The Role of Narrative Arc in Crafting Unforgettable Memoirs, with Lynne Melcombe

Narrative arc describes the way most fiction in English-language cultures flow: exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, resolution. Creative nonfiction (CNF) uses the same structure, but where novelists create a compelling arc for their stories, CNF authors must find the arc in their stories.

But real life rarely happens along a neatly defined arc. What if the inciting incident is the most exciting part of the story—how do you build to a climax after that? Where do you find the rising action in a story that, on the face of it, floats along flatly—a small but meaningful segment of an ordinary life? How do you build to a climax when the outcome is known before you crack the book’s spine? What if a story has more than one possible climax?

In this interactive two-hour workshop, we’ll explore creative ways to overcome challenges like these in finding the narrative arc in a memoir.

You'll learn:

• What a narrative arc is, what role it serves, why it’s important, and how it differs between fiction and creative nonfiction, with a focus on memoir.

• The 5-7 key points on the most common or classic type of narrative arc, and a quick look at a couple of alternative arcs (just for fun).

• The defining features of each point on a narrative arc.

• How to find the narrative arc in memoir, starting either from the climax and working backward, or from the inciting incident and working forward.

• How a narrative arc can help an author choose what to include in or exclude from their story.

• How the narrative arc helps the writer decide where and how to end their story.

About Lynne Melcombe

Lynne Melcombe has been writing and editing for nearly 40 years. She has worked as a freelance journalist, meetings notetaker, communications consultant, marketing copy writer, magazine editor, website writer and editor, and book editor. Her clients have included newspapers and magazines, small to mid-sized not-for-profits and businesses, government departments, indie publishers, and self-publishing authors. She works at all levels of editing, including manuscript evaluation, substantive and stylistic editing, copy editing, proofreading, and coaching. She has a BA in anthropology (English minor), certificates in business writing, editing, and publishing, and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction Writing.

Lynne’s first book, No Such Thing: A True Story of “Mild” Traumatic Brain Injury and My Twenty-Year (so far) Recovery, will be published by Iguana Books in June 2026. For more information on Lynne, visit lynnemelcombe.com. For information on book-related events, watch her author page: lynnemelcombe.com/author/