SAGE ADVICE | Tips from a pro “The Fortune Teller’s Kiss” (University Press, $26.95) is an award-winning memoir written by local author Brenda Serotte. Honored as runner-up for the

Don’t worry what anyone in the family will think. Get your ideas down; write your story first.

Make your memoir about you, not about someone else.

The great thing about this kind of writing that is different from fiction is that you get to “show” and “tell.”

Don’t feel you can’t create things. Think of it as creative nonfiction. It has to be factual — you can’t write a memoir about having a brother and then have no brother — but details, sensory elements, can be added to enhance your story.

Read mempoirs. You have to read the genre you’re writing.

South Florida Sun-Sentinel