Few people write just one memoir, which is why they are usually referred to in the plural as memoirs. You will probably write several stories about your life experiences, so it is important to focus on just one event at a time. This is truly a liberating discovery about how to write memoirs.

It may seem obvious, but we’ll say it anyway: Every memoir has a beginning and an end. Think of the beginning and the end as the arms that surround your memoir. In this post, we’ll look at how a memoir begins, which is with an opening sentence. We’ll wrestle with the closing arm next time.

The opening sentence sets the context and tone of the story, and, if done well, has an irresistible “hook” that compels your reader to keep reading. Consider these three opening sentences:

• “I was born on a farm in Iowa.”
• “I graduated as valedictorian from a one-room school near Ames Iowa on the fifth of December 1942 after attending seven years of school as the only person in my class and the day before I joined the army.”
• “Graduation day should be a day of happiness and freedom, but for me it was a call to arms.”

The first sentence doesn’t offer enough information. It starts too long ago and isn’t about the memory you are recording. (You really remember your birth?)

Oops! The second could have been an interesting story, but you told the whole thing in the first sentence. Just give us the hook that will make us interested.

The third sentence alludes to the context of the second one, but includes a hint that your life was about to change in an unexpected way. Much better!

You have a working title for your first memoir from the Lesson 2 Worksheet; now you will write the first sentence. Print Remembers When Lesson 3 Worksheet/strong> about first sentences. Complete the worksheet, rewriting your opening sentence two or three times until you believe you have a strong “hook” that will capture your readers’ interest. Give enough detail to make it interesting without telling the whole story in a single sentence. Refer often Worksheet 2 to refresh your memory.

Don’t worry yet about making the sentence perfect. Though I promise not to instruct you to crumple it up and throw it away, I predict that as you write the ending and the middle of your memoir, you’ll probably want to come back and refine the opening. Let it happen.