Be honest. Have you ever thought about writing a memoir? It’s a very popular genre of writing right now, and more and more memoirs are being published today, especially ones written by women.
An aspiring writer asked me recently to define memoir versus autobiography. First of all, I told him I was not an expert on memoirs. I have read my fair share of them, and I’ve started to write one based on the river journals I kept while walking a path by a river for a full year. But to be honest, I’ve given a lot more thought to what makes novels work, since that’s what I predominantly write.
What I do know about writing, in general, is that it’s very helpful to read a lot of whatever you are trying to write. So if you’re writing a memoir, it would likely be helpful to read other memoirs. There is an extensive list in Beth Kephart’s book on memoir writing called Handling the Truth. Many of the memoirs she suggests are in the library. I know this because I’ve checked them out.
From my understanding, autobiographies are linear and are about the span of an entire lifetime. They are usually about famous people who did great or infamous things. Autobiographies are considered old-fashioned these days.
Writing a memoir, on the other hand, focuses in on a key moment in the writer’s life (like a year spent walking a path by the river) and how life changed afterward and any insights that were gleaned from the experience.
Memoirs are often about ordinary people who have done something extraordinary–think Cheryl Strayed’s, mega-bestseller, Wild. 
Or they are about something powerful and out-of-their-control that happened to the writer–like a car accident or a plane crash, or losing a partner to AIDS. (Mark Doty wrote an exceptional memoir on this called Heaven’s 
Coast.) The writer tells the story of how they overcame, survived and thrived during this highly dramatic event. More rarely, memoirs are about an ordinary life that is written about in an extraordinary way. You have to have some major writing chops to pull this off.
Good memoirs are full of drama and emotion: the high points and the low points of an event or a life. So if you spend time writing about jobs, moves, best friends in third grade etc., a lot of that won’t make for a strong memoir unless it directly relates to this dramatic thing that you did or that happened to you. The logistical elements of a person’s life are more autobiographical in nature and are not really interesting to readers unless you are a president or a pope. And sometimes they aren’t even interesting then.
Of course, if you indie or self-publish you can do anything you want. You may write your memoir as a cathartic exercise and only for your eyes. However, if you hope that more than your family and a few friends read it, you need to think about what’s interesting in your life and write about it in a compelling way.
Fiction and non-fiction (in this case, memoirs) are similar in that the STORY is key. No matter what you’re writing, you need to write a really good story. A story that will captivate a reader’s imagination and keep them turning the pages. Whether the main character is you — in a memoir — or a fictionalized protagonist, these characters need to be someone that the reader can root for and want to take a journey with for the entire length of a book.
So that’s my 2 cents on writing a memoir versus an autobiography. It is perhaps a tad simplistic, so if you know more than I do please weigh in. Experts are more than welcome. In the meantime, have you ever thought of writing a memoir? xo
Susan, this was not simplistic at all. It was an eye-opener. Thank you. I will never write a memoir. I’ll stay with writing mysteries.
All the best to you, my friend.
Susan Bernhardt
I’m glad the post was an eye-opener, Susan. At least I think I’m glad. I hope I didn’t scare you away from writing a memoir someday. Although you seem to write very good cozy mysteries.:) xo
“A Date Late & A Dollar Short”
That’s the title for my memoir.
I have always hoped to write about my life. I have had a very eventful life. U have given me the impetus to do so. Thank you.
Hi Susan.
Thank you for your insights! Do you have any advice for someone whose creative urge is forever stifled by apparent laziness? Staring at a blank page just sucks all the wind out of my sails and I get so easily distracted. I really want to write creatively until it is actually time to sit down and write creatively.
Best wishes,
Harry
Glad it was helpful, Nila. If you’ve had a very eventful life then a memoir may be just the thing to do. Hope you have a great weekend!
Hi Harry,
Well, you’ve touched upon the age-old challenge for artists. We live in a very distracting world. So how do we do our art? How do we write? How do we find any time whatsoever to be creative??
I wish I had a magic answer for you, but it seems to be a riddle we all need to solve for ourselves. For me, what gets me over my laziness–and yes, I have my fair share–is believing that I have something to say that will either make people laugh or deepen their experience of being human. So I have a sense of purpose about it. That really helps. It helps me get out of bed in the morning. It helps me actually get my butt in the chair. It helps me to set aside time to write on a regular basis.
Also, on a more practical level, I am wicked-keen on paying my half of the mortgage.:)
As for distractions, I set up my environment so distractions can’t get to me. I turn off the internet when I write on my laptop. I turn off my phone. I don’t answer the door…. You get the idea.
Thanks for the question, Harry. It’s a good one. Let me know what you figure out! We’re all in this together.
With every good wish,
Susan
Not the title I’d come up with for you, John. You’re much more creative than that. How about Right on Time!
Thank you for the kind words of advice, Susan. I do sometimes wonder if my procrastination is rooted in some subliminal anxiety around the quality of the end result. I tried writing a memoir in my twenties. It failed to find a publisher and with the benefit of hindsight I can see why!
How ?
Hi Joe. Jane Friedman is a great resource for how to write memoirs. She even offers inexpensive classes ($25). She has also all sorts of free information online, as does Reedsy. I hope this helps.
Susan