A verb has a hard enough time of it in this world when it is all together. It's downright inhuman to split it up. But that's what those Germans do. They take part of a verb and put it down here, like a stake, and they take the other part of it and put it a way over yonder like another stake, and between these two limits they just shovel in German.

Mark Twain

Most memoir writers, at some point, need a little help in structuring a story or in simply getting started. The following prompts may assist you in outlining your story and developing a plan for telling it.

Step one: Identify your story’s final pivotal event.

Satisfying endings can be elusive, but it’s a good place to start. By determining the final pivotal event in your story (its ending), you may find the initiating incident (its beginning). Ask yourself these questions. Is there a turning point that could serve as the end of my story? Is there a point at which something in me died so that something else could live? (This “something” could be a stepping-stone that you’ve earlier identified.)

Step two: Identify your thematic conflict

Ask yourself these questions. What inner conflict led me to this pivotal event? What inner conflict did the pivotal event help resolve? (The conflict needn’t have been permanently resolved, but it should have been resolved at least for the moment.)

Step three: The initiating incident

Ask yourself these questions. When did I first become aware that the conflict had been resolved? Where did this thematic conflict begin for me? Was there an event that incited the problem and the desire—one that led eventually to the final pivotal event?

Step four: Your problem

Ask yourself this question. What was the problem that the initiating incident incited? (You may not have been aware of it at the time.)

Step five: Your desire

Ask yourself these questions. What was my problem at the beginning? How did I respond to the problem? What did I want at the beginning of the story?

Step six: Your adversary or adversaries

Identify your key adversaries and your secondary ones—all the people (or problems) who have obstructed your quest to satisfy your desire. Remember, an adversary is not necessarily an enemy or a villain.

Step seven: Interim pivotal events

Identify the desire that got the story going. Then ask yourself this question. At what point (or points) did the story bend or intensify or escalate?

Step eight: Emotional beats

List each of the major changes in feelings or attitudes that accompanied a pivotal event. Think about a progression of feeling states, and then (whenever possible) tie them to events. Try to define only your predominant feelings. When you’ve assembled a chronological list of events and related emotions, you will have a rough outline of your story. You can work with the event/emotion items the way you might handle pieces of a jigsaw puzzle—juggling and rearranging them, perhaps adding to them or subtracting from them, until you begin to see a coherent life story picture.

Step nine: Precipitating event

Ask yourself these questions. Was there an unexpected event that forced you into a crisis and that narrowed your options? Or was there an anticipated event that put you into a crisis?

Step ten: Crisis

Ask yourself these questions. Following the precipitating event, did you hit a low point? Did you despair or come into danger? How did the thematic conflict between you and your adversary (or adversaries) crystallize—and when did it reach its greatest polarity?

Step eleven: Climax

Ask yourself these questions. Was there a transforming moment at which something within you (or in your life) changed? Was there a point at which something in you died so something else could live? Was it a belief, a need, a feeling that died in you? Did it involve a choice—even if not a fully conscious one? Identify a moment when that transformation might have taken place. Where were you? What were you doing?

Step twelve: Realization

Ask yourself these questions. What made the transformation possible? What did you realize at the moment of transformation? What did you realize or perceive when this life stage came to an end? What do you realize now about this stage?

Step thirteen: Resolution

Ask yourself these questions. Did something in your behavior change as a result of your realization? Was there an action that followed?

* * * * *

There’s more than one way to find story in your life. You may have to write and write—and then find the core story. You may find it by developing your central characters or by working with your thematic conflict.

You can create structure in various ways, and it matters little how you put the story together—so long as you eventually include and order the basic components. If you arrange these components correctly, your story arc will feel sure and will hold strong—and it will endure.

Dramatic structure is the essence of myth, and through it you bring the mythic into the ordinary temporal life. Find your structure—then you will find your story’s shape.

Orlo J. Otteson
651-278-4824
otteson@aol.com