I've been thinking about the difference between anecdote and story a lot lately and how it's easy to confuse one with the other. It's a key problem I've seen a lot of writers struggle through and a difficulty I've encountered myself. Maybe you're wrestling with this in your own work, too.

An example of an anecdote, peeled from my own experience, would be: I went to a boarding school in a former tuberculosis sanitorium where we ate vegan food, wore long dresses and skirts, and weren't allowed to play sports or date. I worked in a bakery in the former morgue.

Every time I trot out this little fact from the past (told with more style and irony, of course) people say, "What?! You have to write a memoir."

Maybe this is your experience, too. Something remarkable happened to you or you went through something exceedingly difficult, and the people you have confided in urge you to write about it.

This encouragement is wonderful, no doubt about it, but what you'll quickly discover as you put fingers to keyboard/pen to page, is that your story will peter out pretty quickly if that's all there is. A wonderful or harrowing anecdote—even a string of anecdotes—doesn't make a story. This is true whether you're writing fiction or nonfiction. What's a writer to do?

• Think about the overall point of your book. Why are you telling the story in the first place? What do you hope your eventual reader will understand about themselves or the world because of your story? What larger question does your book consider?
• Plot the desire line. What does your character (yourself or a fictional character) enter the memoir or novel wanting and what prevents them from getting it? How do they eventually get it—or not?
• Sketch out the narrative arc. What happens in the beginning, middle, and end? In my example of the anecdote above, note that there is no beginning, middle, or end. There's no arc at all!
• Plot the arc of change. Memoirs and novels alike are about change and transformation. How does the story you're writing reveal this change?

Let your thrilling little anecdote be the spark that ignites the fuel of your larger story, but remember it isn't the whole story—not by a long shot. 🔥

Read.

• "I have to wonder what you are saying about your life if even you can’t be bothered to think about it." Tom McAllister on A.I. use in his memoir class. "What if ... a fully formed person is not about optimizing productivity but rather about understanding and even embracing the messy inefficiencies of life?"
• Literary agent Renee Fountain writes about how agents decide whether or not to take on a project within the first ten pages.
• The 2025 International Booker Prize longlistees on the books that inspired them to become a writer.

Write.

This exercise will help you enrich your main character's core desire in your novel or memoir. You may know what your character wants in general, but if you know why they want it, why it is their all-compassing desire in life, you'll be ready to turn your anecdotes into pivotal moments in your character's journey towards getting what they want—or losing it all.

May all your anecdotes turn into brilliant stories. I believe in you! ✨

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