Memoir Writing Lessons and Tips with Writing Coach and Writer Chad Sanborn

I see some people coming in. You are in the right place. I'm not Julie, but you're in the right place. We'll just wait a few more minutes, let a few more people come in, and then we'll get started. Hope everyone's having a great day. Hope it's nice where you are. We're finally getting some reasonable weather here in Kansas City. I guess Angela is with us. You see her in the chat there. Always great having her with me. That's how I feel. Secure doing this. I know she'll catch me if I fall, so. Oh, Southern California. Hello, Darla. Sure, it's nice there. Just give it a few more minutes. See a few more people trickling. Ah, Manchester by the sea. Oh, I lived in Boston for about five years. Used to go up there every once in a while. Liz, excellent. Okay, a few more people coming in. We'll just give it another minute or two. But yes, as I was telling, for those of you who are just arriving, you're in the right place. I'm filling in for Julie. My name is Chad. I'll talk a little bit about myself and why you should listen to what I have to say. And then we will jump into everything about Memoirs. I'm very excited. It's one of my favorite formats to work with writers on because you can just have a lot of fun with it. So, anyway, let's just give it another minute or two. A few seconds, I should say. All right, let's go ahead and jump in. As I said, my name is Chad Sanborn. I am a ghostwriter and a writing coach with Book Launchers. I've been with book launchers since 2020 as a contractor at first, and then full time. And I help authors, you know, write their manuscripts. I'm also an author myself of both nonfiction and fiction. So I'm, you know, love telling stories and I love helping people, you know, tell their stories. So, anyway, we'll go ahead and jump in. Like I said today, I want to talk a little bit about what makes for a compelling memoir. You know, memoirs are not only my favorite, one of my favorite things to work on, they're one of my favorite things to types of books to read. And so I'm really looking forward to jumping into this. We'll also give away a few prizes as we go, so please don't be shy, jump in. Normally, the way we'll do it is, you know, whoever comments first on our YouTube videos when, the day we put them up or not first, but whoever comments on them when we Put them up, we grab those names, put them into a randomizer, and then Julie pulls them. Unfortunately, Julie wasn't able to get names to me at this point, but we're still going to give away some prizes. I got some, some memoir related questions for you. And so we'll be able to, you know, make sure you get some great book launcher swag there. But anyway, let's, let's go ahead and I guess get on with it. Take a little sip here. Okay, so before we get to memoirs, and this applies to memoirs, but it applies to any book, really. There's. What are. There are three things that we want people to do with our book. We want them to buy it, we want them to read it, and we want them to tell others about it. So the really simple way this is, I'll show you how this applies to memoirs. And I say simple, but it's not easy is, you know, if you want somebody to buy your book, it's got to be of interest to them. Right. So you write about a topic that interests them and you're saying, well, memoirs about me. How do I make that interesting to them? We'll get into that. And then we want them to read it. And we do that by making it compelling, by making it engaging. And with memoirs, a lot of that comes down to structure. And so we'll talk a little bit about that. And then we wanted to tell others we wanted the word of mouth. And the only way that really happens is if your book connects with the reader, if it resonates with them and they want to talk about it. So we'll break down those things. We want them to buy them, we want them to read them, we want them to talk about them. We'll get into how you do that and how that applies to a memoir. Before we do that, I want to step back a little bit. Yes. And feel free to put questions into the chat there. And we'll go to them and we have a Q and A session at the end. I want to step back at this point, though, and talk a little bit about the difference between memoir and autobiography. Some. Most people know this, some people don't. So I always just like to get that out of the way when I'm talking about memoirs. You know, an autobiography is sort of you telling the story of your life from beginning to not necessarily the end. But you know, as far as, as long as you get when you're writing that book, that's different from a memoir. A memoir has a couple of things that make it a memoir. One is that it's, it's you, it's your story, but it's set in a specific time frame. So it's not the story of your life. It's about maybe the time you did this or the year you did this or whatever. It doesn't have to be that condensed. You can still tell and I'll show you, we'll get into this later, but you can, you can still tell us, have a memoir that covers your life, but you don't necessarily, it's not necessarily a complete telling of the story of your life. So a memoir has a specific time frame and also has a specific audience. It's, you know, it's for somebody. And that kind of relates. This all gets intertwined with when you start to decide what you're going to write about from your life and how it relates to people. So we'll talk about how we figure out what our specific audience is. And then the third thing, you know, it's set in a specific time frame. You have a specific audience. It also deals with, even though it's your story, it deals with a topic that appeals to the broader culture. It's things that other people are interested in. And you're just kind of examining that issue through your own life and experiences. So that's sort of the difference between a memoir and autobiography. The. There are really only two reasons that people write a memoir. And if you ever decide to write a memoir, it's important that you be very clear on which of these reasons. The first one is for yourself. You're just writing it as a legacy. Maybe you're writing it to work through some things and heal. Maybe you just, you kind of want to make sense of experiences and maybe you're the only person who's going to read it. Maybe it's just for family or maybe close friends or something like that. That's the first one, you know, you're writing for yourself. The other one is you're writing it for others, which is to say you are writing about your experiences because there is something in your experiences that other people can connect with. And these are what we typically think of when we think of like the big, you know, best selling memoirs and things like that. And you know, there's a little bit of both in there. Obviously, if you're writing for others, you're still writing for yourself. And if you're writing just for yourself, maybe like I said, you're going to show it to some family. But really, really it helps to clarify, am I writing this memoir basically for Me or am I writing it for others? And for the rest of this conversation, we're mostly going to be talking about you writing your memoir for others to read and how you make it resonate with them. So basically, when you get to sitting down and saying, you know, I'm going to write a memoir for others, there's a certain foundation to that. One is a topic in which I kind of mentioned, you know, it's something that's going on in the broader culture. And this is really the point that your memoir wants to make about that topic. This is your intention. This is why you're writing your book and telling your stories as it relates to this topic, because you have something, a point you want to make about this topic. Maybe it's, you know, there's a lot of memoirs about, you know, alcoholism and getting sober, and you want to talk. You know, that's a. That's a topic that's in our culture. And you have a take on that. You have a point of view on that, and your intention is to tell your story, to get that point across. So that's the first part of the foundation of a memoir for others. The second would be the form or structure that suits the story that you're going to tell. And we'll get into that a little bit more. But basically it's, you know, it's sort of a how you're going to. How you're going to couch the stories that you're going to tell both within that topic and also structurally within the book. And then the third thing is, you know, after your topic and after your structure is you need to know what your reader, what your audience needs from your story. So you've got an intention with your topic and your point of view. You have your form of your structure, which is like a concept. We'll talk a little bit more about that. And then you need to know your ideal reader, what they need from your story. This is. This is really important because that's how you're going to make it connect with the readers because you know what they want. So just a little bit more on this idea of topic or intention. Like I said, it's your point of view, it's the point you want to make. And this really helps you get clear. Once you're clear on why you want to write it for others, then you have a better sense of what it is you need to give them from your story. It's, you know, the best way to think about this. And this is true of any kind of book. And this is going to save you a lot of time if you start out thinking, you know, a book is. It's not what a book is about, it's who it's for. If you think of your book, whether it's a memoir or whatever is, you know, this is, this book is not. It's not about this or it's not. Yeah, it's not about this topic. Even though I said we're going to have a topic, think of your book as who it's for. This book is for, you know, this is for. This book is. My memoir is for people who, you know, are struggling with addiction or who don't have, you know, confidence in themselves to be a chef in the kitchen, those kind of things. So it's sort of a topic, but it's you taking it and you're relating it to others and then going back to your own experiences. So again, it's not. A book isn't about something. A book is for someone. Once you figure out who it's for, it really helps you answer a lot of other questions. It's also important to mention that, you know, especially as it relates to memoirs, they're not written for, you know, yourself, they're written unless you're writing one for yourself. But if you're writing for others, you know, it's, it's, keep in mind that it is written for others. It's not a journal, it's not a diary. You do have to have compelling stories. You have to know your point and you have to know what your reader wants out of that point. And we'll get into kind of how you figure those things out soon. And you really need to just once you know who you're writing for and what you're writing about, that's going to help you pick the stories to put in your memoir and it's also going to make sure that those stories resonate with your readers. So that's sort of the high level view of like everything you need for a memoir. Next we're going to get into figure out, you know, figuring out who your memoir is for. But first let's go ahead and do the first prize of the day. So let me get my notes over here. Now what will happen is put this out there, you'll answer in the comments and then once I announce who the winner is, we'll contact, you'll have to. You'll contact Angela@teamoklaunchers.com and I'll give you that again to claim your prize. But so the first question today for the first prize is going to be. The winner is going to be the fifth person to give me the title of your favorite memoir that you've ever read. The fifth person who gives me the favorite title, a title of their favorite memoir. So we'll go ahead and you take a few moments and think about that, and then in a second, we will go ahead and get on to figuring out who your memoir is for. Okay. And, you know, it doesn't have to be your absolute favorite, but if there's another memoir, you know, if you got two or three, go ahead and, you know, put one or two or three in there. But they're always kind of fun. It's always kind of fun to see what other people like. It's a. It's me basically fishing for other memoirs to read again. It's that word of mouth like, oh, that was a good one then. Yeah, let me see if I. If I can find that and track that down. In the meantime, we'll go ahead and we can always loop back to these and I'll announce the winners later. Let's talk a little bit about. Just want to make sure I got the right notes here. Yeah, I want to talk about, you know, your ideal reader. Figure out who your memoir is for. Basically. The first thing you have to figure out is, you know, you're going to figure out your topic and what you're going to write about. And once you nail that down, you really kind of have to step back and look at what, you know, why do think about. Why is a person reading a memoir in the first place? What is it that they need from your story? What are they reading it for again? And it's basically goes back to. People read memoirs for a few reasons. One is knowledge. Again, you're going to. I have somewhat of a topic and it's a great. Reading someone's memoir is a great way to learn about a topic that they've immersed themselves in and are writing about. But in a less academic way. It's a great way to learn about. Somebody wrote a memoir about their time. Beekeeping. It's a great way to learn about beekeeping versus going and reading a manual or something like that. So that's the first thing is just general knowledge, like, oh, this is a topic I'm interested in. I want to hear about your experiences doing it. The other or another reason is, you know, people read memoirs for comfort or for peace, connection, basically because of shared experiences. And you see this a lot with, you know, memoirs about certain, you know, traumas that people have had in their life. But it doesn't always have to be that. It can be simple things. You know, there's a memoir called Stop Time by Frank Conroy that's not really, you know, about any, you know, hard traumatic thing. It's just sort of his remembering part of his youth. But it's just interesting because there's so many things where you read it and you go like, oh, I identify with that. I get that. And so it's just, it's an interesting book that you kind of go, oh, well, you know, that makes me feel comfortable about that. But again, also in the, you know, trauma based memoirs, there's a, there's they, they serve a great service in that they help people realize I'm not alone and that's what people are looking for. You know, again, that sort of shared similar experiences. And then the other reason people read memoirs is they're looking for, you know, encouragement or inspiration. If you can do it, I can do it too, that kind of thing. Or so those, you know, once you start to look at, okay, here's what I'm writing about. Who is going to want the knowledge about my topic? You know, what is there comfort or peace that I'm offering them? Am I offering them knowledge? Am I offering them inspiration? You'll weave those things in as you tell your stories. But, and that's how you'll start to go, okay, this is going to resonate with my ideal reader. Again, not for everybody. The people who this book is for, once you know, your ideal reader ensures that you're telling this. It ensures that the story you want to tell, which is your story, is a story that your readers are going to want to hear because they're a self selecting group. They again, want knowledge or comfort or peace or encouragement and inspiration. And they're going to see your book that it is about and they're going to go, oh, that's for me. So that's, you know, the first thing we wanted to do is buy the book. So again, if you, if you pick, you know, a good topic and good stories, it's naturally going to attract the people who want to read those stories. But still, that's not, you know, it's still kind of, how do I figure out who these people are? Well, the first way to kind of start with demographics. Sometimes demographics are helpful. Sometimes they're not things like age, location, where somebody lives, income, education, race, gender, ethnicity. Sometimes those can be really helpful in helping you sort of niche down on your audience. But even more important than that, at least I think so, are what are called psychographics. And you kind of. That's sort of like where somebody is in their headspace, you know, what is it they need again, these ideas of knowledge, comfort, peace. And the really, the quickest way to kind of give your sense of who you're, you're talking to in terms of an ideal reader is you ask yourself, you know, as it relates to your topic. Let's say you're writing a memoir about your year you spent restoring an old car with your dad, right? Okay. Well, the topic on that is going to be, you know, mechanics and car restoration. Probably the larger story is going to maybe be the relationship between, you know, the writer and their father. So in something like that, you kind of go, you kind of ask yourself, here's some good questions. You know, what is it that, what do they, what do they want, the people who are going to be reading this book about car restoration and about relationships with parents, you know, what do they want? What do they need in terms of cars and parents and relationships? What do they fear? You know, and then start to ask yourself, if I, you know, as I write my memoir, how can my memoir help with those things? How can it help in terms of giving them knowledge or comfort and peace or encouragement, inspiration, you know, And a really good way to do this is sort of in your reader's voice. Answer the question, you know, pretend you're the reader. I would be happy if, you know, I would be happy if I had a better relationship with my father, or I would be happy if I had been nicer to my father, or I would be happy if I knew how to restore cars. So you kind of, that kind of leads you to the things that you need to talk about. Again, that's real high level. You know, as you get into doing this, it's. You drill down even further and, you know, another great question is to sort of ask yourself or ask, you know, just say out loud, I guess, my reader, things that they want, you know, they could get what they want if they only knew. Blank. If they only knew what? Like what is it in your experiences that you've learned that you can impart that's going to help them? Because that's really, you know, what's going on in the memoirs they're reading to live vicariously through you and take some lessons that you've lived and then apply them into their own lives. So these are ways to sort of drill down on who is my book for specifically, you know, psychographic wise, who's Going to look at this, see my cover, hear about my book, and go, that book's for me. Because that sounds interesting. I'm into cars, or even I'm not into cars, but I'm into improving my relationship with my dad or whatever. And you may have more than one audience. You may be, like I said, it may be maybe a book about, you know, women restoring cars with their father. You know, you could certainly drill down. That would be a certain topic. You could even have, like, maybe you. Your book is kind of geared toward women because you're a woman, but men could read it too, right? So you've got more than one audience there, but you have a primary audience, which would be women. You. If you get to a point where you cannot choose which is your primary audience, that is often a key sign that. That you have two books in you, not one. Because you really do have to go, like, I got. I gotta figure out who this book is for. And once I do that, it's going to be much easier to make those. Make those decisions. So do we. Do we have any winner on. On the 5th? Who was the 5th memoir? Okay, well, Angela will let me know. She'll let me know who won. In the meantime, let's go ahead. Okay, so we've kind of talked about how you figure out your audiences. Next, we want to talk about how you make sure you're telling a good story for that audience. How do you make it compelling? But before that, let's go ahead and talk about. Oh, Suzanne's here. You come up later, Suzanne. So don't worry. The. Let's go ahead and look at. Yeah, let's do the second question. Where'd that go? Where'd my page go? Oh, here it is. All right. Okay, here's the. Here's the trivia question for this second prize. And you know I'm going to trust you. I know you're all at your computers. You can go look it up if that's what you have to do. That's who you want to be, Fine. But ideally, you just know it. But. So here's the question. What Nobel Prize winner wrote the Memoir Chronicles, Volume 1, about his early years in the music business? So let me know. The author of Chronicles, Volume 1. It looks like Audrey won the first trivia question. Audrey D. So could. Congratulations to you getting some nice swag. Book launcher. Swag coming your way. So. And we have one more prize to give away. We'll get to that at the end. Of course, I'm going to make you wait around okay, so now we're going to jump in. We're going to talk about kind of how memoirs make their stories compelling. There's the. What we call the external story, which is what happened. You know, it's the events that you're going to tell in this bracketed period of time. And there's the most common way to do it is chronologically, right? You're going to. It was the year of, you know, living in Provence, right? And so you start maybe, you know, before you left and this. The book ends after you leave or something like that. And that's usually. That's a very clear way to do it. You can. Even within that, you can jump around in time, because that's one of the best things about memoirs is, you know, you're in the moment of the story, but the reader also understands that you're looking back on these things. So you can sort of give thoughts and reflections that you had at the time, and then you can kind of step back and talk about what you think about it now, because we don't always make sense of things as they're happening, Right. Sometimes it's not until years later that we go, oh, man, you know, it's. I didn't realize what that meant. So there are certain fractured structures that you can use. You know, one of the things that really helps is you get. Most successful memoirs have a concept, and I'll give you some examples of what I mean by that. But the concept really sort of the package that you're presenting. The story in one of my favorite memoirs is called Running with Scissors. It's called Running with A Memoir by Augustine Burroughs. And it's an insane story, and it's true of his upbringing at a point when his mother gave him up to be raised by her psychiatrist, who also happens to be a little nutty. And it's one of those, like, you just read it and you're like, I can't believe this person surv this. And it's funny and dark and it's, you know, takes place during his teen years, basically. But. And so that's sort of a. Like a broader concept. You know, it's a topic's about, you know, being raised without guidance, basically. A great example of packaging your memoir in a concept is, of course, Eat, Pray, Love, One Woman, Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Garrett Gilbert. Everyone's heard of this book. It's a fantastic book, was a great movie. But what she did was, you know, she has these stories, but she broke it down by these Three activities in these three different countries. So it's, you know, it's part travel, it's part exploration. If nobody can answer it, go ahead and Google it because again, It's Chronicle Volume 1 on the trivia question Chronicles Volume 1, and it was written by a Nobel Prize winner. So. Yeah. So anyway, back to concept. Eat, Pray, Love is the concept of her story. Like she. Here's how I'm going to present it. Another one, a good example is Poser my life and 23 yoga poses by Claire Deidreder. This is what I mean by a concept. Another one is Julie and Julia. 365 days, 524 recipes, 1 tiny apartment, apartment Kitchen by Julie Powell. So they're telling these stories, but there's this sort of framework around it. Again, especially because it's bracketed in time. There's this framework around it that helps you keep this Bob Dylan. Yeah, to keep the, keep the story, you know, tight and keep it moving. It gives it sort of an internal engine. And, you know, here's. We've had a couple of memoirs that we've helped people with at Book Launchers, and I just want to again show you how they used concepts. One is by Linda Magoon. It's called Live Free and finding grace on 48 summits. So it's about some things that were going on in her life with her ex husband and her family, but also about her finding her independence. And it all revolves around climbing these different peaks in New England. So it's this great sort of concept of, you know, getting your life back together, becoming your own person later, a little later in life. And then it revolves around this idea of climbing these, these summits. Another one that we've worked on, and she happens to be with us today, is Skidding Into Heaven, Defying Death, Divorce and Disease With Unwavering Faith by Suzanne Murray. Now, I'm glad Suzanne is here with us today. I had the pleasure of helping to edit that book and it's a great example of, you know, she's pretty much telling her life story, but she's not going, you know, she's telling it chronologically, but she's not including everything. She's focusing on these certain key moments. So even though it covers, you know, abroad most of her life, it really is a memoir because it's not just listing the events, it's also giving her take on them. What she, you know, how she got through these events. It's dipping into different points in her life. So it's, you know, again, skidding into Heaven, death, divorce, disease. And with unwavering faith, you get a sense right there, like, okay, here's the package. Here's the concept behind it. It's not just going to be a series of events. There's going to be this sort of structure with it, because really, you don't just tell us what happened. You also have to tell us what you thought, what you think about what happened. And that's sort of the internal story. The external story is what happened. The internal story is, you know, what you thought about it or take a drink there. You know, you have to offer reflections and insight and emotion. And that's the thing that your reader is going to connect with. They're going to, you know, be interested in your story, but it's your thoughts and reactions, reflections, the specificity with which you tell stories. You know, sense memories when you kind of talk, when you put the reader there with you, when you give the reasons why you do things or reasons why you didn't do something in that situation, your reaction or the reaction of other people around you, these sort of human elements. That's what your reader will connect with in your memoir, you know, and you can even play it out in terms of, you know, possibilities or, like I said, your thoughts then, and maybe your thoughts are different now looking back. So that's the internal part of your memoir that is going to. That's the thing that people are really going to connect with. Again, you know, for instance, in, you know, in Suzanne's, she had some great events, not necessarily all good, but interesting events, I should say, that happened in her life. And those. Yeah, those are really interesting. But what really gets you in Suzanne's book is, again, how she reacted to him. It's not what happened, it's how she reacted to it. You know, how did she not just survive, but managed to come out of these things and thrive? And that's sort of the key of her book. And that's the thing when you go back to, why is someone reading her book? It's for knowledge. You know, it's, how did she do this? Or it's for, like I said, a sense of connection and compassion. Like, oh, I've gone through something similar to that. So it's not just me. I'm not alone. That's where memoirs really, really take off. That's when you get people to buy your book and then read your book. Those compelling things that drive you forward, and then that's where you kind of get to what is the real elephant in the room with memoirs, which Is that uncomfortableness that. That you have with putting yourself out there, with putting all of that out there. That's the thing that people kind of go, okay, this is. That's usually the thing that stops people from writing a memoir is the. I just, you know, I don't want to open myself up. It takes, you know, when you hear like, oh, it takes courage to it does it? You know, and we really have to focus on, again, your audience and how telling your story is going to benefit people. Once you do that, you're well on your way to connecting with the audience, because that's what your reader needs from you. They don't need you up on your high horse. They don't need you looking down on them. They need humility from you. That's how they connect with you. And you are humbling yourself. You're making yourself vulnerable by telling your stories, and you're showing them that it's okay, whatever happened, you know, I'm here. I survived it, and you can, too. And I think that's the first part is, you know, humbleness and then honesty. It's a memoir. You cannot make stuff up. You know, you have to tell the things, the events of your life that you want to talk about as you remember them. But here's a couple of key things. A. You don't have to tell everything. You're shaping these stories, you know, you shouldn't necessarily try to shape them in a way that it's vindictive to someone else. But you don't always have to tell everything. What you. Once you know who your audience is and what your point, your topic, your point of view is, you can hone in on those elements. And maybe there are parts of the story as you remember it that don't, you know, don't really need to. They don't contribute. They don't actually help get across your point of view. And so that's something that you don't necessarily have to. To. To include in there. You know, the other thing, beyond opening yourself up, is people sometimes pull back because they're afraid of what you know, the people that are going to be written about, what they might say, you know, they don't want to hurt other people's feelings, which is understandable. So that's when you kind of have to remember that in a memoir, there is your version of how you remember it. And someone else may see it differently. They may remember it differently. And so you kind of have to be prepared for that. Again, you're not making things up at all, but Sometimes things can be a little fuzzy. It can. You know, it can. You can remember it one way, but somebody else sees it a little bit different. So I think that, you know, that's one of the things you really have to come to grips with and understand that it's a memoir. It's not. You're not presenting it as, you know, accurate historical research. It's like, this is what I experienced. And so those types of things, you know, this is how I remember it. Those kinds of phrases, you know, they get that point across. What you're saying is, I'm being as honest as I remember it, and this is the way it happened as far as I can. As far as I remember. And this is the significance of it. This is what it means. And just, you know, there's. There's a book out there. There's several good books, but one is called Law and Authors. It's a legal handbook for Writers by Jacqueline D. Lipton. Again, the book is Law and Authors A Legal Handbook for Writers by Jacqueline D. Lipton. And it's a good book in terms of dealing with, you know, sort of where the line is between telling your story and opening yourself up to something that you may, like a lawsuit or something like that. If that's something that's a concern, you know, that's a good book to know. But those are the main reasons that people won't, you know, take the leap and write a memoir. They're not. They don't have to do with the writing and the structure and all this. It's because they don't want to, you know, they don't want to go that far with themselves. And that's, you know, it's understandable. But if you do want to go that far, just know that, you know, there are these elements there that you can have that will really help, you know, make your book connect with people. I mean, if you write about your experiences as they relate to this topic that's important to everyone else, people are going to buy your book. And if you're telling your story in a compelling way, with a point of view, with a concept and a structure, and you're telling it honestly as you remember it, not only would they buy your book, they'll read your book. And if you fulfill your reader's need for knowledge, comfort, connection, shared experience, inspiration, if you meet those needs, they will tell others about your book. And that's what we want them to do. We want them to buy it, we want them to read it, and we want them to tell others and that all starts with figuring out, like, who your book is for. So those are kind of the basic elements. This, again, is sort of a high level view. It's not something that can be covered in, you know, an hour, half an hour, 45 minutes. But those are the main, main pieces that you need to have a memoir that other people are, like I said, gonna buy. They're gonna want to read and they're gonna want to tell other people about because it's, you know, it connected with them, it resonated with them. So let's go ahead and, go ahead and open it up for questions and then, you know, after that we'll get to the final prize. But let's go ahead and see any questions that we have. And let's see here. Oh, hey, efre, Any questions? Okay. Hi, Kevin. Kevin's question is, you guys can see it there, I'm sure, but he's written two memoirs. However, the subject matter is more to a locality. How would you suggest you mark it beyond the locality? You know, it may be local in terms of where it's set, but I'm sure that the themes or the topic point of view, the ideas in there, the point that you're trying to make, it's probably a little more universal than just whatever small place it is. So I would kind of use that as the piece from a marketing standpoint. You know, it's like, I mean, it's a work of fiction, you know, like, what is it? Harper Lee's Tequila Mockingbird. I mean, it's set in a small town, but it's not about that. It's about larger themes. Same thing with memoirs. You know, it's. It may be set in one place, but it's going to be about something bigger than that. So I would kind of go back and look at your memoirs and figure out what are those sort of universal themes? Let's just say your book is set in Indiana. What in it is somebody in Montana going to be interested in? And again, it may not be the specific events that happened. It may be more about your reflections and your. The things that you took away from the lessons, the point of view that you have now based upon what happened. Then I would focus on those things to see, you know, how can I highlight the more universal aspects of my book? Really a marketing question, but it is certainly a storytelling question too. Let's see. Who would be an ideal reader for a book like Run It With Scissors? That's from Doreen. It's, you know, like I said, that book Is part of it is. Is it's a freak show. It's just an unbelievable experience that this person went through. Unsurprisingly, he has another memoir that he wrote about being drunk and then getting sober. And when you read Running with Scissors, you go, well, I'm not surprised. Gentleman ended up as an alcoholic. And I'm glad. He's certainly glad he came out of the other end. So that's one of those, you know, you're dealing with. It deals with issues of, you know, parenthood or lack of parenthood and what happens when you're, you know, left to run free. And how do you relate to your parents after they've kind of said, well, you go live with my psychiatrist. And then, you know, psychiatrist is a little nutty as well. So it's. It again, that's sort of. It's trauma based without him being a victim, I guess is the way he's. He's. He's a victim in the sense that, you know, he maybe didn't have the guidance that he needed, but he's not a victim in the sense of, you know, something physically hurt him or even mentally. I mean, mentally there's some issues there, obviously, but it's just a really good, interesting book about, like, this is insane. It's part freak show in that sense. See, should memoir be in the first person or third person? First. You know, it's your story, you're telling it, and your reader wants to connect with you. This is Sanjay who's asking. It should be in the first person. That's just the most natural way to do it. You know, technically, I suppose you could do it in third person. I just feel like that's going to create too much distance because again, what we're really wanting from you is not just what happened, but your reflections and your insights. Okay, let's see. Any other questions? You're welcome. Kevin. Heather says my book is in draft mode because I feel like I need an opening hook if I start chronologically. Don't really have a hook. Again, this is one of the beautiful things about memoirs. You can tell them chronologically and yet still jump around. You can even, you know, you see this in thrillers, but it's memoirs all the time. You can kind of start at the end and then jump back to the beginning. You can tell a story about something that happened and then you can sort of jump into the present day as you're thinking about it and looking back on it and then jump to your next story. So over the scope of things, it's going chronologically. But like I said, for instance, with Suzanne's, you know, it kind of jumps into these different moments in her life. And it does kind of start earlier and then finish later. But there's some. Some jumping around and because I remember kind of thinking, like, here's some ways you can signal to the reader that you've stepped back or that you've stepped forward. So a lot of that comes in just with certain phrases that you use. And in terms of, like, an opening hook, it's. I mean, it's. It's a story. It's got to be a story. It's some story from your life. It's whether it's, you know, beginning at the end where, like some moment of realization that you have and then you go step back and tell the story, or it is just sort of like the first something happened and then you just kind of go and tell the story from there. Let's see. Any other questions? Let's see. Glad Renee's made some decisions there. That's always good. Anybody else? You're welcome, Grace. I'm looking to see if there are any other questions. I think I may have missed a few. So. All right. Did we get an answer? Did we get an answer to the. Yeah, I think we did. About the Chronicles. Okay, so got one more trivia question left. And again, if you have another question, go ahead and throw it in there. I think we've gone through most of them. And we'll do our final prize before that. I do want to mention look for the next YouTube live event. It's going to be Tuesday, May 7th. Topic is yet to be determined, I believe. But yeah, Tuesday, May 7th, for the next YouTube Live from Book Launchers. So for the final prize, if you can be the first person, put the pressure on first person to tell the three things that we want the reader to do with our books. I covered them at the beginning. I hit a couple times. What is it that we want our reader. A reader to do with our book? And now I will wait. I think there's a. Yes, I'm testing to see if they were listening. Yeah, no, it's. And I know that there is a little lag. Oh, look at that. Look at that. St. John Butler. Looks like you nailed it. Buy it, read it, share it. That's exactly it. That's really what we do with every book. But, you know, this is how you get people to do that with a memoir. There is a question here from Fast and Bulbous. If my memo is going to be Extremely long. Should I make it two separate books? Like, before and after event, massive book? You know, it depends. It's kind of hard to say just from this. There's no one right way to do it. But, yeah, you certainly could do it. You know, sort of wrap it up with a cliffhanger, if that makes sense. And then, you know, in terms of. If it's a giant book, it could be that, you know, you're telling too many stories. Are the stories, you know, each making. How are they contributing to the point that you're trying to make? You know, that the. That you're trying to share with the reader, not just the what happened, but the how does it go to your overall topic that we're all concerned about? You know, is it redundant? That's, you know, when you see. When you say big. I'm not sure. Extremely long. Not sure what you mean by that, but it's certainly. You could do it in two separate books. There's no. You could even argue. I was talking about Augustin Burroughs. You could argue that Running with Scissors and Dry are sort of that, you know, even though they once is when he's a teenager and one is when he's a young professional, they're really sort of, you know, here's the next part of that, you know, but with different. Different topics, different points, different lessons in them. So. And just. Just a reminder for those of you, again, reach out to Angela@teamoklaunchers.com to get your prizes. But that's really the basics of how you write a compelling memoir. I'll hang out here for a few more minutes if anybody has any questions. But again, that's essentially. That's essentially the basics. So, you know, like I said, it's one of my favorite forms to work with. I love helping people tell their stories and overcome that fear of just telling this happened, and then this happens so that it becomes, this is what. This is what happened, and this is what it meant, and this is what it means to you. So, anyway, thank you all for showing up. I appreciate it. Like I said, I'll hang out for a few more minutes and answer any questions that come over the. The comments. But thank you again for your time and attention and participation. So everybody have a great day. Okay? Okay, I got a question here. A couple of the questions. One from Kevin and one from Lorenzo. I have a lot of pics. This is from Kevin. I have a lot of pics in my memoirs. Some of them are from my stash, others from the historical societies. Do I need Any permissions beyond them saying it's okay? I mean, from the Historical Society, you'll probably need some written permissions. The ones from your stash. Yeah, you might. You might need a quick email from them saying, yeah, it's okay if you use my image, but again, I'm not a lawyer, but it's always nice to ask people and get their permission. But the historic one from the Historical Society, you're probably going to need to get written permission from them to use those. So that was one of the questions. I'm not seeing Lorenzo's question. What was that? Okay, here it is. Here's Lorenzo's question. I possess numerous drafts that lack the driver motivation to compose. What might be the secret to over overcoming this lethargy and procrastination? That, my friend, is a whole other YouTube live, which I actually think I did one on. I mean, the big thing right now, Lorenzo, is that you're feeling overwhelmed by things. And I think it's. Yeah, I think, you know, Suzanne said, don't try to be too perfect. I think the other thing is just break it up into smaller bites. You know, I don't know if Efren's still on here, but I worked with him on his book, and it's a big, big book. And the only way to do it is one line at a time, one page at a time, you know, one paragraph at a time, and you just. You take small bites. It's like that's what writing a book is, frankly. It's daily, incremental progress. It's climbing a mountain, it's steps. It's not a sprint, it's a marathon. It's any sort of metaphor that you want to use. It's really saying, you know, what's the small bite that I want to take today? The other secret, I think to that, because it sounds like maybe you're dealing with some overwhelming feelings about all the material, is kind of go back to, again, what is it that your audience needs? And let that drive the choices that you make on the material that you have, you know, what to leave in and what to take out. You know, again, what's your point of view about your topic and what's in it for your reader that'll help you make some decisions on what you should put in the. What needs to be in there and what maybe doesn't need to be in there. That should help. And again, doing it in small bites, not thinking, oh, I've got to have this done in a month. I've got to have this Done. I got to do three hours today. Half an hour a day. Chip away at it. You'll get there. That's the secret. Daily incremental progress. Let's see, We do have about eight minutes here, so I'll keep hanging. You're welcome, Lorenzo. I'll keep hanging out. And if there are any other questions. Well done, Efren. Well said. Use big and small stories to make your points and make sure to drive your points interwoven into the writing. That's right. That's very nicely nicely said. See if there's anything else. Yeah, Kevin says. Kevin says he has an email from the Historical Society saying it's okay. That should be okay. That should be enough. You know, give them a thank you in your book, too. Thank you to the Historic Society for permission. And, you know, make sure you include that. Used by permission of the Historic Historical Society. You should be fine. Again, not a lawyer, but you should be fine. Okay. I'm glad I was help. Glad I helped. Efren. You know, that was. That was a. That was a big undertaking on your part, so half of me was just standing there going, keep going, keep going. How do you. Oh, this from Dan. Good. Oh, well, how do you carry the theme throughout the memoir? The first thing is, as you're breaking down your stories, is sort of figuring out, you know, okay, this is my theme. What is that element in this story? Where does that appear? Because if it's not really connected to your theme, then it maybe doesn't belong. Again, if it's just telling a story for the sake of telling a story, probably not going to. Probably not going to be that much interest to the reader. Might feel like a little dead spot, because again, they're reading your book for a certain. Certain element. Knowledge, compassion, you know, inspiration, something like that. And it's around, but as it relates to the theme and the topic. And so if you can't find the theme in the story, that's maybe a good indication that. That maybe that piece shouldn't be in there. Again, you're just sort of mapping your content to what your reader is looking for. We've got a few minutes left. See if there's any more questions. Okay, looks like I got them all, according to Angela. All right, well, again, we'll go ahead and shut this down then. But I thank you all again for. For joining me. And feel free. Feel free to reach out if you have any other questions to Book Launchers, and we'd be happy to answer them for you. But anyway, again, thank you for coming thank you for your time and your participation. And you guys, everyone take care.