Memoir Structure: the Opening Image

After He Said Cancer | Memoir Structure Series

When I started writing this memoir in April 2021, I wasn’t thinking about story structure. Writing was an exercise to support my mental health and to give a name and shape to the memories and grief rising from my husband’s cancer diagnosis. The Saturdays of writing gave way to months and years. What started as a few paragraphs became a few hundred pages.

I wanted to tell my story, partly for me, and partly to show the world that men with breast cancer exist. The struggles aren’t truly the same as those for women with breast cancer. There’s more stigma. No warm embrace from the world of pink ribbons. Instead, a band of brothers that is difficult to find and hold on to.

To find a home for my story, I needed to give it a framework that an audience can recognize and relate to. Now, I want to share how I gave my memoir a shape and narrative that screenwriters and novelists have used for decades.

Somehow, this feels even more personal than my memoir itself. Over the next month, I will delve deep into the structure of my book, but most of it will be behind the paywall.

I’m sharing this breakdown for two reasons. First, understanding the structure of your own story can be one of the most clarifying things you do as a writer. Second, if you are writing a survival memoir (like me) about illness, caregiving, grief, or crisis, then this structure might help you…