Memoir Writing 101: Subject and Theme

If you're anything like me, than you'll probably have lived a life full of adventures and craziness.  If not, then you're subject and theme should be pretty easy to discern.  There's nothing wrong with having an easily themed life.  That makes writing a memoir so much easier.  But for the rest of us, who could write a hundred memoirs on a hundred subjects (and we should), it's so much harder to just pick one.  

I'm going to tell you to do exactly what I did (the first time it worked out for me): pick the one that's easy to write.  Writing about complicated things will take so much longer than writing the easy ones.  

How do you find out which one speaks to you the most and will be the easiest to write?  Here's a checklist that can help: 

• Make a list of all your adventures (or hardships).  You can group them by whatever category you like.  Then recategorize them several times.  Such as by age, by events, by locations, etc.  If you've already done the brainstorming we talked about earlier, then you have a whole slew of events to choose from.  If not, go back and do the list.  
• What is your overall theme you see going on in these stories?  Or at least in a majority of them.  Do you see all of them have to do with a certain person or certain people?  Or maybe your jobs?  Or maybe one job and how you got there?  Or maybe they all have to do with something you have, like cancer, depression, anxiety, some other disease or disorder.  What can you group the other stories into?  This will be your subject for your memoir.
• Now, take these stories and find the ending.  Are you facing death?  Losing your home?  Healing?  Etc.  What is the end story of all these stories?  Where do they culminate?  Or where do you want them to end?  How are you dealing with it?  This is your theme.  My theme for my first memoir was not just "all the narcissists I've known before", no, that was my subject.  My theme was how I moved on from them all.  How I healed by understanding them and letting their bad deeds lay where they were dealt.  Because I no longer needed to carry their pain with me anymore.  

Most people confuse subject and theme.  They think that their subject is enough.  "I was raped".  Or "I was homeless".  If you're just relaying what happened to you without any sort of resolution, then you're not writing a story.  Then you're just sharing information.  A story has a beginning, a middle, and an end.  Now, I still live with my narcissistic mother.  So there's no end in my book on that part.  But my theme is not about endings (though all the other narcs in my life I have cut ties with), but understanding and healing.  So the real story isn't about these people at all.  It's about me and how I learned to deal with these people.  It started with me being a child and how all these idiots' behaviors affected me throughout my life.  Then as I aged, I began to understand what was going on, so I could take all that blame I put on myself and put it all right back where it belonged: back on the people who dealt it out to begin with.  

So your story has have a progression from Point A (as in my story, innocence), to Point B (pain), ending at Point C (understanding).  The words in parentheses will be different (or the same) for you, but it still needs to have that progression for it be considered an actual story.  That's why your subject isn't enough.  You may get from Point A to Point B, but if there's no Point C, it's incomplete, and your readers will feel ripped off.  

So choose a theme.  If you were like me, and couldn't find a theme for twenty years, then you're writing the wrong story.  Or, maybe, it's the right story, but the wrong voice/tone.  Whatever it is, don't be afraid to go back to the drawing board and try again.  

Any questions on subject and theme?  Drop them below and happy writing!