You’re writing a memoir. But you’re not sure what questions or life lessons you want to focus on.

Even if only family members and friends will read the finished book, you want to make it worth their time.

A great example of this is the memoir Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi. Anyone who is familiar with the story Lolita, which was initially written by Vladimir Nabokov and turned into a very dark Stanley Kubrick movie in 1962, is going to picture this story when they see the Nafisi memoir. 50 Short Memoirs - Examples of Narrative Personal Essays by Famous Authors The best examples of short memoir, narrative personal essays, reflective essays and creative nonfiction by famous writers Life. Scars by David Owen The Same River Twice by David Quammen. 30 more great articles about life.

This isn’t just a whimsical collection of anecdotes from your life.

Memoir Writing & Memoir Examples. Your Own Worst Enemy: Writing Villains in Memoir. Writing villains in memoir takes a special kind of honesty. In this feature from the July/August 2019 issue of Writer's Digest, William Kenower offers his take. By William Kenower.

You want to convey something to your readers that will stay with them.

And maybe you want your memoir’s impact to serve as your legacy — a testament to how you made a small (or large) difference.

The collection of memoir questions in this post can help you create a legacy worth sharing.

So, if you don’t already have enough ideas for a memoir, read on.

63 Memoir Writing Prompts

Use the following questions as memoir writing exercises. Choose those that immediately evoke memories that have stayed with you over the years.

Group them by theme — family, career, beliefs, etc. — and address at least one question a day.

For each question, write freely for around 300 to 400 words. You can always edit later to tighten it up or add more content.

1. What is your earliest memory?

2. What have your parents told you about your birth that was unusual?

3. How well did you get along with your siblings, if you have any?

4. Which parent were you closest to growing up and why?

5. What parent or parental figure had the biggest influence on you growing up?

6. What is your happiest childhood memory?

7. What is your saddest or most painful childhood memory?

8. Did you have good parents? How did they show their love for you?

9. What words of theirs from your childhood do you remember most, and why?

10. What do you remember most about your parents’ relationship?

11. Were your parents together, or did they live apart? Did they get along?

12. How has your relationship with your parents affected your own love relationships?

13. Who or what did you want to be when you grew up?

14. What shows or movies influenced you most during your childhood?

15. What were your favorite books to read, and how did they influence you?

16. If you grew up in a religious household, how did you see “God”?

17. How did you think “God” saw you? Who influenced those beliefs?

18. Describe your spiritual journey from adolescence to the present?

19. Who was your first best friend? How did you become friends?

20. Who was your favorite teacher in elementary school, and why?

21. Did you fit in with any social group or clique in school? Describe your social life?

22. What were your biggest learning challenges in school (academic or social)?

23. Who was your first crush, and what drew you to them? How long did it last?

24. What was your favorite subject in school, and what did you love about it?

25. What do you wish you would have learned more about growing up?

26. What did you learn about yourself in high school? What was your biggest mistake?

Memoir Examples Elementary

27. What seemed normal to you growing up that now strikes you as messed up?

28. How old were you when you first moved away from home?

29. Who gave you your first kiss? And what do you remember most about it?

30. Who was your first love? What do you remember most about them?

31. Was there ever a time in your life when you realized you weren’t straight?

32. Describe a memorable argument you had with one of your parents? How did it end?

33. Have you lost a parent? How did it happen, and how did their death affect you?

34. What was your first real job? What do you remember most about it?

35. How did you spend the money you earned with that job?

36. At what moment in your life did you feel most loved?

37. At what moment in your life did you feel most alone?

38. What do you remember most about your high school graduation? Did it matter?

39. What’s something you’ve done that you never thought you would do?

40. What has been the greatest challenge of your life up to this point?

41. What did you learn in college that has had a powerful influence on you?

42. How has your family’s financial situation growing up influenced you?

43. How has someone’s harsh criticism of you led you to an important realization?

44. Do you consider yourself a “good person”? Why or why not?

45. Who was the first person who considered you worth standing up for?

46. If you have children, whom did you trust with them when they were babies?

47. Did you have pets growing up? Did you feel close or attached to any of them?

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48. Describe someone from your past whom you’d love to see again.

49. Do you have a lost love? If yes, describe them, how you met, and how you lost them.

50. Describe a moment when you made a fool of yourself and what it cost you.

51. What is something you learned later in life that you wish you’d learned as a child?

52. How do you want others to see you? What words come to mind?

53. What do you still believe now that you believed even as a child or as a teenager?

54. What do you no longer believe that you did believe as a child or teenager?

55. When have you alienated people by being vocal about your beliefs?

56. Are you as vocal about your beliefs as you were when you were a young adult?

57. Are you haunted by the consequences of beliefs you’ve since abandoned?

58. How have your political beliefs changed since you were a teenager?

59. Have you ever joined a protest for a cause you believe in? Would you still?

60. How has technology shaped your life for the past 10 years?

61.Has your chosen career made you happy — or cost you and your family too much?

62. What comes to mind if someone asks you what you’re good at? Why does it matter?

63. How is your family unique? What makes you proudest when you think about them?

How will you use these memoir writing prompts?

These memoir topics should get ideas flooding into your mind. All you have to do, then, is let them out onto the page. The more you write, the easier it will be to choose the primary focus for your memoir. And the more fun you’ll have writing it.

That’s not to say it’ll be easy to create a powerful memoir. It won’t be. But the more clarity you have about its overall mission, the more easily the words will flow.

Enjoy these memoir writing exercises. And apply the same clarity of focus during the editing process. Your readers will thank you.

If you are having a hard time writing your memoir, you should check out memoir examples that we've prepared for you. These wonderful samples will show you what a truly good memoir is and what it might look like. We've also explained what a memoir is, chose interesting tips, and provided a memoir essay structure for you.

📝 Memoir Definition

A memoir is an account of your experiences related to events from your personal life or history that you witnessed.

A memoir is sometimes also called an autobiography, as the two terms share the same meaning to some extent.

But here’s the deal:

There is a slight difference between writing a memoir and writing an autobiography, and it is important to truly understand it in order to benefit most from reading an example of memoir.

Let’s have a look at this difference!

Memoir Versus Autobiography

Writing your memoirs is an excellent exercise and a good start for a beginning author.

You can learn from it different approaches to captivating readers, develop a skill to express emotions in the right way, and train your writing style.

And what is more pleasant:

After practicing this assignment for some time, you can know how to write a memoir book.

If you want to read about other types of assignments, read Overnight Essay blog. We can also help you to write your paper of any complexity.

💡 Memoir Tips

A person who writes a memoir is a memoirist or… simply a student who has been assigned this task. No matter to which category you belong, the following memoir writing tips will help you write a killer memoir sample:

• choose an intriguing title (something like The Other Side of Me or A Day to Remember); it can help you a lot to interest the audience;
• express your personal opinions and impressions (use for instance: to my mind, in my opinion, it seems, it turned out that, etc.);
• add a lot of sensory details (for example, instead of simply stating that a girl had an angry look on her face, you can specify that her face reddened and her teeth were clenched – these are valuable observations, which can make your description more vivid);
• write about memories that are important for you – it's impossible to write a good memoir without feeling a deep connection between yourself and the situation which you describe;
• be yourself when writing a memoir – you can hide your point of view in many academic writings, but this type of work requires you to be honest and show your personal traits;
• choose a proper tone and try to maintain it throughout your memoir essay – it’s an excellent exercise to develop your writing style;
• do research, even if you remember the situation, try to collect as much information as you could, including your friends' commentaries, photos, blog posts – everything that can reveal more details;
• take care about your memoir idea – whether your writing is funny, well-structured, or creative and unusual, it means nothing if you don't put a message in it.

The most famous memoir books are based on the principles listed above. Keeping to them, you can create a masterpiece or, at least, get an A at your college.

But that isn’t all we can offer you:

You can find even more truly good ideas for your memoir in this list of informative speech topics for college students.

🖊️ Memoir Examples to Your Attention

Finally, you can observe these memoir writing examples to know how to write one yourself.

Of course, you can use these memoir ideas, but reading these samples can also give you enough inspiration to develop your own paper from the very beginning.

Let’s begin.

My Pursuit of Happiness

Actually, I started my pursuit of happiness as soon as I came into this world. My Mom says that I was an extremely capricious baby – I could cry out loud for a rather long period of time until all my demands were satisfied. A little terrorist, with large rainy eyes and a loud voice, I was! Later on, as I grew up, I preserved my willingness to do everything to get what I wanted, but I learned some new and more effective methods of achieving my goals.

I remember that, when I was 4 years old, I wanted to have a dog. Absolutely nothing, even my allergy to dogs, could prevent me from making my dream come true…

Comment: Thetitle is captivating – it sets the tone, but it does not reveal all the secrets. This example of a memoir contains some self-criticism. The author sounds truly sincere when s/he calls himself (herself) a terrorist.

A Revolution at School

The events of that sunny spring day turned out to change the course of history at our school. I am proud of being one of the revolutionaries who drove the change.

The problem was our school uniform, which was more or less bearable in winter but became a cause of students' torture in spring because it was too hot.

This is why the girls from our class agreed to wear jeans instead of the uniform one day, to show our protest against the silly school rule of wearing the uniform even when it was too hot for it. We felt a bit scared before the beginning of the first lesson. Mrs. Stone, our Geography teacher, had to be the first to see our silent protest…

Comment: The authorexpresses his/her feelings and emotions about an important event at school. Note that this sample memoir focuses more on the event than on the author's personality.

📎 Memoir about Yourself

A memoir about yourself or a personal memoir differs from just a personal essay. A memoir about yourself is a piece of writing in which a person reflects on important personal events. It is a place where the author analyzes and describes why certain events were so crucial.

But you might fairly ask: “What is the difference between a personal memoir and a personal essay?” Here is the answer!

To some extent, the personal memoir and the personal essay are pretty similar. However, there is one important difference! The essay can be a reflection on any events or just a description of anything personal. The memoir focuses on past and life-changing experiences.

In short, the personal memoir aims at answering the three questions:

1. What event or events were important in the author’s life?
2. Why were they so crucial?
3. How they affected the author’s life?

Memoir Examples Essay

📜 Example of Memoir About Yourself

Memoir Examples For High School

We’ve created a great example of a personal memoir for you. Here you can see how you can structure your story and what it can be about. Let’s dive in!

The Life-Changing Morning

That morning the sky was especially grey, and the whole atmosphere did not dispose of something good. I woke up alone in my tiny flat in the middle of nowhere. It did not felt like something bad is happening or even is going to happen shortly. However, the way I felt was hard to describe. I took my morning coffee and then heard a knock on the door. It was a postman with an envelope in his hand. I opened the letter and read it out loud. It said that I was invited to the University of Oxford to study journalism. My dream came true! I was filled with happiness, motivation, and thirst to start my studies as soon as possible. I can still remember this special and life-changing moment.

Comment: First of all, the author chose the right, captivating title, which invites a reader to discover what had happened that morning. Secondly, the personal memoir focuses on the important event that had changed a young person's life. Thirdly, he reflects on how he felt when it happened.

📋 One-Page Memoir: What Is It About?

A memoir doesn’t have to be a thick book. It can be of any length and cover any important life events. Making your memoir relatively short means that you should focus on one particular event.

Besides, this event should be captivating and life-changing. It would be best to tell about the emotions you experienced and what they brought to your life. The text can be concise, for instance, only 1 page. However, it should be interesting enough to evoke a reader's emotions in such a short time.

So, here is a few recommendations for your one-page memoir:

• Cover one event only.
• Choose the most captivating and life-changing event.
• Don't forget to express your emotions.
• Mention why this event was crucial for your future life.

📚 Memoir Essay Structure

If your task is to create a memoir essay, you may be surprised because itdoesn’t have any typical structure.

You see:

The way you do your memoir writing depends only on your style and preferences.

Memoir Examples For Highschool Students Pdf

If you want to combine two different stories into one and underline the message by inferring it from both of them – do it.

If you want to tell a situation when you feel fear or anxiety, there is a nice place to put a flashback to make readers understand you better – then, do it as well.

Memoir writing structure is a field where you can apply creativity and originality.

What you must include are:

• the details of your memoir
• the message
• why this story matters to you

Narrative Memoir Example

Other elements are free for you to add to your paper. Let your inner writer choose which of them do you need to make a memoir writing breath-taking.

So, after looking through these examples of memoirs, you have a pretty good idea of how to write your own papers in this genre. Good luck with your memoirs! We are certain that you will make them unforgettable!

🔗 References