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Crafting the Right Structure for Memoir and Creative Nonfiction
I wrote a good portion of my memoir in a stream-of-consciousness outpouring, which was a satisfying way to externalize the vivid memories (so many memories!) I carried from childhood. At first, I sought only to tell a good story, which I still value above all else. However, aside from committed fans of James Joyce and Jack Kerouac, I knew my eventual readers would want (and perhaps need) some structure. Reading is a learned process, and the reader brings their expectations to the page based on cultural understandings of the structure before them: We read a free verse poem differently than a science fiction story, which we approach differently from flash fiction.
Form and content are interrelated and work together, whether you are writing a sonnet or an epic novel — ideally, the form of the piece acts as a kind of container, as well as the scaffolding of your work. From a psychological perspective, it was useful for me to write out my memories and reflections without trying to control their structure. And, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m a proponent of writing it all out in the beginning, and editing later — I just took that mantra to the extreme with my first book.
