At 29 years old, my journey as a published author began when I started thinking of my memoir at the age of 23. It was a labor of love and dedication that ultimately came to fruition at 28.
Memoir, to me, is a powerful and malleable genre of literature for what it offers to the author as the one steering the narrative towards a direction of personal reckoning and the reader as the recipient of someone else’s carefully constructed life. From this standpoint, a memoir is a subjective assessment of one’s life through various themes and philosophical questions.
But to start, what is theme?
In the easiest terms, think of the theme can be a series of philosophical questions you want to answer in the text. These questions or musings can be cultural, historical, emotional, philosophical, political, and so much more. A theme can be an assertion of truth that the narrator has at the beginning and reckons with throughout the rest of the narrative.
Theme not only shapes the narrative but also helps center the writer during the writing process, which can be very tumultuous. Mining one’s past and history is both hard and meaningful. When writing is hard, having a grasp on certain craft elements can help guide us through burnout, imposter syndrome, and beyond.
In Diary of Anne Frank, Anne Frank navigates her emerging womanhood. She asks deeper questions about the roles people play in families, her perception of others, the rising desire for another, and the possibility of a better world amidst great odds. Through the diary, Anne moves through these questions with increased intensity. Like anyone that takes the time to document their life, we often find ourselves turning to the same questions again and again, or just worded in different ways.
This is why when writing a memoir, we can ask ourselves during the planning and writing process. What thoughts or questions have haunted me throughout my life?
So how can knowing your memoir theme help shape or strengthen your writing?
Denote a deeper sense of meaning
When you explore themes during crucial moments in your narrative, you have the chance to shift these moments into meaningful explorations of the philosophical, emotional, and moral concepts that shape our perception of the world. When recounting a divorce, it is common to experience sudden reflections on body image and mid-life crisis. Similarly, a chapter dedicated to social justice can easily expand into a broader discussion on immigration, and its long-term implications for America.
Operate as a thread to tie together different events
Themes also serve as threads between various events and experiences. By tracing the theme's subtle presence throughout the narrative, readers can be provided with a narrative that transcends time and instead is connected by how certain issues or questions follow us throughout the various eras of my life.
In researching for my book, I knew I wanted to dive into deep questions about masculinity; leading me to research the representation of Jamaican men in cinema, how intrapersonal violence showed up in my family, and what gendered expectations I grew up with as a young, Black boy in a Jamaican family. By knowing my theme, I was able to combine events like the 2006 raid of Tivoli Gardens in Jamaica, the misogyny I began to notice amongst my peers from middle school onward, and deeper questions about the sexual stereotypes forced onto Black men while I was traveling abroad.
Allow the narrator to access relevant memories to the present moment
Furthermore, themes act as guiding maps, granting both the writer and the reader access to the narrator's innermost world. As our lives unfold, certain themes take center stage, becoming pivotal to how we process our lives as they happen.
A travel memoir about a girl traveling abroad may take new shape if she meets a pregnant woman in a hotel lobby, therefore thrusting her into deep questions about her own estranged mother. Memory and past meet the present moment. The more we accomplish this on the page, the more life we find on the page as well.
Final thoughts
As the esteemed writer E.L. Doctorow once remarked, "Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way." Our themes act as those headlights, illuminating the path ahead, guiding us through moments of uncertainty, and providing the courage to delve into the darkest corners of or memories. Once we have a grasp on them, writing can become easier and the most moving moments in our text can shine even more.