Who are you writing your memoir for?

It’s an easy question to overlook when you’re writing your memoir, life story or history, but it’s an important one.

Before you start writing it’s useful to be clear about who this book is for. Is it for your family? If it is, you might include more personal family information such as family trees, or health information.

You also might include stories that only those close to you should know, for example personal letters. You might include special recipes and poems that mean something to your people.

If it’s for the public, you’ll be writing it for people who you’ll possibly never meet, who have an interest in your story for their own reasons. They might be related to you and are double checking facts.

Or maybe they have an interest in the period of time you’re writing about, or projects you were involved in.

Whoever you’re writing for, I find it’s helpful to know before you begin. This will feed into many choices you’ll make during your memoir journey.

Remember, your story will one day be someone else’s history. It matters, so keep writing.

Charlotte

Who am I?

I’m Charlotte Squire, I live in beautiful Tākaka, Aotearoa, New Zealand, and I help people write their memoirs, life stories and histories via my online course Write Your Memoir.

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