent in a home without electricity or running water. Each chapter could concern an object from that time – such as a sleigh, a kerosene lamp, and a quilt, for example – and all the associations it invokes.

Whatever the focus, an organizing principle will make your memoir easier to write and more enjoyable to read.

2. Don’t just tell the same old stories.

Once you know the focus of your memoir, it’s time to reminisce. But while you may think this is the easiest part of writing, it is, in fact, the most difficult. It is not enough to recount the first memory that comes to your mind. Typically, we have told and re-told our personal stories so many times that the details are no longer vivid in our minds. Your job as a memoirist is to dredge up as much information as you can to make your memories come alive for the reader.

First, use your five senses. Don’t just tell us what something looked like – tell us what it smelled, tasted, sounded, and felt like. If your favorite childhood dress was a blackwatch plaid, how did it feel on your body? Was it heavy wool, or soft cotton? Was the texture smooth or nubby? Don’t just tell us the one-room school had three rows of desks. Help us to smell the chalky erasers, feel the grit of tracked-in dirt beneath your feet, and hear the clang of the teacher’s bell that called you in from recess.

Second, record as many details as possible. What was your teacher’s name? What did your lunch box contain? What songs did you sing each morning? The more specific your information, the more vivid the scene will seem to the reader.

Third, create a scene. A scene is any passage that creates the illusion of real time. With a scene, the reader experiences your story along with you. Scenes can be in present or past tense, but they almost always include dialogue and action. Summary, however, tells what happened without any attempt to re-create the details. For instance:

SUMMARY: “I remember once Johnny lost his yo-yo. He also let a snake loose in class and pulled Sally’s hair. After a few months, he was kicked out of school.”

SCENE: “Miss Harvey leaned over the podium. We watched, horrified, as Johnny’s yo-yo rolled toward her feet and clanked to a stop. ‘Oh, no,’ Sally spat into my ear, unable to contain herself.”

3. Do some research.

Documents and photographs provide both inspiration and information. Possible sources include vintage magazines and newspapers; property deeds and maps; old catalogs, such as Sears Roebuck; personal documents such as diaries, letters, and postcards; financial records, including checkbooks, receipt books, bills, and business correspondence; vintage textbooks or favorite children’s books; vital records, such as marriage, birth or death certificates; yearbooks or report cards. Virtually any text or photograph from the time in question can be helpful.

Try using these in creative ways. For example, look up the newspaper horoscope from the week you got married. How closely did it predict your marital happiness? Leaf through cookbooks or magazines to remember what you ate as a child or cooked in your first apartment. Look through old dictionaries for words that are no longer in the vernacular.

Mine photographs for details. Why isn’t Aunt Anna smiling? How did your brother skin his knee? Where did you get that ridiculous hat? Meditating on old images can help you write a more complete account of your story.

4. What’s it all mean?

It’s not enough to tell your story and let the facts speak for themselves. The reader wants to know what it all meant. What did you learn from your experience? What wisdom would you like to pass along? Whether you lived through a trauma, such as years in a prisoner of war camp, or had a happy childhood on a farm, your experience shaped who you are today. You don’t want to play this too heavily; no one wants to read passage after passage of moral exhortations. But by the time the story has reached the climax, we need some sense of how it affected the rest of your life. A memoir is not a series of random episodes; it is an attempt to impose meaning on experience.

5. Polish your draft.

Finally, be willing to write, rewrite, and write again. Just as it took you years to understand the highs and lows of your life, so too must you gain some distance from your writing in order to see it clearly. After your manuscript is complete, put it in a drawer for a few months. When you edit it, try to imagine yourself in the reader’s shoes. Does your story contain suspense? Does each chapter have a cliffhanger, however mild? Are you writing in vivid scene or lazy summary? Do you work up to a “big moment,” or does the memoir feel flat?

It goes without saying that your work should be edited for grammar, spelling, and diction (word choice). If you don’t feel comfortable with your editing skills, you can hire a professional or ask a trusted friend for help. But remember that copy-editing is work, and even a friend should be compensated in some way and given credit in your manuscript.

When you’re done, you will have an enduring gift for your family, and an eyewitness account of the past that no one else could have written.

Betty J. Cotter is the author of the novel “The Winters.” Her short memoir piece, “The Autopsy,” was recently published online by Connotation Press (www.connotationpress.com).

Read On

What makes these memoirs so good? Each has a distinctive voice that speaks directly to the reader and brings the past to life.

“Too Close to the Falls” and “After the Falls: Coming of Age in the Sixties” by Catherine Gildiner. The author grew up the only child of unconventional parents. Allowed to roam free, she penetrated the adult world and reports her experience through a child's innocent yet intelligent eyes.

“The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls. Despite hunger and deprivation, the author tells her story without self-pity.

“Angela's Ashes” by Frank McCourt. Perhaps no memoir is as haunting as McCourt's retelling of his impoverished Irish upbringing.

“Borrowed Finery” by Paula Fox. Abandoned by her parents, Fox finds family anywhere she can – from her Cuban grandmother's estate to the home of a Congregational minister in upstate New York.