Memoir Basics 4: Writing an eye-catching opener

Plot, themes, style and hooks

Not everyone gets thrown out of a car by their mother! Trevor Noah’s memoir is only one example of how a memoir can start. 

Before you start writing your own, let’s look at a few more memoir openers. See what you can predict about the story they might tell and look for interesting details they’ve used to make you want to keep reading.

Memoirs often look at one or more of these topics:

  • Accepting change
  • Adjusting to a new life
  • Coming of age
  • Compassion
  • Dealing with loss
  • Determination
  • Discrimination
  • Friendship
  • Greed
  • Hard work
  • Hope
  • Leadership
  • Making tough choices
  • Overcoming adversity
  • Parenthood
  • Poverty
  • Self esteem
  • Survival
  • War
  • Wealth

In Hitler's Germany, my Germany, childhood ended at the age of 10, with admission to the Jungvolk, the junior branch of the Hitler Youth. Thereafter we children became the political soldiers of the Third Reich. 

A Child of Hitler(1985)
From reading this, what do you think the story’s plot, themes and style will be? Are there any interesting details to keep you reading?
  • Plot: It looks like it’s going to be about World War II from the point of view of Heck, who was a young German boy at the time.  
  • Themes: It looks like it could be a coming of age story about war, discrimination, and compassion.
  • Style: It’s written in a formal narrative style.
  • Interesting details: ‘Thereafter we children became the political soldiers of the Third Reich.’ sounds negative and controlling—it’s easy to assume from this that Heck isn’t going to say nice things in his memoir about this period of his life.

I was at the video shop with my twelve-year-old son when he rented Kikujiro, a tough-guy/little-boy Japanese film whose charming, twitching hoodlum is played by an actor named Beat Takeshi. How could I have known where this would lead?

Wrong About Japan(2005)
From reading this, what do you think the story’s plot, themes and style will be? Are there any interesting details to keep you reading?
  • Plot: It looks like it’s going to be about Carey’s relationship with his son. And Japan, somehow.  
  • Themes: It looks like it could be about parenthood and family relationships.
  • Style: It’s written in a conversational style.
  • Interesting details: ‘How could I have known where this would lead?’ gives a very normal sounding story sudden interest. If this event starts a full memoir’s worth of story, what happened?

When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.

Angela’s Ashes(1996)
From reading this, what do you think the story’s plot, themes and style will be? Are there any interesting details to keep you reading?
  • Plot: It looks like it’s going to be about McCourt’s ‘miserable Irish Catholic childhood’.  
  • Themes: It looks like it could be about growing up, overcoming adversity, poverty, family relationships, and self-esteem.
  • Style: It’s written in a conversational style with some humour.
  • Interesting details: McCourt sells that his horrible childhood is something ‘worth your while’ reading—if that’s your thing, you’d probably keep reading. The way that he builds from ‘childhood’ to ‘miserable Irish Catholic childhood’ is entertaining.

So you can see how much they all pack in!

In this lesson, we’re going to look at five opening paragraphs to memoirs. We’ll look at how they introduce plot, themes, and style, and add interesting details to keep you reading. 

For each of them, you’re going to write your own version of each paragraph. The final paragraph you write will be your checkpoint piece.

You don’t have to write about being thrown out of a moving car in this lesson, but you can:

  1. write something true about your life 
  2. make something up about your life, or
  3. imagine someone else’s life.

Let’s go!

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