1) Decide On a Twist

Whether it be that a character who appears good is secretly a murderer or someone was roped into helping to steal a priceless artifact, you’ll need to figure out what the twist of your story will be. The key thing to remember, though, is that the information itself isn’t the ‘twist’, it’s a crucial piece of action that is backed up by the information.

So, for example, let’s say your twist is that the murderer of your story is secretly a close friend of the protagonist. You must have them reveal themselves through a choice like killing someone in front of your protagonist. Having them monologue the information isn’t a twist, this is what backs up and supports a twist that has already occurred.

Ultimately, before you begin writing your story, you’ll need to decide what the twist will be, the story behind the twist, and how it will be revealed through action.

2) Plot Out Your Story

Next, you’ll need to plot your story in order for it to make sense both from the perspective of knowing and not knowing what the twist will be. You have to make sure the story is logical while your readers are still in the dark, and then also when the shocking twist reveals itself.

If your twist involves a certain character in the story being unlike their outer persona, you’ll need to plot the whole story from both your protagonist’s perspective and theirs. What do they do throughout that alleviates them from suspicion until the end? Why are they doing what they’re doing? Who are they really?

3) Scatter Clues Throughout

As you’re going into writing your story, it can be helpful to leave tiny little almost imperceptible hints throughout. For example, let’s say the murderer is murdering people he feels are responsible for the death of his brother. The protagonist could notice him always wearing a certain gold chain around his neck and later this could be revealed to have come from his brother and serves as a symbol of his dedication to avenging him.

This is a detail that doesn’t feel suspicious in the slightest upon reading so your readers would have no reason to be suspicious, but it also aids the later reveal and shows that you put thought into it if you included this detail early on.

4) Focus On the Choices

As we stated earlier, choice is the key to executing a twist. Therefore you must not only focus on the choice that will eventually reveal the twist, but also the choices being made throughout. This is tricky because it involves a balancing act of sorts. You want the character surrounding the reveal to not be someone under suspicion because otherwise, the twist won’t feel very surprising. At the same time, however, you want their behavior and choices to make sense from the POV of the twist reveal.

It can be helpful to perhaps have a scene that shows them at one scene while the ‘killer’ is on the loose, thereby making it seem as though they’re beyond suspicion. And then you’d later reveal that they did this to throw the police off the scent. Make sure you’re plotting your story well and making sure that all of this person’s movements make sense from every POV while also not allowing them to become an obvious object of suspicion.

5) Revise

As much as you want to believe you’ll nail this on the first try, something this intricate takes multiple drafts. Don’t beat yourself up when the threads inevitably get too tangled or when you hand your first draft to your editor and they notice several areas with plot holes. You need all of the threads to fit together perfectly in order to execute that moment that combines surprise, awe, and satisfaction known as the twist.

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1) Draw on personal experience

The subject matter that you choose for your self-help book should be one that you personally have experience with. So let’s say you’re choosing the topic ‘How to Overcome Depression’- it could be that you have a master’s degree in psychology or it could be that you personally have had–and eventually overcame–a struggle with depression. But don’t shy away from all of the personal, intimate, and uncomfortable details that come along with your experience. The whole point of a self-help book is, fairly obviously, to help. You have to approach the book knowing that the way you overcame a challenge may help others to overcome that same obstacle in their lives. The sacrifice you’re making by putting yourself fully on display could end up drastically changing a lot of lives for the better. So, in the initial stages, you need to overcome any reservations you still have within yourself.

2) Use research to back up your theories

If you’ve been inspired to write this book because of your own personal experiences, that’s a wonderful thing. But you shouldn’t be relying solely on your personal experience, either. If you want the book to really help people, you’ll need to do a ton of research on your subject material as well so you can back up your claims and figure out the best way to advise your audience. For example, perhaps you are writing a book about overcoming an abusive relationship. Give examples of your life experience, but also do some research about abusive relationships. Read other self-help books to learn more about your own motives in your experience. Find statistics on abusive relationships and the psychology behind why people stay with abusive partners. It may even be helpful to reach out to a psychology expert or two to get their insight on certain factors and their advice on overcoming them. You don’t want to write this book as an account of abuse, but rather as someone who overcame that, and, looking back, now has the wisdom to advise others.

3) Balance past knowledge with present understanding

One of the more important aspects of writing a self-help book that draws on your personal experience is finding a way to balance your past and present selves. You want to present your past experiences in a detailed way, rather than merely factual. You want people to feel the struggle and the emotion that accompanied the experiences you’ve overcome. To accomplish this, you’ll want to employ some fiction writing techniques, writing detailed scenes from your past self’s perspective.

However, don’t make the mistake of writing a memoir instead of a self-help book. What differentiates these primarily is that the main focus of the self-help book is displaying practical steps to help people overcome the struggles you went through, versus reading a detailed account of your experiences. Make sure that any flashbacks you detail from your experiences also have the presence of your much wiser present-day self. Pepper in observations that you’ve had about these moments since they’ve past or realizations on why these moments, in particular, have stayed with you. Have an aside in the narrative saying things like, “I’ve often wondered why I didn’t stop then” or “This moment has always stuck with me because…” These asides are good transitions to be able to give the reader the advice that they’re supposed to be getting from witnessing your experience.

4) Decide how you want to present your information

As previously stated, the main differentiator between self-help and a memoir is that the structure should prioritize the direct advice over the telling of a story. So, rather than go in chronological order detailing the events of your life, we recommend structuring your self-help book in sections based on specific things you learned from your experience. For example, let’s use the ‘overcoming abuse’ book example. One of your chapters could be ‘why people stay with their abusers.’ The beginning could detail psychological insights on the matter, perhaps even some quotes from a few of the experts you’ve interviewed. This leads into your own experience, presenting the reader with one or two specific flashbacks to your life that illustrates the points you’ve learned from your research (peppering in advice for avoiding your mistakes).

5) Create an Outline

When you’re writing something with so many different elements intertwining, it can be extremely difficult to stay organized. We highly recommend creating an outline for your book before you even begin writing. If you were inspired to write this through your own personal experience, that’s the best place to start. Make a list of all of the specific moments/memories from your life that you feel should be included in your book. Only pull memories that you feel had a valuable and clear lesson that a reader could learn from.

Next, group memories together that have a similar lesson or relating factor. Once you start to notice patterns in the lessons that the memories show, create chapter titles and write the specific memories that will be relayed in each section. Then, dive into your research about each of the topics that the chapters outline. After you finish your research and have all of the necessary tools and sources to write your book, create an order for the chapters that you feel will convey the information in the most effective way. For example, if you’re writing a book called ‘Lessons You Learn After Divorce’- it may be helpful to put the chapters (lessons) in the order that you learned them.

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Memoir vs. Autobiography: Know the difference

Writers often make the mistake of using these two terms interchangeably, but they are actually two very different things. An Autobiography is the story of the entirety of one’s life. All of the events one has experienced or remembers from birth to present. Typically these are done chronologically with an emphasis on factual information, but that isn’t required.

A Memoir, however, draws on a select set of stories or anecdotes from your life to support a specific theme or message. This message would either be something the readers are meant to learn from or a statement on the human condition as a whole. So, for example, say you wanted to write about your experiences being a victim of domestic violence. A memoir would involve pulling the specific stories necessary to tell your experience with that part of your life and, ultimately, how you overcame it and the lessons you learned along the way.

Choose Wisely

Which you choose, ultimately, depends in part on both your goals as well as your influential status. So, for example, if you’re writing the book to be a piece of you to leave with family so they have a chronical of your life, an Autobiography would be best. In addition, an Autobiography would also work well if you’re a celebrity or an influential public figure. When you have influence, readers clamor to hear all of the intricate details of your entire life.

However, should neither of those be the case, we’d recommend going with the Memoir format. This style is more about allowing readers to experience and learn from your life and, if you’re hoping to be established as a writer through this book, this is the right way to go. The focus of a Memoir is more to how to allow readers to gain something valuable from your book, which is conducive with building a following.

Choose a Theme

If you choose to write a Memoir, your first step will be choosing a theme. You’ll likely already have something in mind because that’s typically what prompts people to pursue Memoir writing in the first place. But think on the subject in more detail. You may have a traumatic experience or unique upbringing you’d like to share, but ask yourself: How did the experience affect me? How does it still affect me? Did I overcome the adversity I faced? If so, what did I learn from it? If not, why didn’t I? Make sure you’re choosing a subject that involves a conflict or a journey of some sort, otherwise readers won’t be able to gain any insight from your experiences. Think about it, if your book is about how you easily put yourself through grad school, how are readers supposed to relate? What would they learn from that experience?

Organize Your Story

This next step is applicable to both Autobiographies and Memoirs: get organized! Figure out the best order for the story you want to tell. For some, it’s chronological, but for others, their stories work best jumping back and forth in time. You want to create suspense, drama, and reveals–this is part of what makes any story good. Write down all the events that get the readers from point a (the conflict) and point b (learning the lesson) and figure out the most effective order of events.

Be Brutally Honest

You’re not going to like where we’re going with this, but bear with us. Some writers make the mistake of writing a memoir or autobiography that is actually a barely disguised Burn Book. They write the whole novel from the perspective of how blameless they are for every misfortune in their lives and how everything bad about their life is person A and person B’s fault. If you go this route, similar to the girls from Mean Girls, you’re making a big mistake -huge (different movie, but you get it).

Readers want to relate to you as the protagonist of this book and it can be difficult to relate to someone who paints themselves as perfect. In addition, if you make yourself seemingly flawless and blameless, you’ll come across as arrogant. Never be afraid to own up to things you’ve done wrong and paint a flawed picture of yourself. Not only will readers gain a lot more insight from an honest take, but they’ll relate and empathize with your journey a whole lot more.

Use Fiction Writing Techniques

This is solely for Memoir writers- start thinking like a fiction writer. The goal of your book is to create a compelling story with a specific theme or message that readers can receive. To do this effectively, you’ll need to think of yourself not as yourself, but as the protagonist of a story. Show details rather than tell them, create scenes in a visual and sensory way that readers can experience rather than simply hear about. Use direct and indirect dialogue, character arc, point of view, setups/payoffs, etc., the way a fiction writer would in order to tell a compelling tale that will hook readers in. Your life is no longer your life now, your life is a story. What does that story say?

The post Genre Spotlight: Autobiography/Memoir appeared first on Dorrance Publishing Company.