Mistakes Writers Make With Conflict In Memoirs

How do you include conflict in memoirs? Do you have enough? We discuss the mistakes writers make with conflict in memoirs.

Learn how to balance internal and external conflict and avoid common mistakes that weaken your story.

Mistakes Writers Make With Conflict In Memoirs

Remember that you are like a character in a book. Your readers have chosen to read your memoir because they want a story. They need conflict, tension, and movement.

A common mistake memoirists make is focusing too much on internal conflict at the expense of external conflict.

As Chuck Palahniuk says: ‘One of the most-common mistakes that beginning writers make is leaving their characters alone. Writing, you may be alone. Reading, your audience may be alone. But your character should spend very, very little time alone. Because a solitary character starts thinking or worrying or wondering.’

Too much time inside your head can slow a story down. Your memoir needs both types of conflict.

For a memoir to work, we need:

1. External Conflict. We should be dealing with an antagonist – the person or company or illness who opposes you – and creating external conflict.
2. Internal Conflict. The external conflict leads to us confronting our own demons and creating internal conflict.

Good memoirists layer stories with both types of conflict.

External Conflict In Memoirs

Do not include every conversation and every fight in your memoir. Include conflict that counts and that allows you to show your story.

External conflict should be:

1. Specific
2. Engaging
3. Serious
4. Urgent
5. Personal

Use confrontations and incidents as action scenes to show what happened to you. Make sure that most of them answer these five requirements.

Internal Conflict In Memoirs

Remember that readers will abandon your story if you wallow in your misery.

Internal conflict can be:

1. Mental – Can I do this?
2. Moral – Should I do this?
3. Emotional – Am I strong enough to do this?

Use showing techniques to get you out of your head and allow you to show how you feel. Use body language, dialogue, and interior thought.

Chuck Palahniuk also says: ‘Thinking is abstract. Knowing and believing are intangible. Your story will always be stronger if you just show the physical actions and details of your characters and allow your reader to do the thinking and knowing. And loving and hating.’

The Last Word

Conflict gives your memoir its shape. Show us what happened, what you were up against, and how those experiences changed you. Balance external conflict with your inner struggles, and you will give readers a story they want to keep reading.

Top Tip: If you want to learn how to write a memoir, look into our Secrets of a Memoirist course.

© Amanda Patterson

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