What Oscar Nominated Biopics can Teach You
about Writing Memoirs
Biopics and memoirs have one of the most powerful elements
in common that makes a huge difference in how someone’s life is presented to
other people – stories. From childhood to adulthood, we tend to migrate toward
the telling of real-life accounts by everyday folk, unsung heroes and famous
faces from all walks of life. They can be as thrilling as “Catch Me If You Can”
starring Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio, as insightful as “Boys Don’t Cry”
starring Hilary Swank and “Hotel Rwanda” starring Don Cheadle or as triumphant
as “Lincoln” starring Daniel Day Lewis -- so long as these narratives place us
into a world that we can either relate to or one in which we
are eager to explore.
 |
| Daniel Day Lewis as Lincoln |
Any author who is seeking tips on how to structure his or
her memoir can borrow a page from Hollywood’s playbook of biopics – the magic
is in the delivery of a story, or two. As a writer, your job is to figure out
what story you want to tell readers and then decide how it will play out on
paper. While great memoirs span the author’s entire life – or at least a large
portion of it – some of the most inspiring memoirs are centered on one
particular aspect of his or her whole story. Many biopics that come out of
tinsel town illustrate this bull’s eye approach very well and you can do the
same thing with your memoir.
Write Your Life, In
Point by Point Replays
Make a list of certain milestones or points in your life
when something big happened that shaped the person that you have become. If you
won a top honor, traveled the world while raising children geniuses, figured
out how to co-parent long distance, or successfully switched careers during a
mid-life crisis, etc. whatever it is, add it to the list. Include anything and everything
that stands out, rather than placing sole emphasis on the gains or positive
experiences.
Some of the events
that played a major role in where you are today could be among difficult,
painful, embarrassing, hopeless, sad or outright negative moments that you want
to forget. Those memories, if any, however, can shed light on a larger matter
that is bigger than your own personal experience or even inspire someone to
take action towards creating a better world for future generations. Your trials
and tribulations also have the ability to help another person realize that he
or she is not alone in their challenging times – and can survive adversity – or
at least find a way to deal with it. When your list is complete, pick one of
these items to use as a point of reference and then build your memoir around
it.
 |
| My week with Marilyn |
“Lincoln” directed by Steven Spielberg focused on one story
and one story only -- the President’s efforts to end slavery while fighting a
war. This movie wasn’t about anything else – not about Abraham Lincoln’s eating
habits, his recreational activities, how he wore his clothes, and so on. “My
Week with Marilyn” starring Michelle Williams is centered on filmmaker Colin
Clark’s story about his experience babysitting and being a go-fer for a movie
production starring iconic actress, Marilyn Monroe. It does not span Clark or
Monroe’s entire careers nor does it delve into the screen siren’s red carpet
appearances or thoroughly examine her personal life. Both “Lincoln” and “My
Week with Marilyn” are biopics that tell a story about one particular event,
memory or experience that stands out in the life of the main character(s).
 |
| Ken Ilgunas |
Duke University graduate Ken Ilgunas’ memoir “Walden on
Wheels” is a prime example of how a single experience in your life can be
expanded upon to create one story that reads just as well, if not better, as a
book containing several different stories. In “Walden on Wheels,” Ilgunas
chronicles the two years he spent traveling and doing odd jobs to pay off his
student loans, before living in a van on Duke University’s campus while
pursuing a Master’s degree. Instead of taking readers on a ride through his
birth to where he is today, the author tells us the story that takes place
around how his frugal practices and bare-bones circumstances helped him tackle
debt.
Write Your Life, In
Chapters
We all have different “chapters” of our life that start and
end; some that even begin again – identified with and filed away under all
sorts of labels such as age, career growth, menopause, relationship status,
marital status, parenthood and related stages that shape our whole story. Wrap your memoir around several major events
by creating a story for each chapter, or sub-chapter, in the book -- if the
aforementioned one-story approach
just won’t do justice to the legacy you want to have. Hollywood’s more standard
biopics seem to have this method down to a science and we need not to look any
further than films such as “Ray” starring Jamie Foxx, Kerry Washington and
Regina King, to understand how it works.
This biopic about musician Ray Charles shows his life
experiences from childhood and on, all the way on up to the man that music fans
around the world listened to on their radio. Scene by scene, audiences are
shown stories about his battles with blindness, raising a family, drug
addiction, juggling different women, signing record-breaking deals with music
executives, touring in the segregated south, racism and friendship turmoil.
Just as the notable and life-changing events in “Ray” show various aspects of
this singer’s story, the chapters in your memoir can take readers through the
many life experiences that you’ve had.
A single chapter could span the process of how you got from
point A to point B, such as “When I got Cancer,” “The Day He Killed My Dog,”
“The Fabulous Sister I Never Knew I Had” or “How I Gave Birth in a Gym Locker
Room” before moving on to the next chapter of “When I Bought the Homeless Guy
Coffee and Learned to Stop Being in a Hurry,” or something like that. In Brad
Warner’s memoir “Zen Wrapped in Karma, Dipped in Chocolate,” he shares his
experiences on traveling as a punk rock musician, Japanese movie studio
representative and Zen monk who encounters a dwindling marriage – all in one
book. The memoir, however, is one in a series of books that share stories about
some of the wildest, unbelievable, shocking, confusing and funny events that
you’d likely not ever see in a movie – at least, not an R-rated one.
Warner breaks his chapters down in easy-to-digest chapters
that cover one story that is sometimes a direct result of the previous one and
a prime lead-in to the one that follows. He even has a specific chapter about
the time in which he had to hold his urine for 40 minutes or so before finally
going to the bathroom. Although this chapter is not solely focused on needing
to pee badly, he uses the experience to explain some of the protocols and
insights about sitting meditation that readers might not have known before
picking up the book. Let this be a tip that you can use small stories to
support a larger story in your memoir – especially if the bigger one is
difficult for readers to understand or involve concepts that they have yet to
get a handle on.
What kind of stories
would YOUR memoir share with its readers?
Nicole Ayers writes about mainstream and independent films
at The Madlab Post. She is also a Co-Host of the #atozchallenge and the Post
A-to-Z Road Trip. Find her @MadlabPost on Twitter.
