“But it’s a lovely sentence,” someone will whine, defending their darling when I edit it out. And that’s the problem. It may be, but understanding that writing is not about those single flourishes, and instead is about the piece as a whole, is the first step toward learning how to commit the perfect murder—a good final edit.

You are going to write about the process of learning what you now know. How? By showing us how you learned it. With what? With the scenes that illustrate that journey.

But in short pieces of memoir, give us a cosmic graph, and we’ll have the guide we need to read on.

Try not to overexplain: “… I said nervously because we were just reunited after thirty-five years.” Instead, show your nervous joy by whipping off your bifocals and shoving them into your bra—if that’s what you did. If you did not, you did something else that communicated nervous joy, and you remember it, because now you’re a writer, and that’s wha

So those are the three rules of memoir. They ask you to tell the truth by making every page drive one story forward and have a context the reader can relate to.

Instead, while writing about the hideous aspects of life, you should attempt to teach us something about the behavior of those involved, about your behavior, about all human behavior. Let us into your story by shedding light on our own dilemmas, fears, happiness, or wide-eyed wonder.

Capture the moment of “aha!” and you’ll find one specific story that you can drive forward.

So be hospitable to your reader, and provide us with more than the bare-bones facts, foregone conclusions, or mere lists of emotional responses to the events of your life.

When writing about our own animals (as well as our husbands, wives, and children) we’d be well advised to avoid any karmic-sounding sentences that make any grand conclusions. Keep it simple; let the reader make her own.