The other night over dinner, a friend of ours told Chris she had an idea for a children’s picture book based on a personal experience.

I reached for another helping of pasta and prepared to politely tune out as Chris gave his stock reply (Join SCBWI and find a small local chapter of writers for feedback and support).

Instead I listened closely as he outlined a surprisingly concrete plan.

“You probably want to convey how important this experience has been for you,” he said, “but you’ll want to do it through one or two telling experiences.”

First browse children’s picture books, he went on. Pick out your favorites and choose one or two for thorough dissection: type and print out the entire text on a piece of paper, count the words, locate page breaks and pinpoint the climax.

All at once I was eager to go home and try it myself, but not with a picture book. For years I’ve been working on a memoir that takes place in 2008, as I befriend a transgender man living in Central Park.

Vivian Gornick says every memoir has a situation and a story, and I set out to explore this further. I re-read Beverly Donofrio’s Looking for Mary, which is about a woman on a pilgrimage to the holy city of Medjugorje (the situation). Concurrently, it’s about a woman seeking forgiveness from her son for being the neglectful, too-young mother she’d once been (the story).

Instead of typing out the entire memoir, I used pink post-its to mark the situation, and green post-its to mark the story. Post-its sticking out of the top of the book indicate chapter beginnings.

And here’s what struck me right away: Donofrio begins almost every chapter with the situation (pink post-its)—she’s on a bus, on a trip, on a pilgrimage. Green post-its mark the story—she’s a pregnant teen, an ex-wife, a woman dating a man who endangers her child. As you read her book you swing like a monkey from situation to story to situation to story. It keeps you interested.

Immediately, I understood that my own memoir does a pretty good job tracking the situation—a woman keeps company with a homeless transgender man in Central Park. What’s still lacking is the story—why does this woman keep company with a homeless trans man in Central Park?

So this is my work going forward. I can already tell you it’s not easy but at least I have a better understanding of what's not there.

I’ll let you know where the post-its fall.