We’re not sure why it seems so hard to adapt a memoir to the big screen. Though hundreds of movies made each year are adapted from novels and short stories, relatively few are built from memoir — despite the fact that the form has been at least as popular as novels in the last two decades, and may be more beloved by the general public. So why are there so few memoir-to-movie deals? And why are the ones that do exist often not very good?
50 Short Memoirs - Examples of Narrative Personal Essays by Famous Authors The best examples of short memoir, narrative personal essays, reflective essays and creative nonfiction by famous writers Life. Scars by David Owen The Same River Twice by David Quammen. 30 more great articles about life. From small novels to short essays, many famous writers have written micro memoirs that explore different aspects of their lives. These powerful memoir examples make you think. Not only do they give you a look into the writer's life but leave a lasting message for readers. Six-Word Memoirs: Life Stories Distilled Can you pare the story of your life into just six words? Not Quite What I Was Planning is a collection of six-word memoirs by famous and not-so-famous writers. Speak, Memory, Vladimir Nabokov. Nabokov’s memoir is an account of his childhood and the years. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a famous memoir by poet Maya Angelou, available from Penguin Classics. It chronicles her experience of growing up amid racial bigotry and personal challenge. It's not just her heartwrenching tale but also the vivid imagery that makes it a page-turner.
After seeing the film adaptation of Nick Flynn’s great memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, slapped with the anesthetized title Being Flynn, Slate‘s David Haglund wonders “if memoirs simply lose too much in the conversion from first-person prose to a medium in which genuinely first-person narration is very difficult to sustain.” It’s true — film is a third-person medium, not perfectly suited to portraying interior life. Plus, while we might slog through a poorly written novel on account of a ripping story, for us at least, a successful memoir has to rely even more on great line-by-line writing — a really beautifully written one can get us to care about the writer’s most petty grievances — and that may be difficult to translate to film. While the reviews of Being Flynn are mixed so far, we got to thinking about the few really great films adapted from memoirs. Click through to see our picks, and let us know if we’ve missed any of your favorites — or why you think the form is so hard to adapt — in the comments.
Persepolis (based on Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi)
Unlike many autobiographical tales, Marjane Satrapi’s wonderful graphic memoir about coming of age as a progressive girl in Iran managed to wholeheartedly maintain its brilliance on the big screen. While the graphic form undoubtedly made it easier on the filmmakers — they had gorgeous art direction built right in — the movie was true to the book, entertaining to the last, and evocative without being preachy. We recommend both formats highly.
This Boy’s Life (based on This Boy’s Life, Tobias Wolff)
Tobias Wolff is one of the best at conjuring up believable, lovable young men in crisis, and his 1989 memoir may be his best showing. Though we think the book far more subtle and skilled than the film (as we are wont to do), we still find the movie incredibly acted and satisfying, with a young Leonardo DiCaprio stealing the show. Also, we quite like this.
An Education (based on An Education, Lynn Barber) Drivers for xbox controller on mac.
Nick Hornby, who wrote the screenplay adaptation of this British memoir, has has described the book (and film) as being about “a suburban girl who’s frightened that she’s going to get cut out of everything good that happens in the city. That, to me, is a big story in popular culture. It’s the story of pretty much every rock ‘n’ roll band.” Maybe that’s why it was one of our favorite films of 2009. Or maybe that was all Carey Mulligan. Either way.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (based on The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Memoir of Life in Death, Jean-Dominique Bauby)
Jean-Dominique Bauby was at the top of his field as the editor-in-chief of French Elle and father to two boys when a rare condition made him lose all functionality save in his left eye. He wrote his best-selling memoir, Le Scaphandre et le Papillon, by choosing letters blink by blink — and died two days after its French publication. All we can say is, the film does justice to his amazing story.
The Motorcycle Diaries (based on The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey, Che Guevara)
Ernesto Che Guevara’s exuberant pre-revolution travel diaries were expertly turned into a coming-of-age story by director Walter Salles, who characterized the film, outside of any political implications, as being about “a young man, Che, falling in love with a continent and finding his place in it.” The movie is just as romantically exhilarating and idealistic as it must have been to be 23 and wandering around South America with your best friend and your motorcycle.
October Sky (based on Rocket Boys, Homer Hickam)
This film, the adaptation of NASA engineer Homer H. Hickam, Jr.’s bestselling and widely beloved memoir of growing up in Coalwood, West Virginia in the ’50s and dreaming of the stars, is one of our all-time favorite nerd triumph tales. Both the story of a very personal journey (a young man pushing back against his terrifying father, not to mention figuring out girls and thermodynamics) and an important global one (an American way of life that’s beginning to die, and another that’s being born), both the memoir and the film are a little predictable, a little conservative, but warm and wholesome and wonderful.
127 Hours (based on Between a Rock and a Hard Place, Aron Ralston)
Even if you haven’t seen the film or read Ralston’s harrowing account, you know what happens — unless you’ve been living under a rock, that is (we couldn’t help ourselves). Though this story, being completely and totally insular — one man trapped alone for five days — seems like it would be almost impossible to adapt, the formidable Danny Boyle does right by Ralston’s story, filling the screen with stark sameness punctuated by tantalizingly lush memories, and James Franco is at his absolute best.
The Pianist (based on The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man’s Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945, Wladyslaw Szpilman)
Roman Polanski’s adaptation of this incredible memoir about survival and the power of music, written immediately after WWII and suppressed until 1999, is among the best of his career. The film feels personal for Polanski, of Jewish and Polish descent himself, and you can see his emotional involvement in every detail. Not to mention that Adrien Brody is absolutely phenomenal. In 2003, the film won Oscars for Best Director (Roman Polanski), Best Adapted Screenplay (Ronald Harwood) and Best Actor (Adrien Brody), and no one was surprised.
My Week With Marilyn (based on The Prince, the Showgirl, and Me: Six Months on the Set With Marilyn and Olivier, Colin Clark)
Though some people have had mixed feelings about this movie, we think its moments of luminosity earn it a place on this list. The original memoir by Colin Clark, who worked as an assistant on Sir Laurence Olivier’s The Prince and the Showgirl, is mostly a love letter to the fabulous Marilyn, breezy and somewhat light on story, and the film follows suit for better or worse. However, in our opinion, any amount of breeziness in the film is carried by Michelle Williams and Kenneth Branagh, who completely deliver.
A Mighty Heart (based on A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband, Danny Pearl, Mariane Pearl)
Mariane Pearl’s heartbreaking memoir tells the full story of Danny Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan in 2002. The film tells the story powerfully, but the best thing about it is Angelina Jolie, whose performance, one of the best of her career, is an homage to the real-life strength and perseverance of Mariane Pearl.
Not sure how to begin your memoir? Here are several ways, plus examples from great memoirs.
Writers have long wrestled with the “how to start a memoir” question. And the truth is, there’s no single best way to begin a memoir.
The primary goal is to make the readers want more, and it can be done in many ways, whether shocking or understated, humorous or dramatic, literary or plainspoken.
In short, you want to engage your readers!
While there is no single best way to start a memoir, you can always consider beginning by making the readers:
- wonder
- smile
- relate
- worry
- roll their eyes
- sympathize
- say “yuck!”
- sigh
- wish they were there
- be very glad they are not there
- get angry with someone or something
Let’s look at examples of the first six of these “how to begin a memoir” techniques: wonder, smile, remember, worry, roll their eyes, and sympathize.
Time needed to read: 7 minutes.
How To Start a Memoir – 6 Bestselling Ways
- Make them wonder
Humans are by nature curious, so if you start a memoir with a puzzling statement, there’s a good chance people will keep reading—they’ll want to unravel the mystery.
Here are some examples of memoir openings that make the readers wonder:
• “I was sitting in a taxi, wondering if I had overdressed for the evening, when I looked out the window and saw Mom rooting through a dumpster.” – The Glass Castle, by Jeanette Walls. We wonder why Mom was dumpster diving, and how Jeanette will react.
• “You have to go to the ends of the Earth in order to leave the Earth.” – Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery, by astronaut Scott Kelly. We wonder why he’s going to the ends of the earth, rather than strapping himself into a rocket ship and blasting off.
• “Missouri is a state of stolen names, bestowed to bring the world a little closer: Versailles, Rome, Cairo, New London, Athens, Carthage, Alexandria, Lebanon, Cuba, Japan, Sante Fe, Cleveland, Canton, California, Caledonian, New Caledonia, Mexico, Louisiana, Paris, our home.” – Bettyville: A Memoir, by George Hodgman. We wonder what all this has to do with the author, and how this list of intriguing city names will play into his life.
• “Susannah was murdered just before Christmas but I didn’t find out until after New Year’s.” – I’m the One Who Got Away, by Andrea Jarrell. We wonder who Susannah is, why Andrea didn’t know she was murdered, and what is going on.
• “A wanderer, uprooted and displaced. A nomad in both body and mind. This was what I had become since leaving China for the West. It had been fifteen years of transit, change, forgetting and adapting.” – Nine Continents: A Memoir In and Out of China, by Xiaolu Guo. We wonder what it’s like to be a person without a place.
Beginning by making the readers wonder hooks them, hard. - Make them smile
Working humor into the opening lines is a challenge, for you have little opportunity to set up the joke. But it’s well worth the effort – if humor is appropriate to your memoir.
Readers who smile at the opening lines will keep turning the pages, looking for more and more humor. Here are some examples of memoir openings that make the readers smile:
• “When I was nine, I wrote a vow of celibacy on a piece of paper and ate it.” – Not That Kind of Girl, by Lena Dunham.
• “I was born in the house I built myself with my own two hands. I’m sorry. That’s not true. I got that from my official Senate website. We should really change that.” – Al Franken, Giant of the Senate, by Al Franken.
• “Over the last year or so since I decided to write this book, people have been asking me how I have the time and why I chose to write it. The truth is, last June I was driving through a tunnel while on the phone with my agent and my cell service was spotty. I said, ‘I just got a great IKEA table for my breakfast nook.’ My agent thought I said, ‘I’ve got a great idea for my newest book.’” – Seriously…I’m Kidding, by Ellen Degenres.
Starting by getting the readers smiling makes them want to read on. - Make them relate
We love to see ourselves in the characters we read about; it makes us feel closer to them.
That’s why starting off a memoir by describing something that many of your readers may have said, seen, or done themselves—something from their own lives—can be powerful.
Here are some examples:
• “I have a box where I keep all of the holiday and birthday and just-because cards that my friends and family send me. They are memoirs, tokens of love and thoughtfulness, and there is a part of me that can’t bear to throw them out.” – Coming Clean: A Memoir, by Kimberly Rae Miller.
• “One year ago, I was riding the train from the Portland suburbs toward downtown on a sunny fall afternoon when a pair of sparking brown eyes peeked around the corner of my book, and then quickly disappeared. A minute later, the eyes appeared for a second, and then disappeared again, and I realized the little girl sitting across the aisle was playing peekaboo with me.” – The Invisible Girls: A Memoir, by Sarah Thebarge.
• “The only bread that I knew as a child was store bought, machine made, sliced, plastic wrapped, and white. My mother insisted that my two bothers and I eat a slice of the airy bread smeared with Blue Bonnet margarine as part of our supper. ‘Eat your bread and butter and then you can go play,’ she’d say, as if it were a green vegetable. ‘Crust, too. It’s good for your teeth.’” – Bread: A Memoir of Hunger, by Lisa Knopp.
If you make the readers relate, they’ll keep reading. - Make them worry
Readers love to be worried and frightened and horrified. Notice how the three memoir openings below capture attention by making the reader worry that something bad is going to follow:
• “I am standing in my hallway. It’s early morning, maybe five o’clock. I’m wearing a sheer white lace nightgown. High-beam, fluorescent light blinds me. ‘PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR,’ a man’s voice yells—he sounds aggressive but emotionless…I raise my trembling hands and my eyes slowly adjust to the light.” –Molly’s Game: The True Story of the 26-Year-Old Woman Behind the Most Exclusive, High-Stakes Underground Poker Game in the World, by Molly Bloom.
• “About two years ago I bought a euthanasia drug online from China. You can get it that way, or you can travel to Mexico or Peru and buy it over the counter from a vet. Apparently you just say you need to put down a sick horse and they’ll sell you as much as you want. Then you either drink it in your Lima hotel room, and let your family deal with the details of shipping your remains home, or you smuggle it back in your luggage for later use.” – Dying: A Memoir, by Cory Taylor.
• “Alpha Company was point that day—a hundred gaunt exhausted men, trudging through the jungle with their sixty-pound loads. The rest of the battalion, roughly four hundred strong, was strung out behind us in one long, ragged column. We have five hundred meters to go before we reach our destination—a landing zone called Albany—where we could rest.” –Baptism: A Vietnam Memoir, by Larry Gwin.
Get the readers worrying, and reading on to see what happens. - Make them roll their eyes
People love to feel superior to others—to be voyeurs observing from a safe distance as people get themselves into trouble. Here are two examples:
• “International baggage claim in the Brussels airport was large and airy, with multiple carousels circling endlessly. I scurried from one to another, desperately trying to find my black suitcase. Because it was stuffed with drug money, I was more concerned than one might normally be about lost luggage.” – Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Woman’s Prison, by Piper Kerman.
• “Joey Coyle was crashing. He had been high all night, and coming down from the meth always made him feel desperate and confused. When he was cranked up the drug gave him gusts of energy so great that his lungs and brain fought to keep pace. That was how he felt at night. When he slept it was usually during the day.” – Finders Keepers: The Story of a Man Who Found $1 Million, by Mark Bowden.
Odd as it sounds, we get a thrill out of watching people as they circle the drain and then go down. So get those eyes rolling! - Make them sympathize
As much as we enjoy feeling superior to others, we also like to sympathize with them. Notice how the openings below invite you to commiserate with the authors, for you know their situation is dire and not of their own making:
• “The first time Daddy found out about me, it was from behind glass during a routine visit to prison, when Ma lifted her shirt, teary-eyed, exposing her pregnant belly for emphasis.” – Breaking Night: A Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival, and My Journey From Homelessness to Harvard, by Liz Murray.
• “In Paris on a chilly evening late in October of 1985 I first became fully aware that the struggle with the disorder in my mind—a struggle which had engaged me for months—might have a fatal outcome.” – Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness, by William Styron.
• “I don’t know if I was born an alcoholic, but I was definitely born anxious. The alcoholism came to me later in life, after years of drinking to ease stress and worry, and to fend off panic.” – Between Breaths: A Memoir of Panic and Addiction, by Elizabeth Vargas.
The reader who sympathizes keeps on turning the pages.
It’s all about engagement
No matter how you begin a memoir, if you can engage your readers from the start, you’re more than halfway home. Driver hp p1102 for mac.
Remember: Make the readers want more!
Develop an engaging opening—making sure it matches your theme—and you’ve solved the problem of beginning a memoir. For more on theme, see “How to Write a Memoir.”
Memoir Of Famous People
Ways to open a memoir, by type of memoir
There are different types of memoirs, including celebrity memoirs, political memoirs, and sports memoirs. Click on the links below for more examples of how to start the specific kind of memoir you’re planning to write:
And check out our article on 8 Great Ways To Start Off a Memoir.
Still not sure how to begin a memoir?
Don’t worry too much about it, and certainly don’t let it prevent you from writing. It’s perfectly legit, and sometimes a very good idea, to begin writing your memoir in the middle, the end, or in segments that you’ll figure out how to assemble later.
It you can start writing your memoir at the beginning, great!
If you can’t, equally great!
Famous Short Memoir Examples
The point is to write, and keep writing. Often times, as you get further and further in your writing, your memoir’s theme emerges, then strengthens, and the perfect opening becomes obvious.
IF YOU’D LIKE HELP WRITING YOUR MEMOIR OR AUTOBIOGRAPHY…
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Then call us at 818-917-5362, or use our contact form to send an email. We’d love to talk to you about your exciting book project!