When people visit your memoirs Web site, they will want to know a little something about what they are getting into before they plunge into reading your stories. This how to write memoirs lesson covers the introductory page people will see when they first look at your memoirs.

Your memoirs introduction should give us a glimpse of the person we will see in your stories, not just a list of facts. One way to begin is by addressing your memoirs to someone. Whom do you expect to read them? When you were writing your first memoir, did you imagine you were telling the story to someone? I started my introduction with the words:

Dear Buzz,
Yes, this is for you. You might not remember when Grandma Nigel died.

Even if you are writing to an imaginary audience (Friends, Romans, Countrymen) your readers will get the feeling that they are looking into something very personal to you. So continue with a statement about why you are writing a memoir. In the same paragraph as the address above, I stated:

But that was when I started thinking about the fact that there was so much that I hadn’t written down of the stories that my mom and dad told.

You can be as factual as you want, but keep it on a personal level.

Finally, put in a statement about why you decided to write your memoirs. Maybe you hope the world will be a better place by learning from your experiences, or perhaps it will just be so your children will understand you better or won’t forget you.

Use Remembers When Lesson 15 Worksheet: “Writing an intro” to capture the main points, and then write out your three paragraph introduction to your memoirs.