I am currently working with a couple of freelance clients in regard to creating their memoirs. To ensure I had an effective understanding I investigated the different formats used for such projects, and discovered four optional formats.

Memoir Formats

Firstly, there is the chronological story highlighting specific events that formulate your subject’s character, livelihood and personality. This format is ideal for writing about a fundamental change from childhood to adulthood and what transpired making it the most intuitive format. However, we need to be careful not to write a 'birth to death' narrative, but rather show the cornerstones of the underlining root causes to the change. Such as hardships and poverty suffered, which propelled the person to pursue a specific career path, or live in the exact opposite to their upbringing.

Another format is thematic where central ideas, certain events, experiences, or emotional truths, are described. This gives the client a chance to explore their internal evolution. It may span various career paths, or changing parental relationships thus putting insights front and center and using the timeline as supporting evidence to the core of the narrative.

A third option is episodic, which presents key moments as individual stories within each self-contained chapter that captures a specific memory, incident, or period. The benefit of this format is that each chapter can be drafted independently, making it easier to write. A continuous narrative can be overwhelming for someone not used to writing. This option allows them to work on one story at a time and have the collection assembled later.

The fourth option is the hybrid, which is very common in memoirs, where all the above options are combined. In other words it is primarily a chronological structure, but incorporates thematic reflections. After all, most lives are too complex to fit neatly into a single structural approach. It mirrors how people actually think about their lives, not in strict sequence but with the past and future constantly informing and effecting the present.

In enabling your client (or, indeed, yourself) to write a memoir, it is best to ask several questions first, which will highlight which format works best for their story.

QUESTIONS

Is there a single defining arc that defines their story? If the answer is yes, a chronological format will be best. This gives the reader the before experience prior to the after.

Is their story more about what they learned than what happened? A thematic format will allow them to organize around insights instead of events.

Is their life best understood as a collection of distinct experiences? Then the episodic format allows each story to stand out on its own while the collection builds a complete portrait.

Is their story too complex for any single approach? A hybrid format will give flexibility in the relaying and how the memoir is structured.

Added to these formats you need to define what kind of memoir it is and the subject matter that ties it together - personal, confessional, professional, celebrity, travel, spiritual, historical, illness, adventure, or family.

So if you are embarking on a memoir take some time to decide on its format and type prior to starting. Having a structure defined will allow you to write with a clear goal.