Narrator

Who were you when this began?

Write a paragraph introducing your past self the way you'd introduce a stranger.

What did you want?

What drove you back then?

What were you most afraid of?

And what might you tell your past self now?

What wounds did you carry?

How did they reveal themselves back then?

What were you pretending about?

Think about the self you showed to the world and the self you were. Where did the gap come from?

What did you believe then that you don't now?

Try to phrase it as a conviction your past self might defend out loud: "I was certain that ______."

What do you remember?

Brain-dump the whole period before you judge any of it.

What can't you remember?

Where are the blanks?

What keeps coming back?

Jot down the images your mind keeps returning to unbidden. Why?

What do you remember that others don't?

Write the same moment twice: your account, then theirs.

What is this period of time to you?

If it could be described through a kind of weather, a color, a smell, what might it be?

Where were you wrong?

Make the case you made in the past, then the case you'd make now.

Where were you right?

What choices would you still defend? What would you do again, even knowing the cost?

What did you lose?

Think a certainty, a friendship, a version of you, etc.

What can you still not answer?

Don't forget that memoir is often the search, not the answer.

What does this turn out to be a story about?

Fill in the blanks: "I thought it was about ___, but it's really about ___."

Who are you on the page?

Describe your narrator as a character: the version of you the reader meets.

What is your narrator's voice?

Write your opening paragraph in two different tones.

What are your blind spots?

Where does your narrator stop trusting themselves?

Whose story are you also telling?

List the real people who'd recognize themselves.

How do you want the reader to feel about you?

Does it differ between the beginning of your book and the end?

Who are you now?

Write the introduction a stranger might give you now, and notice what's changed since the one in "You."

How are you different?

If someone who knew only the old you met the new you, what would they fail to recognize?

What did you gain?

And what did it cost?

What drives you now?

And where do you want it to take you after the story ends?

What do you believe now that you didn't before?

And what about your unique experiences made it possible for you to realize it?

Why does the world need this story?

Picture the reader it's for, and write a note for them.

Put it all together now.

Write your whole arc in a paragraph: the change this book exists to record. Who walked in, and who walked out?