In this episode of the Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast, Howard Lovy talks with Australian author, playwright, and writing coach Jacqx Melilli about turning life experiences into compelling memoirs. They discuss the difference between memoir and autobiography, how to choose which memories belong in a book, and how to bring personal stories to life through scenes, dialogue, and sensory details. They also explore the challenges of writing about traumatic experiences, the role of editors in shaping memoirs, and why preserving personal histories matters.
Listen to the Podcast: Editing Memoir— Turning Life Experiences into Compelling Stories
About the Host
Howard Lovy is an author, developmental editor, and writing coach with a long career in journalism and publishing. He works with writers at many stages of their careers, with a focus on helping them develop their ideas and strengthen their work while preserving their unique voices. He lives in Northern Michigan.
About the Guest
Jacqx Melilli is an author, playwright, and writing coach who helps people tell the stories they have carried for years. She holds a Master of Arts in Writing and Literature from Deakin University and has worked across film, television, theatre, and youth drama education. Her award-winning stage plays led to the Lights, Camera, Action educational drama series, and she later produced and directed two of those plays as short films. She is also the author of the Australian historical novel When the Glitter Fades, inspired by showbiz history. Through memoir and creative writing workshops, Jacqx helps writers find their voice and leave a record of their lives.
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Read the Transcript
Howard Lovy: Hi, I’m Howard Lovy, and this is the Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast. I’m an author, developmental editor, and writing coach at howardlovy.com, and today we’re talking about the challenges of turning a life into a story. How do memoir writers decide which experiences belong in a book? How do they shape years of memory into a compelling narrative? And how can editors help without losing the author’s authentic voice? And my guest today is Jacqx Melilli, an Australian author, playwright, and writing coach who teaches memoir writing workshops. And we’ll talk about how writers can find the story they wanna tell, what to leave in and what to cut, and how editors can help turn personal memories into a book that connects with readers. Jacqx, it’s great to have you back.
Jacqx Melilli: Thank you. Thank you very much, Howard, and I’m very pleased to be back. Always nice talking to you.
Howard Lovy: Great. You were one of our inspirational indie authors a few months ago, and I was so inspired I had to have you back on the show.
Jacqx Melilli: Oh, that’s good news.
From Personal History to Memoir Coaching
Howard Lovy: So we talked before about your background as an author and a playwright but today I wanna focus on your work as a writing coach. First, how did you get started teaching memoir writing, and what have you learned from helping people tell their life stories?
Jacqx Melilli: Oh, what made me do memoir writing? Well, I think I’m very passionate about true stories. I’ve always been attracted to true stories. And I think it came up, oh, a long time ago now, but just someone asking me to help them write their story. They had this, their memoir that they wanted to write, and it sort of kicked off from there. I really enjoyed it. But it was that whole process of how important it is to make sure that you’re not just writing memoir down like a bit, facts, writing down this happened and that happened. But a lot of people that write, start to write their story don’t really understand the difference between a memoir and an autobiography. Exactly. And I just noted that there was a lot of things that they didn’t understand, so just to help them shape a story. ‘Cause what you’re doing I mean, not everyone that I’ve helped wanted to write for commercial purposes. They wanted to write for their families- because they just felt that it was something important that they wanted to share with their family. When you’re young, you’re not that interested in your parents. You just kind of, that you just don’t ask questions about their life, and this happened to me as well, ’cause my father died when I was only 30, about 30, 31. And that generation didn’t talk. They just- and with the children relationship, it was like you’re seen and not heard. You’re sort don’t have that sort of emotional connection with your parents. I’m not sure about you, I’m just speculating.
Howard Lovy: That generation did not, as the kids say, they didn’t share. They didn’t overly share.
Jacqx Melilli: It’s like, don’t hang out your dirty laundry, and the past is the past, it’s forgotten. These are the things, the sort of things that my mum used to say too, ’cause they just didn’t wanna talk. And then I lost my dad, but then I’ve also lost my mum about six years ago. And again, I’m really jumping all over the place. But our, I migrated to Australia from France when I was young. I have French father, Spanish mother, so all our relatives were left behind. So we had nobody in Australia. So I really didn’t have knowledge of my family background. This is maybe why, you ask me the question and I’m kind of waffling a bit, but it’s this subconsciously why you do things. I think it’s because it’s something that you feel you’ve missed out on and you want to help- Exactly other people write- Yeah their history. So basically I had no relatives in Australia, and I had no history. I really didn’t know anything about my family history. And both my parents wouldn’t really talk about it, so it was lost. So when someone asked me that they wanted to write their story, I jumped at it. I thought, wow. And then I just got hooked after that because then I could see that how if you tell a story- As if you’re writing a novel really. As if it’s got a theme and it’s got, a immersive writing. You’ve got, the six senses. You’ve got all this so that it’s really engaging. It just is fantastic, and then it could be adapted into a film because
Memoir vs. Autobiography
Howard Lovy: So you’ve brought up many things. First let’s kind of, backtrack a little bit and kind of explain the difference between an autobiography and a memoir. And, what I tell my clients is that unless you’re a very famous politician, entertainment- Yeah rock star nobody’s gonna wanna read your autobiography except if it’s going to be just for your family. a memoir is something different. It’s it’s something that is contained within either a theme or a time period or something about your life that’s worth that’s worth telling. So there’s a big difference between who the audiences are and, so what do you tell your, people at your workshop if they say, “Well, I wanna start from the beginning and then go to the present day.” How do you steer them toward, well, that’s not a memoir. That’s Or that’s not a memoir, that’s an autobiography.
Jacqx Melilli: Yes. And a lot of people don’t realize this, so, that’s a very good point, and I start with that point. That’s the very first thing I start with, is does anyone know the difference between an autobiography and a memoir, and most people don’t know the difference. So they do start their life story from beginning to end, and even what they had for breakfast in between. Nobody cares. If, unless you’re famous, nobody cares,
Howard Lovy: yeah. But your own family might care
Jacqx Melilli: Yeah, your own family. That’s right. And that’s another thing I tell them, don’t mention Auntie Beth’s magnificent cookies and all the rest of it. I said, if it’s not a part of the important part of the story, then don’t mention it. So it, there’s lots of things. So I put that’s the very first thing I put out the front is like, okay, the difference there. And you’ve already said it. Basically autobiography’s from start to finish, and most mostly it’s famous people who write autobiographies. So memoir I say the memoir is a part of your life that you wanna share with someone. So if I say if someone walks into a bookstore and they want to know about hiking in the Himalayas or something like that, they type in keywords or whatever of what kind of book they wanna look at and that’s your experience that you wanna share, then that’s what you need to focus on. You need to focus on this particular experience. Because you could write, you only write one autobiography. Once you’ve start, written an autobiography from start to finish, you’re done. But with a memoir, you could write four, five, six, as many memoirs as you like on different topics of things that you’ve done in your life. If you’ve overcome illness, for example and you wanna share your experience of maybe how you went the health way, the, you used health, sort of herbs and things. You didn’t go the route of chemotherapy or something. You did something different.
Howard Lovy: Yeah, it’s something counterintuitive.
Jacqx Melilli: Yes. So, and it’s also different because I would be very interested in knowing how to go a different route when I’m, I’ve had an illness. So that’s a unique perspective to your memoir that would attract people too, ’cause it’s not the same old lot I mean, everyone’s story is unique, but there’s a lot of memoirs of how people have overcome maybe illnesses or drug addiction or something alcoholism or something that they’ve overcome. hmm. But you need to put your own unique spin on it. So if you can find what is your own unique spin of how you overcame, and that you need to feature that so people understand that your book is about this topic. So you need to pick your topic. What is your memoir going to be about? And have a theme. So we go through all the themes and the topics. And then I say, “Well, you need to stick to that topic. If you’re talking about how you overcame an illness, we don’t wanna hear about your dancing how you won the national dancing competition before that.” Unless
Howard Lovy: Unless the dancing was part of the way you overcame the illness. That’s right.
Jacqx Melilli: Yes. Exactly. If you healed through that, then yes. But, you don’t overpower it because then if people buy a book ’cause they think it’s about overcoming an illness, and then half the book is about your dancing career, then they’re gonna be really annoyed that they didn’t wanna hear about your dancing career. hmm. They just wanted to hear about how you overcame your illness. So these is important too. You put little bits of your life because obviously you can start from when you’re younger, like your memories of how it shaped you to as a background story of your memoir of why you came to be in the situation you were in. As part of the topic of the memoir. But it just needs to be a flavor, like a spice that you put into, the ingredients that you put into your memoir. It’s a spice that it doesn’t overpower the whole memoir. It’s just something that you use as you said, because it’s part of your journey.
Turning Memories Into Scenes
Howard Lovy: You have a background in theater and playwriting, so You know how to, create scenes and dialogue and dramatic tension. And, how has that experience influenced the way you teach memoirists to turn their memories into scenes rather than simply recounting what happened?
Jacqx Melilli: Yes. So we start, what we’ve got to think about, your reader wants to be engrossed so that it’s a page-turner. So you wanna start with teasing a little bit, like maybe that first opening of your book, that first chapter, first sort of opening. You don’t necessarily have to start from when you were young to when, this thing happened. You can start by just giving a bit of a teaser As to what the most dramatic scene was, like the climax of the story as a teaser at the beginning, and then you just make them work through to see how did you get to that point. So there’s a bit of a structure involved where you want them to go along on the journey, and you’ve put that question at the beginning. Just say, there was a terrible accident that you survived. You might wanna put that opening scene. Little bit like a film, isn’t it? Right. An opening scene. Right. So,
Dialogue, Memory, and the Senses
Howard Lovy: Yeah, I think they call it in media res, in the middle of the action. And then you backtrack and tell them how you got there. Now what about things like dialogue? Obviously nobody remembers exactly what they said, you know- Yes 20 years ago. So, what kind of leeway do memoirists have in terms of coming up with approximately what was said?
Jacqx Melilli: Well, I do encourage dialogue, but as I said, you’re not going to remember word for word. hmm. But you still need a little bit of dialogue to liven things up, to make it real, to make the characters, real. So they might not have necessarily said it, but you’re sort of paraphrasing, I suppose- Yeah In the dialogue. But I find that there’s not People aren’t really They don’t put a lot of dialogue in for that very reason, that they can’t really remember exactly. But it’s just to give it a bit of life. It’s the same as the six senses. I say six senses because you’ve got sight, sound, smell, taste, touch. But there’s spirituality, that intuition is that sixth sense. And I make I just remind people that how important that is. Because- you get that gut feeling, “Oh, I shouldn’t have opened that door.” That’s a sixth sense. And you ignored it, and because you ignored it something terrible happened. There could’ve been someone that attacked you behind the door or something like that. So all of these sorts of things, including dialogue and all the rest, is what helps it come to life so you’re not just telling a story, but you’ve got that showing element to it as well, that show don’t It’s not You can’t always show ’cause it can’t but it’s that mixture of you’ve got your dialogue, your sixth senses, some immersive- Yeah writing there that, which is all the ingredients to the show. Show, don’t tell. Using
Howard Lovy: Using your senses is That’s good advice. What I usually tell memoirists, their first draft is almost always this happened and then that happened and then this happened. And so I tell them to close their eyes and really bring yourself back to that moment that you’re describing. How did you feel? What did you smell? What did you hear? And if you give them specific prompts like that, then their writing can come alive a little more.
Jacqx Melilli: Yes. Exactly. And you do need to prompt them along because they just don’t remember. And sorry, getting back to your dialogue, I get these brain things where, brain fog, where all of a sudden I’ll forget something. Going back to your dialogue what I find is that our memories tend to forget, We tend to block things out that maybe were traumatic until you kind of prompt them out. But things like what someone said, if it’s had a huge impact on you never forget it. You might not remember it exactly word for word. Sometimes you do remember it word for word, but when it comes to dialogue, those really important, impactful things that someone said, you never forget that. So you That’s the good dialogue that you I try and get them to remember what was it? Just try to refresh memories with things like- photographs, music. And then that, ’cause it’s all about trying to recall, trying to remember things. Like, you have a, like you said, the first draft, it’s just dumping things. And I sort of get them to try and do chapters. So I say, “Right, just ” And I tell them right at the beginning, “Don’t worry about perfection. We’re just dumping stuff as you go. So just create these chapters and name them something so that you remember where each goes.” ‘Cause they go, “Oh, we don’t, I don’t want chapter headings.” Some, and I say, “Doesn’t matter. Just for your memory, write out your chapters and put your headings of what this is about.” And then just start separating that way, and then you can start filling things in Right as your memory goes. Excuse me.
Finding the Emotional Truth
Howard Lovy: And memoirs are, they’re not just about the facts. They’re about your subjective feelings about how you felt about what happened. And that’s something that only you can write, yes. And nobody’s fact-checking what you had for breakfast that morning. Yes that’s unimportant. But you know, the, how you felt when this important event unfolded, that’s something that only you can write, and that’s something that I really try to bring out in memoirs.
Jacqx Melilli: Yes. And I do encourage people to interview others so that they can get their perspective on what, how they experienced something. Like for example, when we came to Australia, my parents both worked, and we were left home, at home. Like we went to school, but it’s a long story. But when we went to school we couldn’t speak English, so we hated going to school. We thought- we’re just gonna stay home. So, we did get caught in the end. But the fact is that when I asked my brother, he’s He was two and a half years old. He’s two and a half years older than me. So when I ask him his perspective on it, he has a different perspective. Like he really hated being home alone, that my parents worked. Whereas then I actually reveled in it, ’cause I’m Little Miss Independent here. And so we had different perspectives of how we experienced things or how we saw things or you could see the both see the same, witness the same incident and have two different perspectives on it.
Howard Lovy: Yeah. So I found that really- I guess that’s the difference between your brother would say, “We had to stay, we you know, we had to stay home,” and you would say, “We got to stay home.”
Interviewing Others and Checking Memories
Jacqx Melilli: Yes. And so I encourage interviewing people only to get their perspective or to maybe trigger memories that you don’t remember, but then when they say it triggers your memory as well. So I say to you don’t necessarily have to put what you’ve interviewed into your book, and you tell the person you’re interviewing that you’re you’re going to use it for the book. And get them to sign an agreement that, yes, they’re happy for you to use what they say in your story. And I also get them to record it or film it, only because it’s You might not get the you wanna get it absolutely correct. You don’t want to, them to turn around and say, “No one ever said that.” So you wanna make sure that you’ You want to make sure that you’ve got the information right that they’ve told you. so that’s one thing that- That I encourage people to do and that way they’ve got it from the other person’s perspective. And they don’t necessarily, as I said, have to use it in their memoir, but it just might open their memory and help them to see things, especially if it’s a traumatic event as well. Some people find it really hard to write about traumatic events, so that’s very, a touchy- Sure thing as well. So sometimes if it’s really traumatic, I kind of suggest that maybe they go through counseling. ‘Cause writing is also very therapeutic. So they might wanna, do some counseling sessions while they’re going through this particular- Yeah traumatic experience..
Writing About Trauma
Howard Lovy: How do you deal with people who are writing about traumatic events? What do you advise them?
Jacqx Melilli: To tread carefully. Well, I say if it’s something is particularly really traumatic, I say just write things on a piece of paper and then just rip it up, throw it away, and keep writing it until it no longer has power over you. And that’s so ‘Cause that’s something you might not want to reveal certain things. Like you need to choose what you wanna say. It’s still your memoir, so you might not have to get to the nitty-gritty of the experience. But for their own personal process of getting the words down that they wanna get down is just maybe to keep rewriting, throw it away, get, just until it loses that power over them where they don’t, ’cause it could trigger You just got to be careful with traumatic writing. It could trigger, Yeah depression or something. It could, you just need to be careful. So, I say if it depends on how it, the experience was for them, whether they do need to just see a counselor at the same time to process it all. And then work out what they want to put on the page. And then, there, it’s, there’s so much involved in memoir because some people are fearful of mentioning people. so there’s a lot to consider. But in the end, it’s your truth and your words. And you can’t be Well, obviously someone’s wanted to write their memoir for a reason. They’re ready to write. They’re ready- Yeah to say, what they need to Right and they wanna pass
Howard Lovy: pass it on. And if it’s trauma, you wrap it up in a book and then release it or keep it, give it to your family, and then that’s that, and maybe you can move on with your life.
Jacqx Melilli: Yes and that’s another thing. If you don’t wanna get sued, just tell the facts. Don’t make up lies and never, ever write for revenge. I also ask people, “Well, why are you writing this?” Because it You should never be writing for revenge or to get back at someone or to, prove your point or something like that.
Getting Started and Finding Readers
Howard Lovy: Well, no revenge? That’s not fun. I’m gonna have to delete- everything I’ve written now, that raining on my parade. No but I guess, for someone listening who’s always wanted to write a memoir but doesn’t know where to begin what practical first steps would you recommend?
Jacqx Melilli: Well, I do a workshop that just gives an introduction so they’ve got at least an idea of how to structure. Because otherwise you’re gonna have to rewrite so much if you never really understood, first of all, what a memoir is as opposed to an autobiography or, that it needs a theme, that, what topic you’re writing about. All these things that you really would be very helpful before you start. So I do a workshop. I’m also in the process of writing a book just as a guidebook of how to how to write, set out your memoir with all these little bits and pieces that we spoke about today. And I’m doing an online course as well. I’m developing an online course so that people can do things at their own pace. But I thought also with the book, people can just look and do it at their own pace, and then be guided, through a writing mentor. ‘Cause you do need some guidance. And even myself as a writer, I always ask, or I get an editor to guide me. ‘Cause you can’t see your Yeah you can’t see things. You need someone else, a different pair of eyes to kind of say to you, “Well, what about this?” Or, “There’s holes in this,” “Explain this more.” So that’s, yeah, that’s sort of where I’m headed
Howard Lovy: Yeah. As far as helping, It took me a long, it took me a long time is, in my own memoir work, to get past the who cares? Who else besides me cares that this happened to me? And that’s something- that maybe it’s related to imposter syndrome, and you have to get over that. There’s somebody who does care about, what happened- Yes and your perception of what had happened.
Jacqx Melilli: Yeah, I think so. I definitely think that. And also, as I said, if you’ve got your, you We’re all unique. We all have our And also how we reacted and how we overcame is different to everyone’s different. So people care because there’s always people out there that will connect to you and relate. Oh, yes, I relate, even though you don’t realize How much of an impact you might have on someone because your experience, everyone’s experience is important, but how you reacted to it, how you overcame it, they’re the sort of things that interests me when I And I love writing reading memoirs also because it interests me of how people overcome in their own different ways. And yeah, I just like, I like that, the human experience of how people overcame and their journey. Yes, there’s a lot of stories of, drug addiction or, sexual abuse or things like that, but they’re all unique in their own way. So yeah, I just think, no, people are interested because they wouldn’t be reading memoirs if they’re not. That’s right. I think a lot of people love memoirs- Yeah for that very reason, because all of a sudden they think, “Oh, I’m not alone. This didn’t just happen to me,” or they’ll be thinking exactly what you just said, “Oh, who wanna who will care about my story?” I get that a lot, like, oh, who’s gonna care? And even if you’re not doing this for commercial purposes, your family members are going to care because they’re gonna see. They, maybe they understood that time in your life they didn’t understand- You know, they didn’t understand why you were the way you were. When you’ve written it down, they it all kind of falls into place. They understand. And, like, I really grieve the fact that I didn’t get that from my own parents. So when- I would- to the never will understand what they went through, how they coped coming to Australia not knowing the language. All these questions are unanswered. Yeah people care. You’ve got things to say that are important. Even when you think that they’re not, they are important to someone else, even if it’s your family members.
Memoir as a Historical Record and Legacy
Jacqx Melilli: So I definitely encourage people. And again, I think one of the most important things Howard, is why I encourage people to write their memoir is because it’s a part of history. I said, if you don’t write it down, it’s gonna be forgotten. And they’re, they’re trying, with AI and everything, they are trying to rewrite history now. hmm. That we’re coming into an age of deception where you know, the powers that be are trying to rewrite history. They are buying up books by the millions and cutting them up so they can scan them through AI and destroying those books. Now, they can change history doing that. And I think, one of the, some- someone was saying to me as an example they said, “Oh, the Holocaust never happened.” Or I said, “Are you kidding me?” I said, “All those photographs, all that evidence, and you’re saying it never happened?” Yeah. And they said, “Oh, we’ve been lied to. All this, it Our whole lives we’ve been lied to.” And I said no.” I said, “That’s not true.” This is the danger of having history rewritten. We need to keep writing because whatever they destroy, we need to come back with our truths all the time.
Howard Lovy: I deal with a lot of Holocaust memoirs and I think it’s incredibly important because- Yes you’re right history can be changed.
Jacqx Melilli: Yes Yeah, it’s very important. Very important. Because, if we keep writing and keep writing, I mean, it’s like they might destroy one book, but another book pops up. So we need to it’s truth. We’re we’re writing history as we experienced and we, you can’t turn around then and say, “No, that never happened.” Because we gotta just keep writing. I think it’s really important.
Howard Lovy: So everybody go sit down to write your memoirs right now. You owe it to history, and you owe it to your children. So there you
Jacqx Melilli: Absolutely. Absolutely. That’s your legacy. That’s a legacy you leave behind. It’s so important. Even if you think it’s not important and who cares and who’s going to read it, your words have power. And once they’re published, even if it’s just for your family, they’re there. They’re there forever more. hmm. And I certainly don’t wanna pass away without having my memoir written down. And everything I write is part of my legacy of who I am, because there, sort of things come out in my work anyway. Yeah so it’s important. Please, everyone, write your memoir. Even if it’s for family, just write things down, and you’ll be amazed at how therapeutic it is. It’s just wonderful.
Howard Lovy: Wonderful. Well, that’s a good place to end it. Thank you so much, Jacqx. I appreciate your insight into memoir writing.
Jacqx Melilli: Well, thank you, Howard. Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure, and hopefully I have inspired a few people out there to write their memoirs. Well, good. It’s a great thing to do.
Howard Lovy: Wonderful. Thank you, Jacqx.
Jacqx Melilli: Thank you. Thanks, Howard.
