A lot of successful people are writing about their life stories. Why not you? And do you write a memoir or an autobiography? Or do you write both an autobiography and memoir? That’s the question!
We all have stories. Yours are likely different from those around you. Your unique experiences have shaped your life. And no matter how you look at it, the way you define yourself and who you want to be is a product of what you have learned, who you surround yourself with, and the circumstances of your life story.
If you are going to get others interested in what you are saying and make them want to learn about you, you will have to get their attention by telling your own story. And that will be so much easier to do if you write a book.
A memoir and an autobiography are great ways to share your story with the world if you have considered writing down your past and preserving it for yourself, friends, family, future generations, and possibly your general readership.
Having your own published book will allow you to instantly boost your credibility, establish your reputation in your field, market your business, and, more importantly—make a valuable contribution to people’s lives.
The question now is: what should you write between an autobiography and memoir? To get started, here’s how to choose between memoirs and autobiographies.
Table of Contents
Memoir vs. Autobiography
Whether you want to write a memoir or an autobiography, there is some crucial difference between a memoir and autobiography. Let’s take a look at autobiography and memoir basics to get started.
What Is a Memoir?
A memoir, also known as the french word mémoire, which means “memory” or “reminisce,” is personal and more intimate than an autobiography. It has wide appeal because it allows an author to use their life experiences to create their own memoir that helps or inspire others.
The genre of memoirs includes a wide range of topics. You can write about your childhood, a significant moment in an author’s life, or any period that has shaped who you are today.
While autobiographies emphasize facts, memoirs, on the other hand, focus on the writer’s emotional truth. Memoirists often play with their memories to tell a good story. That said, memoirs are not bound to strict factual accuracy or chronology rules. For example, Trina Schart Hyman’s illustrated memoir, No One Ever Told Us That, is told in a non-linear manner.
Authors write memoirs so they can be shared and appreciated and should not be dry and lifeless. Memoir authors use their experiences to create a creative and interesting story.
What’s so special about a memoir? Writing a memoir is the ultimate form of self-expression. You can tell your story in your own words. You can tell the world what you know about yourself. And you can write about topics that are meaningful to you and your reader. Memoirs are also a great way to connect with your audience.
Key Traits of a Memoir
- Can be informal, unlike most autobiographies
It doesn’t always need to be written in the first person point of view. If you don’t prefer a first person point of writing, you can even write it in the third person point of view. Memoirs are characterized by a free and personal style with little structure or organization. They tend to be exploratory, self-revealing, and conversational. They are more personal than most autobiographies.
- Memoirs focus more on own memories from childhood or teenage years and feelings than facts
A memoir gives the reader an inside look into the main character’s psyche. A memoir has a tone that reflects your feelings and own memories. In other words, it’s highly subjective. The focus is on how you feel about situations and how a person affected you, not just what you did. The focus is on how you view the person and not just what you experienced with that person.
- Is narrow in scope, can focus on a particular event/experience
With a memoir, you do not give the reader a complete, chronological list of your life. It’s more like a collage of memories than a timeline of events. You highlight the most important incidents that had the most significant impact on your life. It is intimate and concentrates on your personal experience and first person point of view.
- Provides flexibility to make changes in the story for the desired effect
When writing a memoir, you can choose what to include, what to add that is not necessarily true, and what to leave out. It’s not about lying. It’s about compelling storytelling. You may omit, change, or add to the true story’s events, characters, or details. Events may be arranged in the order you find most compelling.
Types of Memoirs
| Travel Memoirs | Some writers have found experiences in their travels to be very interesting things and perhaps even life-changing. This type of memoir focuses on the challenges or difficulties the writer may have faced and overcome through his personal travel adventures. |
| Transformational Memoirs | This is one of the most common primary formats of memoirs. It is about how an experience, an event, or a problem helped shape or transform someone’s life. |
| Public Memoirs | Some people lead very public lives. Public memoirs are suitable for anyone who regularly lives in the public eye, like celebrities. The public memoir aims to help readers get to know the writer more personally than the public lens shows. |
| Professional Memoirs | This is a memoir of the writer’s professional life. It can be written by someone to share one’s experience in his career (i.e., as a public servant, a first-time novelist, an ex-Google employee, etc.). |
| Personal Memoirs | This is the most popular type of memoir. It can be anything that shares a glimpse of a specific event in the main character or writer’s life—a challenging divorce he had to endure, a terminal illness he triumphed over, etc. |
| Confessional Memoirs | Everyone makes wrong decisions or actions. This type of memoir is perfect for sharing how the main character made changes and amends to correct the mistake or how the journey made him a better person that can affect the views of someone else. |
Examples Of Popular Memoirs
- All Over but the Shoutin’ by Rick Bragg
In this memoir, Bragg describes his rough-and-tumble upbringing in rural Alabama, his problems, and his career as a journalist.
- Running for My Life by Lopez Lomong
This memoir is a remarkable account of Lomong’s life story as a boy, his capture by the Sudanese government at age six, his escape, and his life in a Kenyan refugee camp.
- The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
This is a fantastic story about the life of a poor family who moved from a tiny town to another and the struggles they faced to make it. The book tells the story of the Walls’ family and their journey to survive in the wild and make it to adulthood. In the book, the Walls’ parents never had any money, but they managed to make money any way they could. They were very hard-working, which made them successful.
What Is an Autobiography?
An autobiographical account is the account of a person’s life, told in his own words. When you write an autobiography, you are, by definition, an eyewitness to your own life: you were there!
The word autobiography comes from the Greek words auto and graphy, which means “self-writing” or “writing about oneself.” It provides details of the author’s life, including family historical account, relationships, education, and career.
The use of the first person accounts characterizes an autobiography. A person often writes it of note, such as a politician, artist, scientist, or scholar. You can have an autobiography written for any purpose. Also, some authors use it to express their political views or spiritual beliefs. Others use it to promote their products, services, or ideas.
Key Traits of an Autobiography
- More formal and objective than memoirs
Memoirs are personal, whereas autobiographies are written formal accounts of one’s life stories in chronological order. The author’s intention in writing an autobiography is to tell his life story. The author’s personality doesn’t come through in an autobiography. Indeed, they are used to understand events and provide a past record.
- -Focused more on facts and step by step process than emotions
An autobiography covers how one lived one’s life, while a memoir is about how one remembered a person’s entire life. The value of the autobiography is measured by its wealth of information, particularly about the writer and his era. Thus, the reader is likelier to be hooked by what the writer did than by how he felt. Yet, this is not to say that the emotions are not there but are not the primary focus.
- A good autobiography covers a broad scope or timeline, and often covers the author’s entire life stories up to the present day
Autobiographies are more comprehensive in scope than memoirs. A memoir is generally about a shorter and specific time period, like a year, season, or specific event, whereas an autobiography covers the subject’s entire life. It is written chronologically and will start at the subject’s childhood and continue through adulthood. Autobiographies tend to be longer than memoirs.
- A good autobiography requires more extensive fact-checking and research using reference books than memoirs
A memoirist tells his own cohesive story, but an autobiographer re-creates the past, so he’s in a more vulnerable position. He has to be more accurate and more honest than a memoirist. Through meticulous research and other sources, a writer can verify his information about himself, enhancing his story’s credibility.
Types of Autobiography
| Fictional | A fiction book is one of the most common forms of autobiography writing. This is a type of autobiography where the author’s experiences are altered to keep the author’s identity anonymous. |
| Intellectual | An intellectual autobiography explores the writer’s deepest thoughts and how they have changed over time. It’s a journey that has shaped the author into who he is now. |
| Religious | This is is more than just a chronological story-telling of the person’s entire life. The author writes his apparent connection to God through rich detail, which many people can relate to in a spiritual sense. |
| Thematic | The subject’s life is not the main focus of a thematic autobiography but another specific theme/topic. The writer’s goal is to present information unusually and excitingly. |
Autobiography Examples
- Churchill: A Life by Martin Gilbert
This is one of the most popular autobiographies. This is a comprehensive life story of the great statesman, focusing on his time as prime minister during the Second World War.
- The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
This is an interesting and thought-provoking book about a young girl who, along with her family, was forced to live in hiding during World War II. The book, a diary, is based on the actual experiences of Anne Frank.
- Becoming by Michele Obama
“This is a woman who, in the words of one of her friends, ‘is a workaholic.’ She can’t sleep at night.” So begins Michele Obama’s biography of herself, which she wrote for an intended audience of young girls.
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The 1969 book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings chronicles the young and formative years of American author and poet Maya Angelou. This coming-of-age tale, the first of a seven-volume series, shows a true story of how the courage of character and a passion for literature can help people overcome bigotry and tragedy.
Should I Write a Memoir Or an Autobiography?
When you decide to write about the author’s life stories and the lessons you have learned, you have options between memoir and autobiography. Further, a memoir is a personal account of the major events of your life. An autobiography is a detailed chronology of your personal experience.
The main difference between a memoir and autobiography is that a memoir is written to share the author’s experiences. It is intended to teach by example and share life stories or lessons. An autobiography is written to give the reader a more detailed chronology and understanding of the author. It is an attempt to ensure accuracy of the information of the author’s life.
A lot of people think that memoirs and autobiographies are the same things. So, if you still need to understand how they are different from each other, we break memoir and autobiography down for you below:
Key Differences Between Memoirs And Autobiographies
Author Status
Most autobiography writers are either historical figures, influential, famous, high-profile figures, or they have accomplished something that is remarkable or worthy of attention. On the other hand, memoirs can be written even by ordinary, everyday people who have overcome the odds, achieved impressive things, or have had experiences worth reading.
- Organization
Memoirs can jump around in time period to connect different experiences to a larger theme or cover a specific period, while autobiographies are chronologically-written and cover most of the subject’s life.
- Period Covered
A biography is usually an attempt to be comprehensive. It will cover most of the author’s life. On the other hand, memoirists often choose a particularly compelling or important period of their life to write about.
- Focus
Primarily written to inspire, memoirs highlight internal processes and personal experiences to revolve around deeper themes. Also, autobiographies will often include important factual events and facts about a person’s life. They can also be inspiring, but they usually serve to document what happened.
Memoir And Autobiography Comparison Chart
At this point, you may already know which of the two genres you like better. When deciding whether to write a memoir or an autobiography, here are some points to help you choose between the two genres:
- Do you want to retell the story in chronological order? Or, do you want to write more about an idea?
An autobiography is more common if you want to give your reader a full chronological order account of the author’s entire life stories from childhood through the present day. It is a memoir if you choose a specific theme in your life and string together events like a series of short stories.
- What’s more important to the story of your life—facts or emotion?
An autobiography would be a great choice if you want to present “facts” that will be told through specific dates and precise information. On the other hand, if you want to highlight “emotion” where you link events together through feeling, then a memoir is the way to go.
Tips For Writing A Memoir
Choose A Theme
Writing a memoir isn’t as complicated as you might think, and if you pick a theme that’s meaningful to you, you’ll find it easier to express yourself. And the critical thing to remember when writing one is that they’re about your emotional truth, and you want to pick a theme from your life that you care deeply about.
- Focus on the feeling.
To write a good memoir, it’s important to remember that your reader is interested in your memories and emotions, not every tiny detail of an event. It does not have to be heavily fact-laden. And no, you do not have to mention the day and date of every event or even remember it. It is okay to tell what happened, but what you felt about it matters.
Tips On Writing An Autobiography
Decide What hook To Use
- Ask yourself.
What would make people want to read my book? If you’re a famous person, often, that is enough to serve as a hook. If you aren’t, there are many other things that would make your autobiography enticing. Did you work in an industry that is not popular or hasn’t been written about a lot yet? Were you (or are you still) a part of a well-known company or organization that many people are curious about? Did you help create a product that is now loved by many?
- Do extensive research.
Your memories must be accurate, so you must research them meticulously. To make sure you don’t write any significant events or facts wrong, you can talk to old friends, browse the internet, and read your old journals.
Bottomline
In a nutshell, a memoir revolves around a theme in the writer’s life and gives importance to emotions than facts; an autobiography is a fact-based narrative of someone’s life, usually of someone else who’s already a famous person. But both a memoir and an autobiography can give wisdom on how others view and experience the world through someone else’s eyes.
If you decide to create both autobiography and a memoir, it will be a rewarding and enlightening experience that will allow you to reflect on and be proud of your life’s journey thus far and share it with the world. Think of the impact you can give to many people. What do they want to learn? How will it bring value to the world? How does your life make a difference?
If you want your story to be well written and published without going through the challenges of traditional publishing industry, you can turn to self-publishing. Leaders Press works with people like you every day. Whether you do not have the skills to write, the time to spare, or the mental bandwidth to worry about your book, we can help.