What makes a theme worthy of a memoir? In this video, I discuss how to identify a compelling theme and explain how your memoir then serves to illuminate the complexities of that wider theme for your readers, using an example to show how this powerful combination works.
Hello Jane Cleland here.
What makes a theme memoir worthy? Interesting. You know, a memoir is a themed slice of life, and I would say that the themes that are worth writing about are those that are universal, that speak to an emotional truth. Your readers will share. And then what you do once you have this universal truth is you reveal the elements of it, the complexity of it, the nuance of it through your story. So for example, if you want to write about the impact of autism on family life, well, that’s the theme, but the story is going to be this incidence of raising one particular autistic child. So the theme is the overarching broad nuance. The actual memoir itself is about your experience under that umbrella of the dominant idea. It works. Themed slice of life, telling your story. The theme is worthy if it has wide appeal, and I’m talking wide appeal, not so much on the facts, but the emotional truth.
I know you can do it.
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