What is the difference between a memoir and a true story?
1. Truth vs Fiction. A memoir is a true story, even though the
The two are so closely related that Merriam-Webster.com defines a memoir as "a narrative composed from personal experience." A key difference is that a narrative focuses on an event, while a memoir centers on an individual, who is usually the writer of the book.
"Memoir" Definition
A memoir is a narrative, written from the perspective of the author, about an important part of their life. It's often conflated with autobiography, but there are a few important differences. An autobiography is also written from the author's perspective, but the narrative spans their entire life.
It's composed of people telling the stories of themselves. These stories are all true, in a way; they're just not factual. A memoir should not be subject to rigorous, journalistic lie-detecting.
A memoir is a nonfiction book that tells your own story, focusing on elements of your real life like personal experience, intimacy, and emotional truth. 1. Enables self-discovery. The memoir book writing process requires you to really reexamine your own experiences, not just write an entire book retelling them.
A memoir is a narrative written from the author's perspective about a particular facet of their own life. As a type of nonfiction, memoirs are generally understood to be factual accounts — though it is accepted that they needn't be objective, merely a version of events as the author remembers them.
A memoir is not a chronological setting down of your entire life. It is not an autobiography. It is a representation of memory, not history. It is focused on an event, or series of events, that are held together by a theme.
A memoir is a non-fictional, first personal written account of events and memories from the author's real life. Memoirs (French for “memory” or “reminisce”) focus on personal experience, intimacy, and emotional truth—memoir writers often play with their memories and with real life in order to tell a good story.
Suggestions for Writing Memoir
Utilize 5 Elements of Memoir: Truth, Theme, Voice, POV, Musing 2. Be with writers.
There are only a few celebs who have written their own book — among them Matthew McConaughey, Sharon Stone, Dave Grohl. “But the world of ghosting is not going to go away,” declares Morel.
Does a memoir have to be about you?
Memoir is not an autobiography. In other words, it is not the story of your whole life. Memoir is a slice of life, a story of part of your life or a story from your life.
Memoirs are almost always loaded with powerful moments, some of them transformative but all charged with emotion, whether positive or negative.
Truth vs Fiction
A memoir is a true story, even though the memoirist uses fictional techniques to engage readers and to make the story more vivid. As we have said before, a memoir is not an autobiography, which tells the story of an entire lifetime.
That's why most unpublished manuscripts are discussed in terms of memoir word count, which gives a much more accurate measure of memoir length than page count. However, rough guidelines are always helpful, so the average memoir length is between 250 and 450 pages.
Pictures are not necessary to include in a memoir, but since you will be telling personal stories, you may choose to include some photos for reference.
- Engage the reader from the first word. A great memoir draws the reader in from the start. ...
- Build trust with the reader. ...
- Bring emotions out of the reader. ...
- Lead with a laugh. ...
- Open with a dramatic moment. ...
- Think like a fiction writer. ...
- Keep it relevant. ...
- Write for the reader as well as yourself.
If your book is a memoir, your conclusion also needs to complete your story arc, tying up any plot threads and subplots in your storyline so you don't leave any cliffhangers. You might not summarize the plot points of each chapter literally, but you still want to remind your readers of the journey.
In memoir, you are that main character. While fiction writers can invent entire worlds and determine how much of that world is revealed to the narrator, memoir is expected to be first-person (most of the time) and to reflect the author's truth (all the time).
Your memoir should have an overarching theme, takeaway lesson, or message for your readers. It's not just a play-by-play of your life, but rather showing the reader something based on a specific event or experience.
Memoirs are intimate, and they are often not comfortable. It makes sense to use first person for your memoir. A memoir is a kind of confession and using 'I' is good for this genre.
Does a memoir need a plot?
Memoir should be written very much like a novel.
Instead, memoir needs to be like a novel: There should be a “plot,” character ARC (the lead character [the author in this case] should start out one way and end another), voice, tension, scene, showing versus telling, etc.
A short memoir is only 2,000 to 5,000 words long, so the story needs to be concise. A good memoir uses anecdotes that are both riveting and also support the central storyline. The hardest part can be selecting which ones to keep and which to cut out.
To move a memoir into 3rd person would mean referring to yourself not as "I" but as "insert your name here". Seems awkward. However - there is no requirement that a memoir be written in 1st person and so yes it can be done in 3rd.
Yes, anyone! Anyone can create a worthwhile record of what they have experienced and leave a great legacy in book form behind. That said, not everyone will sell a million copies of their memoir.
The climax of a novel almost always happens in the third act, and the same is true for your memoir. The climax is when the main character makes a huge, life changing decision, evolving from the smaller person he was in act 1 to the much bigger person he is in act 3.
Most memoirs, however, tend to flow chronologically. That is, they run through events in the sequence in which they happened. But even a chronological memoir isn't purely chronological since the narrator is now an adult filtering past experiences through the lens of a wiser, more mature person.
Teaching Six-Word Memoirs
Introduce the Six-Word Memoir concept as a way students can describe their life using just two rules: one, they must use six words exactly, and two, they should be words that the students believe to be true and are exclusively their own.
The writer of memoir is a narrator. The reader only knows what the writer narrates. The narrator in memoir must also be the protagonist, the major character in a story with which the audience with identify and champion.
Every memoir has a narrative arc made up of interconnected events (plot) that result in the narrator's internal transformation (character arc). In the beginning, the narrator believes one thing or operates a certain way. In the middle that way of being and believing is tested.
It can be very empowering to write a memoir about yourself, to say that this is what has happened to you and that this is what you've done, to reclaim your experiences for all the world to see. However, that is part of the problem for many memoir writers, at least initially: Everyone will see it.
Can someone sue you for writing a memoir?
Memoirs are perhaps the riskiest type of book to write. Any half-truth, any exaggeration, any snide remark, any salacious assumption about someone, and even something that someone else might find slightly embarrassing can land you in court, and can lead to bankruptcy, even if you win the lawsuit in the end!
Unlike autobiographies and biographies, memoirs focus more on the author's relationship to and feelings about his or her own memories. Memoirs tend to read more like a fiction novel than a factual account, and should include things like dialogue, setting, character descriptions, and more.
What is a Good Memoir Topic? Here is some shocking news: When writing memoir about someone else, your topic is not the person. Your topic is a large, universal theme that will make others want to read about that other person in the context of that theme in your piece or in the book you write.
Others might have secrets to share, or maybe they want to write a memoir to study or understand a situation. Other reasons to write a memoir include to preserve the family's legacy, learn more about the family, search for personal identity, gain some insight into the past, or heal from a traumatic experience.
You can use the real names of those who have given you written permission to do so. But when getting written permission isn't something you can or want to do, it might be easier to change the names of the characters in your memoir. That's it. Simple.
What Are the Benefits of Writing a Memoir? Writing a memoir is beneficial for both the author and the reader. A person who writes a memoir is sharing their life story from their perspective, allowing the reader to understand the author's decisions and actions directly from their point of view.
A memoir is usually a difficult project to start and finish. If you're telling a truthful story, there will be pain, grief, and anger to deal with. Most people do not pick up a pen to write about all the happiness they've experienced.
So, how long does it take to write a memoir? Generally speaking, it is appropriate to think that a memoir-writing project for a book 200- to 300-pages long would take two to three years—or less.
A memoir sticks to the truth
Under no circ*mstances should you lie or exaggerate, no matter how tempting it might be to embellish. Even a tiny exaggeration can shed doubt on the credibility of your memoir. You might also end up the subject of a legal dispute or worse. Always adhere to the truth.
Memoir word count tends to be right there in the same range as novel word count, or 60,000 to 100,000 words. Shorter than that, and you may not have enough substance to truly excite readers, you may not be going deeply enough into your story, or telling enough of it.
Can a memoir be biased?
That's because they are written by the subject, and present the facts based on their own memories of a specific situation, which can be biased. The story covers the author's opinions on specific subjects and provides an account of their feelings as they navigate certain situations.
Short-short memoir essays—those under 2,000 words but more commonly in the under 1,000-words range—go by the term “flash memoir,” or “flash creative nonfiction.”
In chronological order.
A memoir is different from an autobiography in that it is not a book-length recollection of your entire life. When writing about moments from your own life, sometimes the simplest way is to start at the beginning and sequentially work through the order of events from first to last.
Your outline doesn't need to be strict, but it should include a list of key events leading up to and following the climax of your memoir. If you like the idea of outlining, take it a little further. Divide your memoir into chapters and sketch out what you'd like to discuss in each chapter.
A good memoir is novelistic, with an unfolding story line, or plot, and scenes intermixed with narrative. The people in a memoir are referred to as characters, and characters are developed like in a novel, through narrative (description) and scenes (action and dialog set in location).
Nonfiction book titles follow a standard structure: a title, generally 5 words or less, and a subtitle, generally 3 to 7 words. These are simply a rule of thumb; book titles and subtitles can be longer or shorter.
A memoir is a true story of your life, but it should also incorporate the structural elements that make fiction compelling.
A memoir is a focused story about a theme—a topic, an angle the story will take to show important changes in the protagonist—you—and the reason that the story is being told.
You can begin a memoir by giving the reader a peek into what you are thinking now, what you thought then, or what you're thinking now about what happened back then.
When you're writing memoir, you do have to tell the truth. You don't have to get the truth down perfectly, giving some opportunity to fill in the blanks. However, to call it memoir, the story needs to be your best attempt at getting the facts right.
How long should a memoir be?
The length of a memoir for the average person should stay between 50,000 – 60,000 words. Unless you're a Matthew McConaughey writing something to the level of Greenlights (that sits at just over 90,000 words), you can't often get away with writing longer memoirs.
Suggestions for Writing Memoir
Utilize 5 Elements of Memoir: Truth, Theme, Voice, POV, Musing 2. Be with writers.
Don't use the real names of people you speak negatively about. You can use the real names of those who have given you written permission to do so. But when getting written permission isn't something you can or want to do, it might be easier to change the names of the characters in your memoir. That's it.
That's why most unpublished manuscripts are discussed in terms of memoir word count, which gives a much more accurate measure of memoir length than page count. However, rough guidelines are always helpful, so the average memoir length is between 250 and 450 pages.
The writer of memoir is a narrator. The reader only knows what the writer narrates. The narrator in memoir must also be the protagonist, the major character in a story with which the audience with identify and champion.
The Function of Memoirs
A memoir gives an author an opportunity to share what they have learned from specific life experiences. Instead of recording every major life event, a memoir focuses on certain details around a central theme. This approach helps the author find clarity and meaning in their lives.
