Why Your Characters Are Ruining Your Food Memoir (and How to Fix It)

Photo by @kcottrell at Unsplash

Writing a food memoir is thrilling until you realize you have to share details about yourself and the people around you.

There’s always a point when clients realize: This isn’t the fun and liberating experience I thought it would be.

What?

Listen, you can tell your cocktail stories all day long with people saying they can’t wait to read your book. Then you realize those stories will be in print forever, and you doubt everything. You don’t want to hurt people’s feelings or unlock private details about them. So, you scale back conversations, character development and your story to placate a bunch of people because you’re scared.

There are a million different ways to tell your story truthfully without burning everything down and getting sued by your friends and family. (Honestly, if you’re worried about it, you’re already ahead, and that’s what lawyers and book publishers are for. You can even share your work with people beforehand, so they know what’s coming or if you “got it right”.)

The hesitation you have in creating fully-formed and flawed characters is ruining your food memoir, but here’s how to fix it.

1. No “Save the Cat” Moment

There’s a false belief in writing that to make a character likeable, they have to be perfect. They make the right decisions, have their life together and are someone readers want to be. When writers create main characters like that, there is no true depth to the world they’ve created, so readers can’t fully engage with the story.

If people don’t care about your main character, it’s most likely because there is no “save the cat” moment. In Save the Cat! The Last Book You’ll Ever Need on Screenwriting, Blake Synder’s principal idea, is that a minor scene, like your main character saving a cat, sets up who they truly are, even if they’re not perfect.

As Synder puts it: Because liking the person we go on a journey with is the single most important element in drawing us into the story.

Take, for example, Gordon Ramsey in an episode of Kitchen Nightmares when he was outraged about the owners of Amy’s Baking Company taking tips from their servers. As a character in a television show, you may find him harsh at first. But as soon as he stands up for the ill-treated employees, you see his compassionate side shining through. This “save the cat” moment makes you love him in that episode, regardless of what else he does.

Your readers need a reason to root for your main character, so their key moment will likely be the opposite of how they operate normally. It can show up as the playboy who wouldn’t dare miss his grandmother’s 100th birthday or the award-winning baker who secretly volunteers at a local food kitchen every week. The moment is up to you, but it should give readers insight into who your main character truly is, rather than writing any old scene that “sounds cool”.

2. Lots of Pretty Details That Don’t Move the Story Forward

Good writers can get away with a lot. Beautifully constructed sentences can hide plot holes and a lack of character development. Yes, you want to paint a picture for your readers, but there should also be a reason why you’re describing the scene of a cafe or what your character is wearing. For the most part, details should reveal more about you and the other characters and allow those details to get you all closer or further away from the end goal. 

We’ve all read the memoirs with pages of description we get lost in. Don’t add details for detail’s sake — make them mean something for your story. If you always wear ripped jeans, because you don't believe you need new clothes until the old ones are sincerely falling apart, but you buy a new pair of jeans for a first date, it could mean you’re ready to make changes for this person, in more ways than one. 

Details are like money. They’re not good or bad; it’s how you use them that matters. Add them with intention, and your readers will be right there with you, every step of the way. 

3. The Stakes are Too Low

There has to be something you're at risk of losing. A lot of food memoirs will add so many things to a story — this happens, and then so-and-so returns — but the stakes have no depth. There’s no reason behind it, so your readers can’t get invested in your story.

True stakes are when a character’s entire life has to change, and what they do because of it. What will they lose or gain by it happening? How do they get closer to and further away from it with each scene? 

Leaning into those questions will naturally unfold a chain of events that feels less manufactured and more authentic to the story you’re actually telling. Even in fiction, circumstances that ring true will automatically make readers care about your main character and how their journey develops.

4. Keeping a Major Character Secret from the Reader Until the End

Dear writers of the world, please stop trying to make your characters so mysterious. The major secret you tease throughout the food memoir to only reveal at the very end is killing your book. It’s also a complete disappointment to readers no matter how cool you think it is.

Don’t assume your audience will keep reading because of “the secret. Unless you’re writing an actual mystery, that’s an insult to them and your story. And even with mysteries, you know up front that someone was murdered or something horrible happened. What makes it an interesting read is finding out how and why it happened. 
So instead of trying to create some kind of mystery, don’t bury the secret, but use it as tension throughout the story. Readers want to be invited in, so let them take the ride with you. It’ll create connection, empathy and page-turning aka the most important part.

Reworking Your Characters

Depending on how far along you are in the writing process, you may have to do a total rewrite or tiny changes to have readers falling in love with you and your other characters. Using these four key points, look for the small opportunities to shift the reader’s perspective. Often, you’re 80% of the way there and a few revisions can transform your characters completely. 

If you’re ready for another pair of eyes on your pages, grab your spot on my coaching waitlist now. Together we can make you pop off the page and leap straight into the hearts of your ideal reader. Because that’s what you want, right?