Short Memoir



  • Today's top voted Memoirs. Nonfiction #1 voted by our readers. By ChloeChang BRONZE Stanford, California.
  • The resulting collection, 'I Can’t Keep My Own Secrets: Six-Word Memoirs by Teens Famous and Obscure' (HarperTeen, 2009), contains 800 six-word memoirs ranging in emotion from comical to profound. These fast-paced, intuitive takes on adolescent life, written for teens by teens, read like poetry and just might inspire others to think up their.
  • This darkly funny and raw memoir is about growing up as Hollywood royalty, landing the role of a lifetime at 19 years old and learning from failed relationships, all while struggling with alcoholism, drug addiction and mental health issues.

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.

The Vanity Fair Diaries by Tina Brown. Perhaps more of a memoir of brushes with celebrity than.

Memoir

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

AutobiographyMemoir
Focuses on the author’s entire lifeDescribes just a certain part of the author’s life
Tells about famous people's livesCan tell anyone’s story
Is structured chronologically, covering the author’s life from birth to deathCan be focused on one or several periods and do not have a strict chronological order
Focus on pure factCarry the emotional side of life

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:

Short Memoirs For Middle School

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?

📜 Example of Memoir About Yourself

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.

Short

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.

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

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

Memoirs can be a lot of fun to write. You get to dive into some nostalgia, offer life lessons to others, and tell a great story. Life really is about how each of our stories connects with one another. A short memoir puts the stories we already tell to others in writing so others can enjoy them.

Knowing how to write a short memoir sounds easy in concept, but can sometimes be difficult to write. After all, the short memoir is more of a vignette instead of a full story. This requires the creation of a solid intro, body, and conclusion while offering a meaningful lesson in only a few thousand words.

These tips will help you to get the process started so you can write about what happens to you each day in a meaningful way.

#1. Short memoirs are always written in the first person.

You’re telling a personal story. Don’t use impersonal pronouns when writing a short memoir. Write this story as if you were telling it to someone else.

#2. Keep the narrative in a familiar tone.

This is where the “show it, don’t tell it” aspect of writing comes into play for the short narrative. Introduce the key players of your narrative as if the reader already knows these people. They won’t know them right away, but through the context of your story, they’ll understand that you’re talking about your wife, a close friend, your son, your son’s teacher, and whomever else has a starring role.

#3. Keep it to one key point.

A short memoir doesn’t have the space necessary to convey multiple lessons in a meaningful way. You’ve got the time to make one solid key point. Focus on that as the thesis of your story and you’ll be able to make this a meaningful memoir.

#4. Add some flare or drama to your memoir.

This is the reason why some storytellers attract large audiences and others just yawn and tune out the story. Add some flair and drama to your short memoir. Put in an element of danger if it exists. You want people to be at the edge of their seats, trying to figure out what is going to happen.

#5. Make the narrative feel familiar to the reader.

One of the best ways you can create feelings of familiarity within a short narrative is to allude to something that most people are going to understand. You might consider current events, specific actions you take when something happens, or an event that many people will know.

Short Memoir Examples For High School

#6. Write with your audience in mind.

Short Memoir

The danger of a short memoir is that it can be written in such general terms that it has no real meaning to anyone. You need to write this story with a certain type of reader in mind. Others outside of this specific demographic can still pick up on the lessons being taught in your story, while the targeted reader is going to find the short memoir to be a profound thought worth replicating in their own life.

#7. Try to include recent experiences as much as possible.

When memories are fresh in the mind, the details that can be discussed are much more vivid. You remember sights, sounds, and smells with much more accuracy if something happened yesterday compared to 10 years ago. Now, this doesn’t mean older memories aren’t also vivid – it simply means older memories tend to be about life-altering events while recent memories tend to deal with the business of life. And, in many ways, it’s the business of life that makes a short memoir such an attractive piece of literature. Key life changing moments deserve a long-form memoir.

Short Memoir

#8. Make sure to give your short memoir a meaningful ending.

The one issue with a short memoir that many writers face is the ending. The drama comes during the events that happen. Ending that drama in a meaningful way to give the reader an outcome seems almost anticlimactic. Yet you also don’t want to leave a reader wondering what happened afterward. Even if the ending is short and sweet [“I survived and you can too.”] the memoir will be more meaningful to every reader who encounters it.

Short Memoir Means

Knowing how to write a short memoir means being personal, being real, and being precise with your words. You have no room for meaningless phrases or sentences. Grab the reader with a good idea, keep them hooked through the drama of what happened, and let them learn something from the experience. When you can do that, you’ll have written something that is quite fantastic.

Short Memoir Contest

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