memoir vs essay

CRAFT: What’s the Difference Between Memoir and Personal Essay? by Suzanne Farrell Smith

January 11, 2022.

It’s the most common question my creative nonfiction students ask. We know memoir and personal essay overlap. Both tell true stories from the author’s life with intimacy and honesty. And both are crafted with literary devices: scene, dialogue, sensory detail… That’s what makes creative nonfiction compelling. We love true stories and we love to be entertained.

So where do they differ? To answer, I draw from several resources on writing creative nonfiction and illustrate with two Hippocampus pieces. By my measure, memoir and personal essay differ along four lines: focus, mining, voice, and sense.

• Focus on Self vs. Focus on Relating

The memoirist focuses on the self and what has changed over time. Readers may identify— I went through something similar or I changed in the same way —but the memoirist’s driving force is self-exploration.

In the memoir essay “Fits and Starts,” Matthew Zanoni Müller tells a short, significant story about an afternoon in childhood as a relatively new immigrant to the United States. Müller’s friend, David, coaxes him out of the house and into the world. While Müller’s descriptions of David and others are important to the story, we really only know Müller. We are inside his child mind, being pushed, gently, along with him, step by step.

The personal essayist focuses on the self, too, but seeks to relate. Where, in culture, place, and time, does her story fit in? Which of her questions do others ask? Accordingly, we talk about personal essay’s “universal theme.” The writer paints herself against the backdrop of humanity.

Linda Anne Silver announces the universal with her title, “The Capacity of a Human.” In the wake of her daughter’s death, Silver searches for a new normal that incorporates profound grief. With her husband, she travels around Lake Superior, and along the way gains insight from novelists, fellow travelers, parents of children who’ve died in mass tragedies, and the lake itself.

• Memory Mining vs. Experiential Mining

My boys love the game Minecraft, gathering materials to build underwater palaces and schools in the sky. Where you mine determines what you find. The same goes for writing. The memoirist “relies almost solely on memory,” writes Sue William Silverman in “The Meandering River.” He mines his mind, perhaps consults artifacts from his past.

In Müller’s memoir, all the important details, the who-and-what and beginning-middle-end, come from the author’s memory. “Mostly we’d play with cars,” he recalls, “arranging them in a long line and driving them slowly down the hallway toward the bedroom, moving each one forward an inch at a time.” Müller remembers how playtime mirrored the halting way he adapted to the U.S. “ Autoschlange , I called it, and my friend understood what it meant, because his father was German too.”

The personal essayist mines her memory, too, but also mines the landscape of her evolving life. She collects data and processes in-the-moment interactions.

Silver writes, “I examine things and snap photos, acting as a tourist.” We understand she is not just examining flora, fauna, and food, but also the circumstances, the places hope might surface. She draws from the novel Grief is the Thing with Feathers to understand “the crow of grief had moved in with us when Allison was first diagnosed.” She sets herself apart from “[t]he parents of Newtown or Manchester or Aleppo” while associating with all parents who’ve lost a child. She even researches on the page: “I try Googling, ‘Ontario stone piles,’ on my phone, but there’s no signal here.”

• Voices vs. Voice

Memoir contains multiple voices, including, at minimum, the voices of the past self and present self (what Sue William Silverman calls “song of innocence” and “song of experience”). Voices speak to readers, who reply. Someone who knows a memoirist might say, I had no idea that happened to you .

Müller’s memoir is entirely from his young self’s point of view. That big world he was persuaded to explore? A car, a grocery store, David’s house… places that, to a child in a new country, loomed large. “I was happy,” Müller’s child-voice writes, “because I knew that … soon we’d come back down and around the block and I’d be home again.” Moments later, as his child voice considers turning back, his adult voice offers meaning: “I didn’t want to compromise the heroic feelings I had just earned.”

In personal essay, one voice dominates. The narrator is a current version of the author who opines, worries, delights, fears. Friends might listen and say, I had no idea you felt that way .

Silver wrestles with herself. “Our daughter’s death feels like a failure,” she admits, “as if we weren’t paying attention when danger stalked.” She notices beauty for the first time since the death, then wonders how she’ll ever find it again. She questions, doubts, and guesses, seemingly in real time. There’s no divide between innocence and experience: the song is both.

• Past Sense vs. Present Sense

Memoir conveys a sense of the past, even if the events happened recently. The author has emerged and looks back to articulate meaning. Whether written in past or present tense, what’s palpable is the past sense . The author asks, what happened?

Müller signals the past sense with his opening line: “The first couple years we were in America…” It’s a before-time story, one that proved pivotal in some way. The author can examine the past because his life is different now. To underscore, Müller uses the past real conditional tense: “We’d play under the shadows of the cherry trees.” Memoirists use this tense to convey the general past in a way that feels both fresh and wistful.

In personal essay, there’s a sense things aren’t buttoned up. The author writes not to articulate meaning, but to find meaning in the first place. Personal essay feels open, like a thought experiment. The author asks, what is happening?

Silver’s first paragraph lists inspirations for her trip, ending with, “the need comes after our fifty-year-old daughter dies on a midsummer’s morning and we are numb: wanting to flee the sadness, not knowing how to move forward.” She’s in limbo: “I don’t know the answer, don’t know how I should grieve.” She repeatedly questions. About a missed chance to see the northern lights, she wonders, “Had we seen them, I might have latched on to the experience as a sign of—what? Hope? Resolution? Transformation?”

It’s true that memoir and personal essay often blend. New, hybrid forms emerge. Undefinable forms. So why draw lines between them?

I tell my students that understanding is power; when you get into your writing workshop, sharpen your tools, practice your craft moves, shape your piece . If we know what makes a memoir, we can push that much deeper into our past, search for the particular nerve that will animate our past selves, give us ah-ha insights. And if we know what makes a personal essay, we can reach that much wider into the tangle of free-floating human stories, search for, maybe even find, connections that change everything.

References and Resources:

• Faulkner, Sandra L., and Sheila Squillante. Writing the Personal: Getting Your Stories onto the Page . Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Brill | Sense, 2016.
• Miller, Brenda, and Suzanne Paola. Tell It Slant: Writing and Shaping Creative Nonfiction. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2005.
• Müller, Matthew Zanoni. “ Fits and Starts .” Hippocampus Magazine (December 2013).
• Silver, Linda Anne. “ The Capacity of a Human .” Hippocampus Magazine (May 2020).
• Silverman, Sue William. “The Meandering River.” The Writer’s Chronicle (September 2008).

Meet the Contributor

  2 comments for “ CRAFT: What’s the Difference Between Memoir and Personal Essay? by Suzanne Farrell Smith ”

This was so helpful, I even took notes! Thank you for writing this.

As fabulous as ever, Suzanne. Love, Aunt Mary

Share a Comment Cancel reply

Contributor updates.

Alumni & Contributor Updates: Summer 2024

Alumni & Contributor Updates: Early 2024

Contributor Updates: Fall 2023

Contributor & Alumni Updates: Spring 2023

If you’ve thought about putting your life to the page, you may have wondered how to write a memoir. We start the road to writing a memoir when we realize that a story in our lives demands to be told. As Maya Angelou once wrote, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

How to write a memoir? At first glance, it looks easy enough—easier, in any case, than writing fiction. After all, there is no need to make up a story or characters, and the protagonist is none other than you.

Still, memoir writing carries its own unique challenges, as well as unique possibilities that only come from telling your own true story. Let’s dive into how to write a memoir by looking closely at the craft of memoir writing, starting with a key question: exactly what is a memoir?

How to Write a Memoir: Contents

What is a Memoir?

• Memoir vs Autobiography

Memoir Examples

Short memoir examples.

• How to Write a Memoir: A Step-by-Step Guide

A memoir is a branch of creative nonfiction , a genre defined by the writer Lee Gutkind as “true stories, well told.” The etymology of the word “memoir,” which comes to us from the French, tells us of the human urge to put experience to paper, to remember. Indeed, a memoir is “ something written to be kept in mind .”

A memoir is defined by Lee Gutkind as “true stories, well told.”

For a piece of writing to be called a memoir, it has to be:

• Nonfictional
• Based on the raw material of your life and your memories
• Written from your personal perspective

At this point, memoirs are beginning to sound an awful lot like autobiographies. However, a quick comparison of Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love , and The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin , for example, tells us that memoirs and autobiographies could not be more distinct.

Next, let’s look at the characteristics of a memoir and what sets memoirs and autobiographies apart. Discussing memoir vs. autobiography will not only reveal crucial insights into the process of writing a memoir, but also help us to refine our answer to the question, “What is a memoir?”

Memoir vs. Autobiography

While both use personal life as writing material, there are five key differences between memoir and autobiography:

1. Structure

Since autobiographies tell the comprehensive story of one’s life, they are more or less chronological. writing a memoir, however, involves carefully curating a list of personal experiences to serve a larger idea or story, such as grief, coming-of-age, and self-discovery. As such, memoirs do not have to unfold in chronological order.

While autobiographies attempt to provide a comprehensive account, memoirs focus only on specific periods in the writer’s life. The difference between autobiographies and memoirs can be likened to that between a CV and a one-page resume, which includes only select experiences.

The difference between autobiographies and memoirs can be likened to that between a CV and a one-page resume, which includes only select experiences.

Autobiographies prioritize events; memoirs prioritize the writer’s personal experience of those events. Experience includes not just the event you might have undergone, but also your feelings, thoughts, and reflections. Memoir’s insistence on experience allows the writer to go beyond the expectations of formal writing. This means that memoirists can also use fiction-writing techniques , such as scene-setting and dialogue , to capture their stories with flair.

4. Philosophy

Another key difference between the two genres stems from the autobiography’s emphasis on facts and the memoir’s reliance on memory. Due to memory’s unreliability, memoirs ask the reader to focus less on facts and more on emotional truth. In addition, memoir writers often work the fallibility of memory into the narrative itself by directly questioning the accuracy of their own memories.

Memoirs ask the reader to focus less on facts and more on emotional truth.

5. Audience

While readers pick up autobiographies to learn about prominent individuals, they read memoirs to experience a story built around specific themes . Memoirs, as such, tend to be more relatable, personal, and intimate. Really, what this means is that memoirs can be written by anybody!

Ready to be inspired yet? Let’s now turn to some memoir examples that have received widespread recognition and captured our imaginations!

If you’re looking to lose yourself in a book, the following memoir examples are great places to begin:

• The Year of Magical Thinking , which chronicles Joan Didion’s year of mourning her husband’s death, is certainly one of the most powerful books on grief. Written in two short months, Didion’s prose is urgent yet lucid, compelling from the first page to the last. A few years later, the writer would publish Blue Nights , another devastating account of grief, only this time she would be mourning her daughter.
• Patti Smith’s Just Kids is a classic coming-of-age memoir that follows the author’s move to New York and her romance and friendship with the artist Robert Maplethorpe. In its pages, Smith captures the energy of downtown New York in the late sixties and seventies effortlessly.
• When Breath Becomes Air begins when Paul Kalanithi, a young neurosurgeon, is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Exquisite and poignant, this memoir grapples with some of the most difficult human experiences, including fatherhood, mortality, and the search for meaning.
• A memoir of relationship abuse, Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House is candid and innovative in form. Machado writes about thorny and turbulent subjects with clarity, even wit. While intensely personal, In the Dream House is also one of most insightful pieces of cultural criticism.
• Twenty-five years after leaving for Canada, Michael Ondaatje returns to his native Sri Lanka to sort out his family’s past. The result is Running in the Family , the writer’s dazzling attempt to reconstruct fragments of experiences and family legends into a portrait of his parents’ and grandparents’ lives. (Importantly, Running in the Family was sold to readers as a fictional memoir; its explicit acknowledgement of fictionalization prevented it from encountering the kind of backlash that James Frey would receive for fabricating key facts in A Million Little Pieces , which he had sold as a memoir . )
• Of the many memoirs published in recent years, Tara Westover’s Educated is perhaps one of the most internationally-recognized. A story about the struggle for self-determination, Educated recounts the writer’s childhood in a survivalist family and her subsequent attempts to make a life for herself. All in all, powerful, thought-provoking, and near impossible to put down.

While book-length memoirs are engaging reads, the prospect of writing a whole book can be intimidating. Fortunately, there are plenty of short, essay-length memoir examples that are just as compelling.

While memoirists often write book-length works, you might also consider writing a memoir that’s essay-length. Here are some short memoir examples that tell complete, lived stories, in far fewer words:

• “ The Book of My Life ” offers a portrait of a professor that the writer, Aleksandar Hemon, once had as a child in communist Sarajevo. This memoir was collected into Hemon’s The Book of My Lives , a collection of essays about the writer’s personal history in wartime Yugoslavia and subsequent move to the US.
• “The first time I cheated on my husband, my mother had been dead for exactly one week.” So begins Cheryl Strayed’s “ The Love of My Life ,” an essay that the writer eventually expanded into the best-selling memoir, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail .
• In “ What We Hunger For ,” Roxane Gay weaves personal experience and a discussion of The Hunger Games into a powerful meditation on strength, trauma, and hope. “What We Hunger For” can also be found in Gay’s essay collection, Bad Feminist .
• A humorous memoir structured around David Sedaris and his family’s memories of pets, “ The Youth in Asia ” is ultimately a story about grief, mortality and loss. This essay is excerpted from the memoir Me Talk Pretty One Day , and a recorded version can be found here .

So far, we’ve 1) answered the question “What is a memoir?” 2) discussed differences between memoirs vs. autobiographies, 3) taken a closer look at book- and essay-length memoir examples. Next, we’ll turn the question of how to write a memoir.

How to Write a Memoir: A-Step-by-Step Guide

1. how to write a memoir: generate memoir ideas.

how to start a memoir? As with anything, starting is the hardest. If you’ve yet to decide what to write about, check out the “ I Remember ” writing prompt. Inspired by Joe Brainard’s memoir I Remember , this prompt is a great way to generate a list of memories. From there, choose one memory that feels the most emotionally charged and begin writing your memoir. It’s that simple! If you’re in need of more prompts, our Facebook group is also a great resource.

2. How to Write a Memoir: Begin drafting

My most effective advice is to resist the urge to start from “the beginning.” Instead, begin with the event that you can’t stop thinking about, or with the detail that, for some reason, just sticks. The key to drafting is gaining momentum . Beginning with an emotionally charged event or detail gives us the drive we need to start writing.

3. How to Write a Memoir: Aim for a “ shitty first draft ”

Now that you have momentum, maintain it. Attempting to perfect your language as you draft makes it difficult to maintain our impulses to write. It can also create self-doubt and writers’ block. Remember that most, if not all, writers, no matter how famous, write shitty first drafts.

Attempting to perfect your language as you draft makes it difficult to maintain our impulses to write.

4. How to Write a Memoir: Set your draft aside

Once you have a first draft, set it aside and fight the urge to read it for at least a week. Stephen King recommends sticking first drafts in your drawer for at least six weeks. This period allows writers to develop the critical distance we need to revise and edit the draft that we’ve worked so hard to write.

5. How to Write a Memoir: Reread your draft

While reading your draft, note what works and what doesn’t, then make a revision plan. While rereading, ask yourself:

• What’s underdeveloped, and what’s superfluous.
• Does the structure work?
• What story are you telling?

6. How to Write a Memoir: Revise your memoir and repeat steps 4 & 5 until satisfied

Every piece of good writing is the product of a series of rigorous revisions. Depending on what kind of writer you are and how you define a draft,” you may need three, seven, or perhaps even ten drafts. There’s no “magic number” of drafts to aim for, so trust your intuition. Many writers say that a story is never, truly done; there only comes a point when they’re finished with it. If you find yourself stuck in the revision process, get a fresh pair of eyes to look at your writing.

7. How to Write a Memoir: Edit, edit, edit!

Once you’re satisfied with the story, begin to edit the finer things (e.g. language, metaphor , and details). Clean up your word choice and omit needless words , and check to make sure you haven’t made any of these common writing mistakes . Be sure to also know the difference between revising and editing —you’ll be doing both. Then, once your memoir is ready, send it out !

Learn How to Write a Memoir at Writers.com

Writing a memoir for the first time can be intimidating. But, keep in mind that anyone can learn how to write a memoir. Trust the value of your own experiences: it’s not about the stories you tell, but how you tell them. Most importantly, don’t give up!

Anyone can learn how to write a memoir.

If you’re looking for additional feedback, as well as additional instruction on how to write a memoir, check out our schedule of nonfiction classes . Now, get started writing your memoir!

32 Comments

Thank you for this website. It’s very engaging. I have been writing a memoir for over three years, somewhat haphazardly, based on the first half of my life and its encounters with ignorance (religious restrictions, alcohol, and inability to reach out for help). Three cities were involved: Boston as a youngster growing up and going to college, then Washington DC and Chicago North Shore as a married woman with four children. I am satisfied with some chapters and not with others. Editing exposes repetition and hopefully discards boring excess. Reaching for something better is always worth the struggle. I am 90, continue to be a recital pianist, a portrait painter, and a writer. Hubby has been dead for nine years. Together we lept a few of life’s chasms and I still miss him. But so far, my occupations keep my brain working fairly well, especially since I don’t smoke or drink (for the past 50 years).

Hi Mary Ellen,

It sounds like a fantastic life for a memoir! Thank you for sharing, and best of luck finishing your book. Let us know when it’s published!

Best, The writers.com Team

Hello Mary Ellen,

I am contacting you because your last name (Lavelle) is my middle name!

Being interested in genealogy I have learned that this was my great grandfathers wife’s name (Mary Lavelle), and that her family emigrated here about 1850 from County Mayo, Ireland. That is also where my fathers family came from.

Is your family background similar?

Hope to hear back from you.

Richard Lavelle Bourke

Hi Mary Ellen: Have you finished your memoir yet? I just came across your post and am seriously impressed that you are still writing. I discovered it again at age 77 and don’t know what I would do with myself if I couldn’t write. All the best to you!! Sharon [email protected]

I am up to my eyeballs with a research project and report for a non-profit. And some paid research for an international organization. But as today is my 90th birthday, it is time to retire and write a memoir.

So I would like to join a list to keep track of future courses related to memoir / creative non-fiction writing.

Hi Frederick,

Happy birthday! And happy retirement as well. I’ve added your name and email to our reminder list for memoir courses–when we post one on our calendar, we’ll send you an email.

We’ll be posting more memoir courses in the near future, likely for the months of January and February 2022. We hope to see you in one!

Very interesting and informative, I am writing memoirs from my long often adventurous and well travelled life, have had one very short story published. Your advice on several topics will be extremely helpful. I write under my schoolboy nickname Barnaby Rudge.

[…] How to Write a Memoir: Examples and a Step-by-Step Guide […]

I am writing my memoir from my memory when I was 5 years old and now having left my birthplace I left after graduation as a doctor I moved to UK where I have been living. In between I have spent 1 year in Canada during my training year as paediatrician. I also spent nearly 2 years with British Army in the hospital as paediatrician in Germany. I moved back to UK to work as specialist paediatrician in a very busy general hospital outside London for the next 22 years. Then I retired from NHS in 2012. I worked another 5 years in Canada until 2018. I am fully retired now

I have the whole convoluted story of my loss and horrid aftermath in my head (and heart) but have no clue WHERE, in my story to begin. In the middle of the tragedy? What led up to it? Where my life is now, post-loss, and then write back and forth? Any suggestions?

My friend Laura who referred me to this site said “Start”! I say to you “Start”!

Hi Dee, that has been a challenge for me.i dont know where to start?

What was the most painful? Embarrassing? Delicious? Unexpected? Who helped you? Who hurt you? Pick one story and let that lead you to others.

I really enjoyed this writing about memoir. I ve just finished my own about my journey out of my city then out of my country to Egypt to study, Never Say Can’t, God Can Do It. Infact memoir writing helps to live the life you are writing about again and to appreciate good people you came across during the journey. Many thanks for sharing what memoir is about.

I went to Egypt earlier this year. I aspire for my second book to document and tell the story of my travels of Africa, following the first – a memoir that led me to this post.

I am a survivor of gun violence, having witnessed my adult son being shot 13 times by police in 2014. I have struggled with writing my memoir because I have a grandson who was 18-months old at the time of the tragedy and was also present, as was his biological mother and other family members. We all struggle with PTSD because of this atrocity. My grandson’s biological mother was instrumental in what happened and I am struggling to write the story in such a way as to not cast blame – thus my dilemma in writing the memoir. My grandson was later adopted by a local family in an open adoption and is still a big part of my life. I have considered just writing it and waiting until my grandson is old enough to understand all the family dynamics that were involved. Any advice on how I might handle this challenge in writing would be much appreciated.

I decided to use a ghost writer, and I’m only part way in the process and it’s worth every penny!

Hi. I am 44 years old and have had a roller coaster life .. right as a young kid seeing his father struggle to financial hassles, facing legal battles at a young age and then health issues leading to a recent kidney transplant. I have been working on writing a memoir sharing my life story and titled it “A memoir of growth and gratitude” Is it a good idea to write a memoir and share my story with the world?

Thank you… this was very helpful. I’m writing about the troubling issues of my mental health, and how my life was seriously impacted by that. I am 68 years old.

[…] Writers.com: How to Write a Memoir […]

[…] Writers.com: “How to Write a Memoir” […]

I am so grateful that I found this site! I am inspired and encouraged to start my memoir because of the site’s content and the brave people that have posted in the comments.

Finding this site is going into my gratitude journey 🙂

We’re grateful you found us too, Nichol! 🙂

Firstly, I would like to thank you for all the info pertaining to memoirs. I believe am on the right track, am at the editing stage and really have to use an extra pair of eyes. I’m more motivated now to push it out and complete it. Thanks for the tips it was very helpful, I have a little more confidence it seeing the completion.

Well, I’m super excited to begin my memoir. It’s hard trying to rely on memories alone, but I’m going to give it a shot!

Thanks to everyone who posted comments, all of which have inspired me to get on it.

Best of luck to everyone! Jody V.

I was thrilled to find this material on How to Write A Memoir. When I briefly told someone about some of my past experiences and how I came to the United States in the company of my younger brother in a program with a curious name, I was encouraged by that person and others to write my life history.

Based on the name of that curious program through which our parents sent us to the United States so we could leave the place of our birth, and be away from potentially difficult situations in our country.

As I began to write my history I took as much time as possible to describe all the different steps that were taken. At this time – I have been working on this project for 5 years and am still moving ahead. The information I received through your material has further encouraged me to move along. I am very pleased to have found this important material. Thank you!

Wow! This is such an informative post packed with tangible guidance. I poured my heart into a book. I’ve been a professional creative for years to include as a writer, mainly in the ad game and content. No editor. I wasn’t trying to make it as an author. Looking back, I think it’s all the stuff I needed to say. Therapy. Which does not, in and of itself, make for a coherent book. The level of writing garnering praise, but the book itself was a hot mess. So, this is helpful. I really put myself out there, which I’ve done in many areas, but the crickets response really got to me this time. I bought “Educated” as you recommended. Do you have any blog posts on memoirs that have something to say to the world, finding that “something” to say? It feels like that’s theme, but perhaps something more granular. Thanks for this fantastic post. If I had the moola, I would sign up for a class. Your time is and effort is appreciated. Typos likely on comments! LOL

thanks. God bless

I am a member of the “Reprobates”, a group of seven retired Royal Air Force pilots and navigators which has stayed in intermittent touch since we first met in Germany in 1969. Four of the group (all of whom are in their late seventies or early eighties) play golf together quite frequently, and we all gather for reunions once or twice a year. About a year ago, one of the Reprobates suggested posterity might be glad to hear the stories told at these gatherings, and there have since been two professionally conducted recording sessions, one in London, and one in Tarifa, Spain. The instigator of these recordings forwarded your website to his fellow Reprobates by way of encouragement to put pen to paper. And, I, for one, have found it inspiring. It’s high time I made a start on my Memoirs, thank you.

Thank you for sharing this, Tim! Happy writing!

Hi, I’m Jo. I’m finally jumping in and writing the memoir that has been running alongside me for at least the last 5 years. I’m terrified, of what I’m not 100% sure. The story won’t leave me alone and right now is the time to start my first draft. I’m approaching half way through what nature may call natural life on Earth, mid-life sounds strange to say. It just feels like the right time to document the journey thus far – especially the last decade. It’s been a radical time for transformation, internally and externally. I’m afraid but your post and these comments have helped.

Good luck on your memoir, Jo! I’m excited to hear more.

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

The Personal Memoir

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

Because the personal memoir is more demanding than the personal essay, for both writer and reader, it doesn’t fit into introductory courses as well as the personal essay. An intermediate level course is a good place to introduce the memoir. However, if the instructor takes the time to explain and introduce the memoir form, it can be adapted for introductory courses.

Difference Between the Personal Essay and the Memoir

While the personal essay can be about almost anything, the memoir tends to discuss past events. Memoir is similar to the personal essay, except that the memoir tends to focus more on striking or life-changing events. The personal essay can be a relatively light reflection about what’s going on in your life right now.

Where the personal essay explores, free from any need to interpret, the memoir interprets, analyzes, and seeks the deeper meaning beneath the surface experience of particular events. The memoir continually asks the following questions:

• Why was this event of particular significance?
• What did it mean?
• Why is it important?

In this sense, the memoir is heavier than the personal essay, and it mines the past to shed light on the present. The memoir seeks to make sense of an individual life. The questions that are left unanswered in Wole Soyinka’s essay from the personal essay resource, Why do I Fast? are answered in the memoir.

Generating Ideas for Personal Memoirs

Moore’s memoir exercise from The Truth of the Matter: Art and Craft in Creative Nonfiction is useful in both beginning and intermediate courses:

“Make a list of six to ten events or circumstances in your own life, or the lives of those very close to you, that still provoke your curiosity. Mine your own life for the events and circumstances that still raise questions in your mind. Once you have the list (and this list should be private - don’t share it with others - and don’t hold back because you think someone else will be looking), pick one of the questions on the list that you are willing to explore.“

The potential questions Moore asks in this exercise are meant to be answered in the memoir. While the memoir tries to make sense of experience, it also shares something in common with the personal essay - the exploration of the question, and the process of trying to arrive at an answer, is at least as important as the answer or resolution you may arrive at.

Writing the memoir is not a simple Q & A with yourself; rather, the complicated process of trying to seek the answers is what makes the memoir engaging to write, and read. Here is an example from Carlos Fuentes’ How I Started to Write :

Fuentes is constantly questioning and answering, interpreting and analyzing his experience, trying to make sense of why and how he did what he did in order to become a writer. He seeks answers and tries to make sense of his life by interpreting his own experience, the cultural and political life of his time, the meaning of language and literary influence, and by stepping over imagined nationalist borders.

The Difference between an Essay and a Memoir

If you're writing an essay, you're most likely a student, a scholar, or a writer. If you're writing a memoir, you've experienced a significant event and you want to tell the story of it in your own voice and from your own perspective. Some essays fit the definition of a memoir, but not all memoirs fit the definition of an essay.

What is an Essay?

An essay is a short, informative piece of writing. Essays are usually five or more paragraphs long with an introductory paragraph, a body of at least three paragraphs, and a conclusion paragraph. Essays are written on all kinds of topics, from science to history to literature.

There are four basic types of essays: persuasive, descriptive, expository, and narrative. A narrative essay told from the writer's first-person point of view would be considered a short memoir.

What is A Memoir?

A memoir is an accounting of an event or time period told by a person with first-hand experience or from sources close to those who do. In this way, it is a very similar type of writing as an autobiography.

Memoirs are sometimes autobiographical, which means that they are written by people telling their own story. However, memoirs are different than an actual autobiography in that they cover only a particular time period instead of discussing the writer's life overall. Published autobiographies are usually written by historical figures and famous people, but very popular memoirs have been written by people about their travels, their experiences during war, and the ways in which they overcame certain hardships.

A memoir is usually structured using a timeline of events. Like any essay, a memoir is likely to include an introduction, a body of writing, and a conclusion. The conclusion in a memoir is most often a reflection on the writer's experience with the benefit of hindsight as well as some discussion on the writer's life since the time period the memoirs covers ended.

What to Write?

If you want to research and write a short paper on the first moon landing, an expository or descriptive essay will be fine. If you want to write a narrative, first-person essay about watching the first moon landing on television as it happened, you need to have been alive and tuned in on July 20, 1969. If you want to write a memoir about experiencing that event yourself, your name should be Neil Armstrong or Buzz Aldrin.

• Search Menu

Sign in through your institution

• Browse content in Arts and Humanities
• Browse content in Archaeology
• Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Archaeology
• Archaeological Methodology and Techniques
• Archaeology by Region
• Archaeology of Religion
• Archaeology of Trade and Exchange
• Biblical Archaeology
• Contemporary and Public Archaeology
• Environmental Archaeology
• Historical Archaeology
• History and Theory of Archaeology
• Industrial Archaeology
• Landscape Archaeology
• Mortuary Archaeology
• Prehistoric Archaeology
• Underwater Archaeology
• Zooarchaeology
• Browse content in Architecture
• Architectural Structure and Design
• History of Architecture
• Residential and Domestic Buildings
• Theory of Architecture
• Browse content in Art
• Art Subjects and Themes
• History of Art
• Industrial and Commercial Art
• Theory of Art
• Biographical Studies
• Byzantine Studies
• Browse content in Classical Studies
• Classical History
• Classical Philosophy
• Classical Mythology
• Classical Numismatics
• Classical Literature
• Classical Reception
• Classical Art and Architecture
• Classical Oratory and Rhetoric
• Greek and Roman Papyrology
• Greek and Roman Epigraphy
• Greek and Roman Law
• Greek and Roman Archaeology
• Late Antiquity
• Religion in the Ancient World
• Social History
• Digital Humanities
• Browse content in History
• Colonialism and Imperialism
• Diplomatic History
• Environmental History
• Genealogy, Heraldry, Names, and Honours
• Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing
• Historical Geography
• History by Period
• History of Emotions
• History of Agriculture
• History of Education
• History of Gender and Sexuality
• Industrial History
• Intellectual History
• International History
• Labour History
• Legal and Constitutional History
• Local and Family History
• Maritime History
• Military History
• National Liberation and Post-Colonialism
• Oral History
• Political History
• Public History
• Regional and National History
• Revolutions and Rebellions
• Slavery and Abolition of Slavery
• Social and Cultural History
• Theory, Methods, and Historiography
• Urban History
• World History
• Browse content in Language Teaching and Learning
• Language Learning (Specific Skills)
• Language Teaching Theory and Methods
• Browse content in Linguistics
• Applied Linguistics
• Cognitive Linguistics
• Computational Linguistics
• Forensic Linguistics
• Grammar, Syntax and Morphology
• Historical and Diachronic Linguistics
• History of English
• Language Evolution
• Language Reference
• Language Acquisition
• Language Variation
• Language Families
• Lexicography
• Linguistic Anthropology
• Linguistic Theories
• Linguistic Typology
• Phonetics and Phonology
• Psycholinguistics
• Sociolinguistics
• Translation and Interpretation
• Writing Systems
• Browse content in Literature
• Bibliography
• Children's Literature Studies
• Literary Studies (Romanticism)
• Literary Studies (American)
• Literary Studies (Asian)
• Literary Studies (European)
• Literary Studies (Eco-criticism)
• Literary Studies (Modernism)
• Literary Studies - World
• Literary Studies (1500 to 1800)
• Literary Studies (19th Century)
• Literary Studies (20th Century onwards)
• Literary Studies (African American Literature)
• Literary Studies (British and Irish)
• Literary Studies (Early and Medieval)
• Literary Studies (Fiction, Novelists, and Prose Writers)
• Literary Studies (Gender Studies)
• Literary Studies (Graphic Novels)
• Literary Studies (History of the Book)
• Literary Studies (Plays and Playwrights)
• Literary Studies (Poetry and Poets)
• Literary Studies (Postcolonial Literature)
• Literary Studies (Queer Studies)
• Literary Studies (Science Fiction)
• Literary Studies (Travel Literature)
• Literary Studies (War Literature)
• Literary Studies (Women's Writing)
• Literary Theory and Cultural Studies
• Mythology and Folklore
• Shakespeare Studies and Criticism
• Browse content in Media Studies
• Browse content in Music
• Applied Music
• Dance and Music
• Ethics in Music
• Ethnomusicology
• Gender and Sexuality in Music
• Medicine and Music
• Music Cultures
• Music and Media
• Music and Religion
• Music and Culture
• Music Education and Pedagogy
• Music Theory and Analysis
• Musical Scores, Lyrics, and Libretti
• Musical Structures, Styles, and Techniques
• Musicology and Music History
• Performance Practice and Studies
• Race and Ethnicity in Music
• Sound Studies
• Browse content in Performing Arts
• Browse content in Philosophy
• Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art
• Epistemology
• Feminist Philosophy
• History of Western Philosophy
• Metaphysics
• Moral Philosophy
• Non-Western Philosophy
• Philosophy of Language
• Philosophy of Mind
• Philosophy of Perception
• Philosophy of Science
• Philosophy of Action
• Philosophy of Law
• Philosophy of Religion
• Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic
• Practical Ethics
• Social and Political Philosophy
• Browse content in Religion
• Biblical Studies
• Christianity
• East Asian Religions
• History of Religion
• Judaism and Jewish Studies
• Qumran Studies
• Religion and Education
• Religion and Health
• Religion and Politics
• Religion and Science
• Religion and Law
• Religion and Art, Literature, and Music
• Religious Studies
• Browse content in Society and Culture
• Cookery, Food, and Drink
• Cultural Studies
• Customs and Traditions
• Ethical Issues and Debates
• Hobbies, Games, Arts and Crafts
• Natural world, Country Life, and Pets
• Popular Beliefs and Controversial Knowledge
• Sports and Outdoor Recreation
• Technology and Society
• Travel and Holiday
• Visual Culture
• Browse content in Law
• Arbitration
• Browse content in Company and Commercial Law
• Commercial Law
• Company Law
• Browse content in Comparative Law
• Systems of Law
• Competition Law
• Browse content in Constitutional and Administrative Law
• Government Powers
• Judicial Review
• Local Government Law
• Military and Defence Law
• Parliamentary and Legislative Practice
• Construction Law
• Contract Law
• Browse content in Criminal Law
• Criminal Procedure
• Criminal Evidence Law
• Sentencing and Punishment
• Employment and Labour Law
• Environment and Energy Law
• Browse content in Financial Law
• Banking Law
• Insolvency Law
• History of Law
• Human Rights and Immigration
• Intellectual Property Law
• Browse content in International Law
• Private International Law and Conflict of Laws
• Public International Law
• IT and Communications Law
• Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law
• Law and Politics
• Law and Society
• Browse content in Legal System and Practice
• Courts and Procedure
• Legal Skills and Practice
• Legal System - Costs and Funding
• Primary Sources of Law
• Regulation of Legal Profession
• Medical and Healthcare Law
• Browse content in Policing
• Criminal Investigation and Detection
• Police and Security Services
• Police Procedure and Law
• Police Regional Planning
• Browse content in Property Law
• Personal Property Law
• Restitution
• Study and Revision
• Terrorism and National Security Law
• Browse content in Trusts Law
• Wills and Probate or Succession
• Browse content in Medicine and Health
• Browse content in Allied Health Professions
• Arts Therapies
• Clinical Science
• Dietetics and Nutrition
• Occupational Therapy
• Operating Department Practice
• Physiotherapy
• Radiography
• Speech and Language Therapy
• Browse content in Anaesthetics
• General Anaesthesia
• Clinical Neuroscience
• Browse content in Clinical Medicine
• Acute Medicine
• Cardiovascular Medicine
• Clinical Genetics
• Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics
• Dermatology
• Endocrinology and Diabetes
• Gastroenterology
• Genito-urinary Medicine
• Geriatric Medicine
• Infectious Diseases
• Medical Toxicology
• Medical Oncology
• Pain Medicine
• Palliative Medicine
• Rehabilitation Medicine
• Respiratory Medicine and Pulmonology
• Rheumatology
• Sleep Medicine
• Sports and Exercise Medicine
• Community Medical Services
• Critical Care
• Emergency Medicine
• Forensic Medicine
• Haematology
• History of Medicine
• Browse content in Medical Skills
• Clinical Skills
• Communication Skills
• Nursing Skills
• Surgical Skills
• Browse content in Medical Dentistry
• Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
• Paediatric Dentistry
• Restorative Dentistry and Orthodontics
• Surgical Dentistry
• Medical Ethics
• Medical Statistics and Methodology
• Browse content in Neurology
• Clinical Neurophysiology
• Neuropathology
• Nursing Studies
• Browse content in Obstetrics and Gynaecology
• Gynaecology
• Occupational Medicine
• Ophthalmology
• Otolaryngology (ENT)
• Browse content in Paediatrics
• Neonatology
• Browse content in Pathology
• Chemical Pathology
• Clinical Cytogenetics and Molecular Genetics
• Histopathology
• Medical Microbiology and Virology
• Patient Education and Information
• Browse content in Pharmacology
• Psychopharmacology
• Browse content in Popular Health
• Caring for Others
• Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• Self-help and Personal Development
• Browse content in Preclinical Medicine
• Cell Biology
• Molecular Biology and Genetics
• Reproduction, Growth and Development
• Primary Care
• Professional Development in Medicine
• Browse content in Psychiatry
• Addiction Medicine
• Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• Forensic Psychiatry
• Learning Disabilities
• Old Age Psychiatry
• Psychotherapy
• Browse content in Public Health and Epidemiology
• Epidemiology
• Public Health
• Browse content in Radiology
• Clinical Radiology
• Interventional Radiology
• Nuclear Medicine
• Radiation Oncology
• Reproductive Medicine
• Browse content in Surgery
• Cardiothoracic Surgery
• Gastro-intestinal and Colorectal Surgery
• General Surgery
• Neurosurgery
• Paediatric Surgery
• Peri-operative Care
• Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
• Surgical Oncology
• Transplant Surgery
• Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery
• Vascular Surgery
• Browse content in Science and Mathematics
• Browse content in Biological Sciences
• Aquatic Biology
• Biochemistry
• Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
• Developmental Biology
• Ecology and Conservation
• Evolutionary Biology
• Genetics and Genomics
• Microbiology
• Molecular and Cell Biology
• Natural History
• Plant Sciences and Forestry
• Research Methods in Life Sciences
• Structural Biology
• Systems Biology
• Zoology and Animal Sciences
• Browse content in Chemistry
• Analytical Chemistry
• Computational Chemistry
• Crystallography
• Environmental Chemistry
• Industrial Chemistry
• Inorganic Chemistry
• Materials Chemistry
• Medicinal Chemistry
• Mineralogy and Gems
• Organic Chemistry
• Physical Chemistry
• Polymer Chemistry
• Study and Communication Skills in Chemistry
• Theoretical Chemistry
• Browse content in Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Computer Architecture and Logic Design
• Game Studies
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Mathematical Theory of Computation
• Programming Languages
• Software Engineering
• Systems Analysis and Design
• Virtual Reality
• Browse content in Computing
• Business Applications
• Computer Security
• Computer Games
• Computer Networking and Communications
• Digital Lifestyle
• Graphical and Digital Media Applications
• Operating Systems
• Browse content in Earth Sciences and Geography
• Atmospheric Sciences
• Environmental Geography
• Geology and the Lithosphere
• Maps and Map-making
• Meteorology and Climatology
• Oceanography and Hydrology
• Palaeontology
• Physical Geography and Topography
• Regional Geography
• Soil Science
• Urban Geography
• Browse content in Engineering and Technology
• Agriculture and Farming
• Biological Engineering
• Civil Engineering, Surveying, and Building
• Electronics and Communications Engineering
• Energy Technology
• Engineering (General)
• Environmental Science, Engineering, and Technology
• History of Engineering and Technology
• Mechanical Engineering and Materials
• Technology of Industrial Chemistry
• Transport Technology and Trades
• Browse content in Environmental Science
• Applied Ecology (Environmental Science)
• Conservation of the Environment (Environmental Science)
• Environmental Sustainability
• Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Environmental Science)
• Management of Land and Natural Resources (Environmental Science)
• Natural Disasters (Environmental Science)
• Nuclear Issues (Environmental Science)
• Pollution and Threats to the Environment (Environmental Science)
• Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Environmental Science)
• History of Science and Technology
• Browse content in Materials Science
• Ceramics and Glasses
• Composite Materials
• Metals, Alloying, and Corrosion
• Nanotechnology
• Browse content in Mathematics
• Applied Mathematics
• Biomathematics and Statistics
• History of Mathematics
• Mathematical Education
• Mathematical Finance
• Mathematical Analysis
• Numerical and Computational Mathematics
• Probability and Statistics
• Pure Mathematics
• Browse content in Neuroscience
• Cognition and Behavioural Neuroscience
• Development of the Nervous System
• Disorders of the Nervous System
• History of Neuroscience
• Invertebrate Neurobiology
• Molecular and Cellular Systems
• Neuroendocrinology and Autonomic Nervous System
• Neuroscientific Techniques
• Sensory and Motor Systems
• Browse content in Physics
• Astronomy and Astrophysics
• Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
• Biological and Medical Physics
• Classical Mechanics
• Computational Physics
• Condensed Matter Physics
• Electromagnetism, Optics, and Acoustics
• History of Physics
• Mathematical and Statistical Physics
• Measurement Science
• Nuclear Physics
• Particles and Fields
• Plasma Physics
• Quantum Physics
• Relativity and Gravitation
• Semiconductor and Mesoscopic Physics
• Browse content in Psychology
• Affective Sciences
• Clinical Psychology
• Cognitive Psychology
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Criminal and Forensic Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Educational Psychology
• Evolutionary Psychology
• Health Psychology
• History and Systems in Psychology
• Music Psychology
• Neuropsychology
• Organizational Psychology
• Psychological Assessment and Testing
• Psychology of Human-Technology Interaction
• Psychology Professional Development and Training
• Research Methods in Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Browse content in Social Sciences
• Browse content in Anthropology
• Anthropology of Religion
• Human Evolution
• Medical Anthropology
• Physical Anthropology
• Regional Anthropology
• Social and Cultural Anthropology
• Theory and Practice of Anthropology
• Browse content in Business and Management
• Business Ethics
• Business Strategy
• Business History
• Business and Technology
• Business and Government
• Business and the Environment
• Comparative Management
• Corporate Governance
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Entrepreneurship
• Health Management
• Human Resource Management
• Industrial and Employment Relations
• Industry Studies
• Information and Communication Technologies
• International Business
• Knowledge Management
• Management and Management Techniques
• Operations Management
• Organizational Theory and Behaviour
• Pensions and Pension Management
• Public and Nonprofit Management
• Social Issues in Business and Management
• Strategic Management
• Supply Chain Management
• Browse content in Criminology and Criminal Justice
• Criminal Justice
• Criminology
• Forms of Crime
• International and Comparative Criminology
• Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice
• Development Studies
• Browse content in Economics
• Agricultural, Environmental, and Natural Resource Economics
• Asian Economics
• Behavioural Finance
• Behavioural Economics and Neuroeconomics
• Econometrics and Mathematical Economics
• Economic History
• Economic Systems
• Economic Methodology
• Economic Development and Growth
• Financial Markets
• Financial Institutions and Services
• General Economics and Teaching
• Health, Education, and Welfare
• History of Economic Thought
• International Economics
• Labour and Demographic Economics
• Law and Economics
• Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics
• Microeconomics
• Public Economics
• Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics
• Welfare Economics
• Browse content in Education
• Adult Education and Continuous Learning
• Care and Counselling of Students
• Early Childhood and Elementary Education
• Educational Equipment and Technology
• Educational Strategies and Policy
• Higher and Further Education
• Organization and Management of Education
• Philosophy and Theory of Education
• Schools Studies
• Secondary Education
• Teaching of a Specific Subject
• Teaching of Specific Groups and Special Educational Needs
• Teaching Skills and Techniques
• Browse content in Environment
• Applied Ecology (Social Science)
• Climate Change
• Conservation of the Environment (Social Science)
• Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Social Science)
• Management of Land and Natural Resources (Social Science)
• Natural Disasters (Environment)
• Pollution and Threats to the Environment (Social Science)
• Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Social Science)
• Sustainability
• Browse content in Human Geography
• Cultural Geography
• Economic Geography
• Political Geography
• Browse content in Interdisciplinary Studies
• Communication Studies
• Museums, Libraries, and Information Sciences
• Browse content in Politics
• African Politics
• Asian Politics
• Chinese Politics
• Comparative Politics
• Conflict Politics
• Elections and Electoral Studies
• Environmental Politics
• Ethnic Politics
• European Union
• Foreign Policy
• Gender and Politics
• Human Rights and Politics
• Indian Politics
• International Relations
• International Organization (Politics)
• Irish Politics
• Latin American Politics
• Middle Eastern Politics
• Political Behaviour
• Political Economy
• Political Institutions
• Political Methodology
• Political Communication
• Political Philosophy
• Political Sociology
• Political Theory
• Politics and Law
• Politics of Development
• Public Policy
• Public Administration
• Qualitative Political Methodology
• Quantitative Political Methodology
• Regional Political Studies
• Russian Politics
• Security Studies
• State and Local Government
• UK Politics
• US Politics
• Browse content in Regional and Area Studies
• African Studies
• Asian Studies
• East Asian Studies
• Japanese Studies
• Latin American Studies
• Middle Eastern Studies
• Native American Studies
• Scottish Studies
• Browse content in Research and Information
• Research Methods
• Browse content in Social Work
• Addictions and Substance Misuse
• Adoption and Fostering
• Care of the Elderly
• Child and Adolescent Social Work
• Couple and Family Social Work
• Direct Practice and Clinical Social Work
• Emergency Services
• Human Behaviour and the Social Environment
• International and Global Issues in Social Work
• Mental and Behavioural Health
• Social Justice and Human Rights
• Social Policy and Advocacy
• Social Work and Crime and Justice
• Social Work Macro Practice
• Social Work Practice Settings
• Social Work Research and Evidence-based Practice
• Welfare and Benefit Systems
• Browse content in Sociology
• Childhood Studies
• Community Development
• Comparative and Historical Sociology
• Disability Studies
• Economic Sociology
• Gender and Sexuality
• Gerontology and Ageing
• Health, Illness, and Medicine
• Marriage and the Family
• Migration Studies
• Occupations, Professions, and Work
• Organizations
• Population and Demography
• Race and Ethnicity
• Social Theory
• Social Movements and Social Change
• Social Research and Statistics
• Social Stratification, Inequality, and Mobility
• Sociology of Religion
• Sociology of Education
• Sport and Leisure
• Urban and Rural Studies
• Browse content in Warfare and Defence
• Defence Strategy, Planning, and Research
• Land Forces and Warfare
• Military Administration
• Military Life and Institutions
• Naval Forces and Warfare
• Other Warfare and Defence Issues
• Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution
• Weapons and Equipment

• < Previous chapter
• Next chapter >

[1] What Memoir is, and What it is not

• Published: January 2012
• Cite Icon Cite
• Permissions Icon Permissions

This chapter assesses the meaning of the slippery term “memoir” and why it has become the preferred term for literary life writing. It locates memoir within the context of a media constellation that represents the lives of actual human beings: portraiture, both painted and photographic; documentary films and biopics; oral anecdotes and family lore; blogs and electronic diaries; social media like Facebook; the obituary and death notice; the scrapbook, and so on. Unlike the novel, memoir is the literary face of a very common and fundamental human activity: the narration of our lives in our own terms. It is rooted in deep human needs, desires, and habitual practices. Nearly everyone engages in some form of this. So while it is not well understood as a literary enterprise, it is found all around us, all the time.

Personal account

• Sign in with email/username & password
• Get email alerts
• Save searches
• Purchase content
• Activate your purchase/trial code
• Add your ORCID iD

Institutional access

Sign in with a library card.

• Sign in with username/password
• Recommend to your librarian
• Institutional account management
• Get help with access

Access to content on Oxford Academic is often provided through institutional subscriptions and purchases. If you are a member of an institution with an active account, you may be able to access content in one of the following ways:

IP based access

Typically, access is provided across an institutional network to a range of IP addresses. This authentication occurs automatically, and it is not possible to sign out of an IP authenticated account.

Choose this option to get remote access when outside your institution. Shibboleth/Open Athens technology is used to provide single sign-on between your institution’s website and Oxford Academic.

• Click Sign in through your institution.
• Select your institution from the list provided, which will take you to your institution's website to sign in.
• When on the institution site, please use the credentials provided by your institution. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.
• Following successful sign in, you will be returned to Oxford Academic.

If your institution is not listed or you cannot sign in to your institution’s website, please contact your librarian or administrator.

Enter your library card number to sign in. If you cannot sign in, please contact your librarian.

Society Members

Society member access to a journal is achieved in one of the following ways:

Sign in through society site

Many societies offer single sign-on between the society website and Oxford Academic. If you see ‘Sign in through society site’ in the sign in pane within a journal:

• Click Sign in through society site.
• When on the society site, please use the credentials provided by that society. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.

If you do not have a society account or have forgotten your username or password, please contact your society.

Sign in using a personal account

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members. See below.

A personal account can be used to get email alerts, save searches, purchase content, and activate subscriptions.

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members.

Viewing your signed in accounts

Click the account icon in the top right to:

• View your signed in personal account and access account management features.
• View the institutional accounts that are providing access.

Signed in but can't access content

Oxford Academic is home to a wide variety of products. The institutional subscription may not cover the content that you are trying to access. If you believe you should have access to that content, please contact your librarian.

For librarians and administrators, your personal account also provides access to institutional account management. Here you will find options to view and activate subscriptions, manage institutional settings and access options, access usage statistics, and more.

Our books are available by subscription or purchase to libraries and institutions.

• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Rights and permissions
• Accessibility
• Advertising
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• Cookie settings
• Cookie policy
• Privacy policy
• Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

The Many Forms of Your Memoir—Which is Best For You?

Articles , Denis Ledoux | 7 comments

Your memoir can take many forms. What most people think of when they think of a memoir is perhaps the long memoir that reads like a novel. That’s how most memoirs in a bookstore or library read—or at least aspire to. A well-written novel-like memoir can engross the reader for a few hundred pages. The long novel-like form is definitely a great achievement for a memoirist, but it is not the only form that spells a successful completion for the writer and a satisfying read for an audience.

This post offers three alternate forms of the memoir.

1. The memoir as an anthology of your lifestories “A memoir anthology?” you ask. “I’ve never heard the term before—unless you mean a collection of excerpts of other people’s memoirs.” That’s not what I mean. A memoir anthology is best thought of as analogous to a fiction anthology which is a collection of short stories. The collected stories of an author are usually grouped around a character or a theme. The stories are linked through sequencing that is often chronological or through recurring images and references. A collection of lifestories compiled in this way to make a statement can be an alternate—and possibly quicker— way of writing a memoir.

Is a memoir anthology easier to write? It may be because you do not have to concern yourself with creating transition stories or transition paragraphs. The long memoir seeks unity among its various components, but the memoir anthology need not do so.

Of course, the novel-like memoir—like every long piece of writing—is in some way an anthology of bits and pieces. Certainly as we compose a long memoir, we write here and there and everywhere in our story’s trajectory. Usually it is only later that we begin to order the lifestories and vignettes so that the ninth piece we wrote goes before the third piece and the first piece written gets placed somewhere after the eleventh, etc. To join these pieces, we write transition stories and paragraphs. The reader does not sense the chaotic order of composition nor does the reader sense how the stories were linked as indeed they were with much effort.

What I am calling a memoir anthology is different from the novel-like memoir. The individual stories have an inner unity, but the anthology itself does not have to. In a novel-like memoir, writers impose a stylistic unity to their story to give the reader a unified experience of the book. In a memoir anthology, the writer has no concern with that. In fact, the writer may even have purposefully written in different styles, and the reader, rather than finding this disturbing, may find it fascinating. The memoir anthology is a great repository for stories written over many years that don’t easily fit together—other than they are about you or about a common theme.

2. The Memoir as a short book—or booklet It is permissible and even sometimes the best choice to write a short memoir. People get stuck wanting to write a “real book.” Too often, people interpret a “real” book—a “real” memoir—as being a long book. A short book, for the record, is completely fine. By short, I mean something as short as five to fifteen thousand words. This can work well when you want to write about distinct periods of your life without worrying about how to tie the various periods together. In that way a short book is like a memoir anthology except that it is its individual stories that are published. The short memoir, of course, can be published in a small hard-copy book, but with today’s technology, this short memoir is a sure thing for an electronic format. If you are thinking of writing additional books, the short memoir will make an excellent “loss leader” item. Oftentimes, distribution media such as Amazon.com or Smashwords will allow you to offer a book for free. This increases the book’s downloads and so is an excellent teaser to attract a reader to a longer book or to a series. Your short memoir—whose subject matter lent itself to brevity—therefore can be an excellent tool for bringing a reader to a larger piece or body of work. Having said this, I also want to underline that it is perfectly all right to want to write a 5,000-to-fifteen-thousand word memoir and have that be the end goal.

My own “The Nice-Nice Club Holds Its Last Meeting” is only 7,000 words long. I feel it has an integrity that is not compromised by its brevity.

3. A third alternate is the personal essay. The personal essay is different from the standard memoir in that the memoir is generally axed on story and character while the personal essay is usually focused on some idea: religion, money, relationship, art, etc. The personal essay is about the author’s thoughts and intellectual positions rather than the author’s trajectory through life. A personal essay generally addresses the reader’s mind whereas the memoir can be said to address the heart. Is the personal essay based on autobiography an easier form to write than the memoir? I would not readily say so. Instead, I would say that the personal essay is simply another sensibility. Recently I read Somewhere Near The End by Diana Athill. This collection of (what I call) personal essays is marketed as a memoir—such is the great attraction force today of the memoir label!, but I would not call it that. Athill, who was 89 at the time of composition, writes about growing old, about her childhood, about sexuality in her relationships, about her approach to career, and so forth. The book does not attempt to cover whole periods of Athill’s life. We learn much about the author through the years, but the presentation is in not comprehensive nor is it an experience of walking a mile in the writer’s shoes. Instead, we are served ideas, but these ideas do add to a slice of the writer’s life.

My Send Off I am not even going to go into other alternatives like the scrapbook or multi-media or the visual presentations to preserve one’s lifestory. Instead, I will continue to encourage you to think of a memoir as having many possible forms. It can be a long, novel-like book or it can be something different: a memoir anthology, a short piece, or a collection of personal essays. I urge you to preserve your story in whatever form feels now most comfortable. Remember it is not about the form. It is about the legacy.

Action steps

1. Look at the piece you are currently working on. Is it really best as a full-length memoir or should it be broken down into memoir lifestories that could then be organized in an anthology form? 2. Go through your computer documents and look for bits and pieces, possibly fits and starts, and ask if you may have in the shorter documents the pieces you need to create an memoir anthology or a very short memoir of some 15,000-more-or-less-word memoir. 3. Or do you find yourself interested in exploring your relationship to ideas? Perhaps you prefer personal essays which are more intellectual than the memoir but if based on autobiography, can be a more fluid form for what you want to share.

Interesting concepts. Presently I am writing, and almost completed, a memoir of my childhood as an Army brat. Although the book has some overriding themes dealing with discipline, child abuse, losing friends, changing locations and schools, it also has chapters figuring different vignettes such as my family’s experiences with the German and Japanese maids, travels to different tourist destinations, and dealing with the German peoples after World War II. The book is over 70,000 words and counting even though I and my writers’ group have done a lot of editing on it. Right now I am incorporating ideas from nonfiction books dealing with themes in military families. It has helped me realize that I wasn’t alone dealing with these issues.

Denis, I find these ideas so intriguing, and exciting! I have the snippets and computer files you speak of. Writing long-form memoir seems so daunting, and I much prefer slice of life, and your anthology suggestion. Very motivating. @Barbara Fiefield, I was an Air Force daughter, and can relate to the themes you mention, and write about the, as we’ll. Will very much like to read your work.

Interesting concepts for sure. I once thought of my memoir as a series of essays on the process of grief. I organized it and presented to an agent. She told me to go back, see myself a the heroine and create a narrative arch. It was hard work but I think the work i better. Linda Joy was an invaluable help in this process.

She told me that unless I were famous she could not cell my essays.

Now I struggle with structure.

What are your suggestions for getting a personal essay of 7000 words published? Most possibilities on Submittable, for example, limit the word count to around 3000. I have seen a few for 5000. My short memoir/personal essay is about my experience with domestic violence. I’m very happy with the final product but am struggling to find out how to get it published. Thank you.

Elaine, I, too, have written a personal essay of about 7,000 words. I am curious if you have had any success getting it published as that is a goal for my manuscript. Best, William

No progress other than refining my work. I still haven’t found a potential source for publishing or even entering a contest for a “short memoir”. Mine is just under 7000 words and I know it would be well received if I could just find the right home for it.

I am ready to submit a “short memoir”, approximately 7000 words, on my experience with domestic violence. Where can I submit it? I’ve found possibilities, but they all seem to limit the word count to 3000. I found one or two limiting at 5000. Mine needs to stay as it is. Any suggestions would be very welcome!

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

• Start Writing Your Memoir with These Two Activities – - […] Whether you plan to write the classic novel-type memoir or experiment with other forms like the memoir anthology, memoir…

Submit a Comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Subscribe the NAMW Newsletter

Join our mailing list to receive the latest news and updates from our team. You will also receive MINING YOUR MEMORIES FOR STORIES writing tips for free.

You have Successfully Subscribed!

Privacy overview.

Subscribe To Our Newsletter

Join our mailing list to receive the latest news and updates from NAMW.

What Is a Memoir? Definition & 15+ Examples

Ever wondered how your life would read if it were a book? Welcome to the world of memoirs, the literary realm where life imitates art and personal tales echo universal truths.

Unraveling the threads of human experience, memoirs invite us into the intimate corners of a person’s world, offering a lens into their most transformative moments. They’re not just about recounting facts but about painting vibrant pictures of the human journey.

Buckle up for an exploration of memoirs and the remarkable ways they thread together the individual and the universal, the specific and the profound.

Table of Contents

Defining Memoir

A memoir is a form of creative nonfiction that enables an author to tell their personal story or share experiences in an artful and engaging manner. Generally derived from the French word “mémoire” (meaning memory or reminiscence), memoirs differ from autobiographies in that they focus on specific events or periods of the author’s life instead of presenting an extensive, chronological account.

Memoirs are highly subjective, allowing writers to examine their own lives through the lens of personal experiences and emotions. This leads to a more intimate portrayal of their stories, potentially resonating with readers on a deeper level.

Typically, memoirs tackle themes of identity , relationships , growth , and change , often borrowing stylistic elements from fiction.

Memoir vs. Autobiography vs. Biography

When you’re exploring the world of personal writing, it’s essential to understand the distinctions between memoir, autobiography, and biography. Each type of writing delves into a person’s life but with different approaches and intentions.

A memoir focuses on a specific aspect or time period in the author’s life, offering a personal and emotional glimpse into their experiences. As a memoir writer, you will share your unique perspective, allowing your readers to connect and empathize with your journey. Memoirs tend to be more emotional and reflective than autobiographies and biographies.

An autobiography is a comprehensive account of the author’s entire life, written by the subject themselves. As an autobiography writer, your task is to provide a factual and chronological account of your life, from birth to the present or at a specific point in time.

Unlike memoirs and biographies, autobiographies emphasize the personal perspective of the subject, offering a unique firsthand account of their life story.

A biography is a detailed account of another person’s life written by someone other than the subject. When writing a biography, your focus is on researching and presenting the facts of your subject’s life, often using sources like interviews, letters, and archives.

As a biographer, you aim to create an accurate, engaging, and informative representation of your subject’s life story. Biographies tend to be less personal and emotional than memoirs and autobiographies, focusing mainly on facts and events.

To summarize:

History of Memoir

Memoir, as a form of writing, has a long and varied history. It allows you to delve into the thoughts, experiences, and emotions of the writer, offering an intimate perspective on their life and the events that shaped them.

One of the earliest known memoirs is Julius Caesar’s “Commentaries on the Gallic War,” written in 50 BCE . As a politician and general, Caesar documented his military campaigns, giving insight into the strategies and decisions that led to his conquests. This work set a precedent for future memoirists, who would also detail their exploits in politics, war, and other arenas.

In the 19th century , the genre evolved to focus more on individual experiences and self-reflection. Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden” (1854) is a notable example, as it chronicles his two-year experiment in simple living in a cabin near Walden Pond. Thoreau’s exploration of his connection with nature and society is a testament to the power of memoir in revealing one’s innermost thoughts and motivations.

The 20th century brought even more diversity to the genre with the likes of Ernest Hemingway’s “A Moveable Feast” (1964), a posthumous collection of the author’s memories of his time among the expatriate community in 1920s Paris.

Tripping on the intersecting lives of fellow writers such as Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein , the memoir paints a vivid picture of the Jazz Age’s artistic milieu.

Another influential work from this period is George Orwell’s “Homage to Catalonia” (1938), which documents his experiences fighting on the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War. The combination of Orwell’s journalistic skills and personal involvement in the conflict results in a gripping account that highlights the complexities of a divided Spain and the ideological struggles that defined the 1930s.

As you can discern, memoirs offer unique insights into the lives of extraordinary individuals. By reading these diverse accounts, you gain a deeper understanding of the world’s rich tapestry of experiences, which has shaped the course of human history.

Functions of Memoir

Memoir is a reflection of personal history.

A memoir allows you to share your life experiences and memories. In doing so, you reflect on your personal history and the events that have shaped who you are today. This process of reflection can lead to a greater understanding and appreciation of your past and your role in it, as well as the lessons learned and wisdom gained.

Memoir Has Therapeutic Effects

Writing a memoir often has therapeutic effects on the author. It can serve as a means for processing painful or unresolved experiences, allowing you to gain new insights and perspectives on your life. Through this process, you may find a sense of healing and personal growth that you may not have achieved otherwise.

Memoir Educates

A memoir can educate readers about different times, cultures, and ways of life. By sharing your personal experiences and memories, you can provide a unique window into a world that others may not have had the opportunity to experience themselves. Your memoir can engage readers in a way that traditional education methods may not, making your story an invaluable learning resource.

Memoir Inspires

Your memoir can inspire others to persevere and overcome challenges in their own lives. By sharing your resilience, determination, and growth, you may help readers find the strength and motivation to face their struggles and pursue their dreams. Your life experiences may also inspire others to take action, change their perspectives, or pursue new opportunities.

Memoir Preserves Legacy

Writing a memoir is a way to preserve your legacy and ensure your story lives on for future generations. Through your memoir, you can pass down your experiences, values, and beliefs, allowing readers to learn from your life and appreciate the inheritance of wisdom and knowledge you have provided.

Memoir Encourages Dialogue

By sharing your memoir, you invite readers into an open dialogue about the shared human experience. This dialogue can foster understanding, stimulate discussion, and promote introspection among readers, encouraging them to engage in meaningful conversations about their own lives and experiences.

Memoir Cultivates Empathy

Reading a memoir exposes you to the thoughts, feelings, and emotions of the author. By delving into someone else’s life, you develop a better understanding of their experiences and an increased ability to empathize with others. This heightened empathy can lead you to connect more deeply with those around you, fostering a sense of compassion and humanity.

Memoir Reveals Truth

Memoir writing often reveals personal truths and realities that may have remained hidden or misunderstood. By sharing your story, you expose your vulnerabilities, triumphs, and fears, inviting readers to embrace your authentic self.

Through the process of writing and sharing your memoir, you allow others to gain insights into your life and discover the genuine experiences that lie beneath the surface.

Characteristics of Memoir

Memoir is personal.

A memoir is a personal account of your life experiences and memories. It allows you to delve into your own history, exploring the events, emotions, and characters that have shaped your journey. These memories can be vividly detailed, giving readers a sense of intimacy and connection with your story.

Memoir Is Reflective

In a memoir, you not only recount your memories but also reflect on their meaning. This involves examining your beliefs, emotions, and reactions and considering how your experiences have shaped your character and choices.

Reflective writing helps readers understand the significance of your memoir, providing depth and insight into your life.

Memoir Is Truthful

Honesty is an essential aspect of a memoir. Your goal is to convey the truth of your experiences, thoughts, and feelings, not to create a fictional story. While memories may be imperfect, strive to be as accurate and genuine as possible. This transparency lends credibility to your memoir and deepens the reader’s connection with your story.

Memoir Is Focused

A memoir should have a clear, focused theme or central idea. This could be a particular phase of your life, a significant relationship, or a life-changing event. By concentrating on a specific aspect of your life, you can create a cohesive narrative that engages and informs readers.

Memoir Has a Narrative Arc

While a memoir is based on your memories and experiences, it should still follow a narrative structure. A narrative arc includes a beginning , middle , and end , with a clear progression of events, conflicts, and resolutions. This helps to propel your story forward, keeping readers invested in your journey.

Memoir Is Detailed

To create a vivid and captivating memoir, include specific sensory details that evoke memories and emotions. Consider sights, smells, sounds, tastes, and textures when recounting your experiences. These details not only paint a rich, immersive picture but also make your story more relatable and memorable for readers.

Memoir Is Evocative

A successful memoir elicits reactions and emotions from the reader, creating a deep connection to your story. Use vivid language and authentic emotions to convey the essence of your experiences, allowing readers to feel what you felt and empathize with your journey.

Memoir Offers Insight

As you recount your experiences, consider the lessons you’ve learned and the insights you’ve gained. By sharing your unique perspective and personal revelations, you offer readers a valuable window into your world, encouraging them to reflect on their own lives and experiences.

Memoir Is Immersive

Your memoir should draw readers into your world, allowing them to experience your life as you lived it. Provide context for your memories, such as historical or cultural backdrop, so that readers better understand your experiences. By fully immersing your readers in your world, your memoir becomes a more enriching and engaging experience.

Memoir Is Transformative

A powerful memoir not only recounts your memories and emotions but also illustrates your growth and transformation. Address the impact of your experiences and the ways in which they have shaped your beliefs, values, or identity. This journey of personal growth resonates with readers, making your memoir a transformative reading experience.

Elements of Memoir

Personal perspective.

In a memoir, you share your personal experiences and perspectives. This form of writing allows you to delve into your memories and connect with your readers on a deeper level. You need to be open about your thoughts, feelings, and perceptions in order to create an engaging and authentic story.

Narrative Structure

Your memoir should have a clear narrative structure with a beginning , middle , and end . This will help your readers follow your story and understand the progression of your experiences. Use chronological order, or experiment with non-linear timelines, flashbacks, or parallel storylines to add depth to your narrative.

Reflection and Insight

Reflection is key in a memoir. You should examine the meaning behind your experiences and the lessons you learned from them. By exploring your memories, you can gain insight into your past and present self. This process of self-discovery can be enlightening for both you and your readers.

A memoir requires honesty and transparency. Be open about your feelings, thoughts, and actions, even if it makes you vulnerable. By being truthful, you will create a strong connection with your readers and allow them to empathize with your experiences.

Vivid Details

In your writing, include vivid details to capture the essence of your experiences. Use descriptive language to paint a clear picture of the events and settings of your story. By doing this, you will allow your readers to immerse themselves in your world fully.

Dialogue plays a crucial role in bringing your memoir to life. Use authentic conversations to enhance your narrative and reveal aspects of your relationships with other characters. Ensure that your dialogue sounds natural and reflects the emotions and personalities of the characters involved.

A strong theme can give your memoir a sense of purpose and direction. Identify the central theme or overarching message you want to convey through your story. This could be related to personal growth, relationships, overcoming adversity, or other aspects of your life.

Character Development

Your characters should be well-developed and multidimensional. Show the complexities of their personalities, emotions, and motivations. Focus on both their strengths and weaknesses, and demonstrate how they evolved over time. Remember to treat yourself as a character as well, and display your growth throughout the memoir.

Set the stage for your narrative by describing the settings in which your experiences took place. Provide clear, detailed descriptions that help your readers visualize the locations and understand their importance in your story.

Conflict drives any compelling narrative, and your memoir should be no exception. Address the conflicts you faced, whether they were internal or external. Show how you confronted these challenges, and illustrate the impact they had on your life.

Structure of Memoir

Introduction.

When writing a memoir, you should start with an engaging introduction that sets the stage for your narrative and draws readers in. Use descriptive language and vivid imagery to establish the setting, characters, and context.

In the exposition, provide background information about your life, including key moments and characters. This helps readers understand your story and connects them to your experiences. Organize your exposition around themes or milestones to maintain a consistent narrative.

Inciting Incident

Identify the inciting incident — the event or situation that prompts you to tell your story. This event should hook the reader’s interest and set your memoir in motion, revealing the purpose behind your narrative.

Rising Action

During the rising action, build tension and drama by recounting events that lead up to the climax. Develop your characters and their relationships, share memorable anecdotes, and explore the emotional impact of these experiences on your life.

Reach the climax, or turning point, in your memoir. This moment should be emotionally charged, presenting a conflict or challenge that you must overcome. The climax is a critical part of the narrative, as it demonstrates personal growth and transformation.

Falling Action

Detail the events that follow the climax in the falling action. Show the consequences of your choices and explore how you grapple with the aftermath of the climax. This section should begin to wrap up your narrative while illustrating the lessons learned.

In the resolution, wrap up the main storyline and resolve any lingering conflicts or questions. Reflect on the journey you’ve shared, and explain how your experiences have shaped the person you are today.

Take time to reflect on the impact of your memoir and the lessons you’ve learned. Delve into your feelings and thoughts, and share how your life has changed as a result of your experiences.

Epilogue (optional)

An optional epilogue can be included to provide an update on your life or the lives of the characters in your memoir. It offers a sense of closure and allows readers to see how your story continues to unfold.

Themes of Memoir

Coming of age.

In this memoir theme, you write about your transformation from childhood to adulthood, focusing on pivotal moments that shaped your character and beliefs. You can explore various experiences, friendships, and learnings that helped you grow into the person you are today.

The theme of identity allows you to delve deep into your personal history, exploring how your cultural, ethnic, or religious background has shaped your life. This theme often tackles your struggles and milestones, as well as your acceptance and pride regarding your unique identity.

Survival-themed memoirs explore stories of resilience, whether in the face of adversity, trauma, or challenges. You can share your experiences of overcoming obstacles and the lessons learned through perseverance and determination.

Healing and Recovery

Memoirs with a healing and recovery theme display a journey toward inner peace and overcoming struggles with physical or emotional challenges. You can delve into your experiences navigating the healing process with honesty and vulnerability.

Love and Relationships

This theme focuses on the different relationships that have played a significant role in your life. You can write about romantic encounters, friendships, and family bonds you’ve shared over the years, along with the triumphs and tribulations that come with forming connections.

Journey and Transformation

Journey and transformation memoirs chronicle significant life changes and experiences that contributed to your growth. You can explore personal discoveries, epiphanies, or impactful events that transformed your view of the world or yourself.

Struggle and Resilience

By writing about personal struggles and resilience, you can share honest and raw accounts of the challenges you’ve faced and how you’ve overcome them. You can reveal the resilience and inner strength that carried you through difficult times.

Search for Meaning or Purpose

In this theme, you can express your inner quest to find meaning or purpose in life. You can share your philosophical reflections, spiritual awakenings, or life-changing lessons learned through personal search or exploration.

Cultural or Social Commentary

Cultural or social commentary memoirs give you the opportunity to discuss your personal experiences in a broader societal context. You can address issues of cultural identity, social norms, or broader historical events that affected you and your community.

Loss and Grief

A memoir about loss and grief provides an opportunity to explore the emotions and struggles you’ve faced in times of sorrow. You can share your journey of grief, the memories of your loved ones, and the impact they had on your life.

Types of Memoir

Personal memoir.

In a personal memoir, you focus on your own life experiences and emotions. You dive into specific moments, relationships, and challenges that have shaped your identity. Personal memoirs often reveal intimate details about a person’s life and thoughts as they recount those events.

Portrait Memoir

A portrait memoir focuses on the life of someone else. You, as the writer, can observe and reflect on the person’s experiences and give an account of their life, allowing readers to have a better understanding of that individual. It can be about someone you know closely or an admired figure you studied.

Coming-Of-Age Memoir

A coming-of-age memoir revolves around your journey from childhood to adulthood. It usually deals with major life events and transformations you face during adolescence. These memoirs often provide insights into the societal and cultural aspects of the time that influenced your growth and development.

Spiritual Quest Memoir

A spiritual quest memoir details your journey exploring spirituality and seeking meaningful answers to life’s biggest questions. It usually entails experiences with religious practices, beliefs, or spiritual teachers and the lessons learned from those encounters.

Travel Memoir

Travel memoirs are all about your adventures in different places. They involve your experiences and reflections while exploring new locations, cultures, and ways of living. These memoirs often provide vivid descriptions of the places you’ve visited, allowing readers to feel like they’re experiencing those journeys alongside you.

Confessional Memoir

A confessional memoir is characterized by its raw honesty and openness about your inner thoughts and darkest secrets. You share your emotions and vulnerabilities, allowing readers to connect with your personal challenges and triumphs. It can be therapeutic for the writer and provide comfort for the reader who may relate to those experiences.

Political Memoir

A political memoir covers your life in connection to your political career or beliefs. It focuses on your role in shaping or observing pivotal political events and movements during your lifetime. These memoirs offer a unique behind-the-scenes perspective on historical events and the individuals involved.

Public or Celebrity Memoir

Public or celebrity memoirs are written by or about well-known figures, exploring their lives and the experiences that led to their rise to fame or prominence. These memoirs often reveal previously untold stories and personal insights that help paint a more complete picture of the public figure.

Examples of Memoirs in Different Formats

Memoirs in books, film and television, graphic memoirs, memoirs in music, importance of memoir, memoir is a gateway to empathy.

Reading memoirs allows you to walk in another person’s shoes and glimpse their life experiences. By delving into their stories, you can develop empathy and better understand the challenges and emotions they have faced.

Memoir Provides Insight

Memoirs offer insights into the author’s thought processes, choices, and motivations. As you read, you may gain valuable lessons and inspiration that can be applied to your own life or the lives of those around you.

Memoir Acts as A Historical Record

Memoirs serve as personal accounts of historical events, providing a unique perspective that may not be captured in textbooks or mainstream media. They help preserve a piece of history, enriching your understanding of the world and its past.

Memoir Demonstrates Resilience

Memoirs often detail an individual’s journey through adversity and the triumphs they achieved along the way. These stories can inspire you to face your own challenges with courage and determination.

A Memoir Has Therapeutic Value

Writing or reading a memoir can be a cathartic process, allowing you to examine your own emotions, relationships, and experiences. This can lead to personal growth and healing.

Memoir Contributes to Cultural Preservation

Memoirs help preserve and pass on cultural heritage by documenting customs, traditions, and folklore. By reading and sharing memoirs, you can contribute to keeping these cultural aspects alive for future generations.

Memoir Builds Connection

Reading about someone’s life experiences can create a bond between you and the author, fostering a sense of connection. This can lead to increased empathy and understanding, not only towards the author but towards others as well.

Memoir Spurs Social Change

Memoirs can raise awareness of important issues and injustices, prompting readers to reconsider their own beliefs and take action. By sharing your story, you may inspire others to make a difference in their own communities.

Memoir Is an Exploration of Self

Writing a memoir requires reflection and introspection, leading to a deeper understanding of who you are, your values, and your experiences. As a reader, you may also identify with aspects of the author’s life, prompting self-discovery and personal growth.

Writing Your Own Memoir

Choosing a theme and focus.

When you start your memoir, it’s essential to identify a central theme or focus. Consider your life experiences and the key moments that have shaped you. It might be a period of personal transformation, a specific relationship, or a significant event.

With this theme in mind, narrow down the scope of your memoir to include only the most relevant experiences that directly contribute to your narrative. This will give your memoir a clear direction and make it more engaging for the reader.

Developing Your Writing Style

As an author, you need to find the best writing style to convey your memoir. An effective way to develop your writing style is by reading other memoirs and analyzing their narrative techniques. You can then experiment with different approaches, such as writing in the present or past tense, using first or third-person perspectives, and incorporating descriptive language.

Pay attention to the rhythm and pacing of your story as well. Maintaining a balance between introspective reflection and vivid descriptions of your experiences is crucial in keeping your readers engaged and invested in your memoir.

Publishing and Sharing

Once you’ve completed your memoir, it’s time to consider how you want to share it with the world. You have a few options for publishing, such as traditional publishing, self-publishing, or even posting your work online through a blog or website.

If you choose traditional publishing , you might need to find a literary agent to represent your work and submit it to publishers on your behalf. Do some research on the publishing industry and the types of memoirs that are currently successful, as this will give you an idea of what publishers are looking for in new authors.

Self-publishing , on the other hand, allows you more control over the creative process and content of your memoir. Platforms like Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing make it easy to publish your work, set your own pricing, and retain full rights to your story. This option may involve additional effort with formatting and marketing, but it also allows you to reach a wide audience quickly.

Sharing your memoir through a personal blog or website is another great way to connect with readers while maintaining creative control. You can build an online presence and interact directly with your audience, gathering feedback and fostering a community around your work.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do memoirs have to be written in the first person.

Yes, memoirs are typically written in the first person. As a memoir is a personal account of your own experiences, using the first-person perspective (I, me, my) help you convey the story more intimately to your readers.

This approach allows the readers to see events from your perspective and understand your emotions and thoughts throughout the journey.

What is the difference between a memoir and a personal essay?

While both memoirs and personal essays offer a deep dive into the author’s personal perspectives, they differ considerably in terms of their scope and depth.

A memoir typically focuses on a specific period, event, or theme in an individual’s life, spanning a larger timeframe and delving deeply into the author’s personal experiences. It’s story-driven and emphasizes the growth or transformation the author has undergone through these experiences.

In contrast, a personal essay generally has a broader scope, covering an array of topics, ideas, or reflections. It tends to be shorter in length and may focus on exploring a single idea, thought, or concept.

Unlike a memoir, a personal essay may not necessarily share a personal narrative. It could lean more towards being opinion-based or analytical, offering a distinctive viewpoint or critical analysis on a particular subject.

How truthful does a memoir need to be?

The process of writing a memoir calls for a commitment to truth, although minor discrepancies or narrative adjustments are generally accepted. The crucial aspect is to preserve the essential truth of your experiences and emotions.

In striving for accuracy, it’s important to adhere to the facts as you remember them without amplifying events or experiences for dramatic effect.

Honesty plays a pivotal role, requiring you to delve into your feelings, thoughts, and motivations during the incidents you’re describing. This earnest portrayal of your emotions imparts authenticity to your memoir, making it more relatable.

The memoir’s perspective should reflect that it’s grounded in your personal recollections and interpretations of events. However, it’s critical to understand and respect that others might remember or perceive the same events differently.

As we conclude this exploration into the world of memoirs, it’s clear to see the unique and powerful role they play in literature. With their potent blend of personal experience and broader insights, memoirs not only offer readers an intimate look into someone else’s life but also provide a mirror for them to reflect on their own experiences.

Whether you’re an aspiring writer, an avid reader, or simply a lover of stories, understanding memoirs enriches our grasp of the human experience in all its complexity. They remind us that every life is a narrative worth telling, full of lessons, growth, and profound moments that shape us. From the personal to the universal, memoirs are an enduring testament to our shared journey through life.

How useful was this post?

Click on a star to rate it!

As you found this post useful...

Share it on social media!

We are sorry that this post was not useful for you!

Let us improve this post!

Tell us how we can improve this post?

Aerielle Ezra

• How to Cite
• Language & Lit
• Rhyme & Rhythm
• The Rewrite
• Search Glass

What Is the Difference Between a Memoir & Personal Narrative?

Both memoirs and personal narratives are stories of a real person’s experiences, but they are not entirely alike. A narrative is a story that contains elements of narration like setting, characters, and plot. A personal narrative, however, relays the person’s direct experience of a particular event, or set of events, including his thoughts and feelings. A memoir goes beyond a personal narrative; it contains both direct experiences and reflections on other people’s experiences of a particular time.

Personal Narrative

A personal narrative is typically written in first-person about something in the narrator’s life. It centers on a certain event and relays the narrator’s thoughts, feelings and experiences. A personal narrative may contain information about what the narrator read, encountered, or heard and his reactions to these encounters. Because a personal narrative is a narrative, it contains all the elements of a narrative, including setting, characterization, speech and plot. Furthermore, it is typically limited to the discussion of one particular event or incident.

A memoir is an account of a real person’s life. The narrator is a character in a story who reflects on the events of his life and, usually, draws certain conclusions. A memoir is typically focused on certain incidents in a person’s life, and those incidents make up the individual stories that contribute to the overall work. Unlike an autobiography, which recounts particular historical dates and facts about a person’s life, a memoir is a depiction of how that individual remembers his own life. The dates and facts in a memoir may not be entirely accurate (though they often are), and they are less important than the memories and the reflections.

Personal Narrative vs. Memoir

One important distinction between a personal narrative and a memoir is that a personal narrative often covers a single event while a memoir covers multiple events with a single theme. A personal narrative relays a story in the narrator’s life that consists of his experience, thoughts, feelings and reflections, and a memoir contains information that goes beyond that, including information that is outside the narrator’s immediate knowledge and experience. As a result, while a personal narrative is also a memoir, a memoir is not necessarily a personal narrative.

A personal narrative about the September 11 attacks might consist of an individual’s direct experience of escaping from the towers down a staircase, the smell of the smoke, and the confusion and the helplessness that he felt on that day. That person’s memoir about the same exact event might also include his indirect experiences: stories of other people’s experiences who lived through the tragedy and the impact that their stories had on his own recollection of that time and place.

• The American Scholar: How to Write a Memoir; William Zinsser
• Iredell-Statesville Schools: Narrative Writing Tutorial

Kate Prudchenko has been a writer and editor for five years, publishing peer-reviewed articles, essays, and book chapters in a variety of publications including Immersive Environments: Future Trends in Education and Contemporary Literary Review India. She has a BA and MS in Mathematics, MA in English/Writing, and is completing a PhD in Education.

• Bloggers and Blogging / Journalists and Journalism / Media Q&As

Essay vs. Memoir: How to Tell and Sell Your Own Personal Story

by Maria Perez · Published April 27, 2016 · Updated April 28, 2016

Writing about your own life can be tricky.

How much do you divulge? Do you tell the people you’re writing about that you’re writing about them? How do you find publications that take essays? Should you write a memoir?

We asked Jen A. Miller , a prolific freelance writer and author of the new memoir “ Running: A Love Story .”  Here, she share her insights and advice for writers interested in writing about their own lives.

We typically think of memoirs as being written by someone “of a certain age.” Why did you choose to write a memoir?

I’ve been writing personal essays since I was 18, so I’m used to sharing my life. When I started freelancing, I did the same. My first big running story was a reported essay for the New York Times, and the response to the personal bits was huge. After a nonfiction running book (someone else’s idea) didn’t happen, I turned my brain to writing essays about running. I wrote another piece for New York Times called “Running as Therapy,” and reaction to that was so big that I thought I should keep going. And here we are. “Running: A Love Story” covers 10 intense years. That time ended three years ago. It was enough space to write about it.

When writing about your personal life, how do you decide how much personal information to include?

In the first draft, I write everything, then take out what doesn’t help tell the story. There are little things that may seem important to me but the reader is not going to care about. Take out what impedes the flow. After that, it’s a personal call. When I signed up to write a memoir, I said I wouldn’t hold it back. I didn’t. That’s not always easy. Your family reads it. Your friends read it. When you get a bad review, like I did today, they’re trashing the way you tell story of your life. You must be OK with all that. Then, of course, before publication, the lawyers get involved – but write first, and worry about the legal read later.

The best example of writing personally but sharing select details effectively is this essay in Runner’s World .

Did you tell the people you wrote about that you wrote about them?

It was on a case-by-base basis. Everyone’s names and identifying details were changed whether I did or not. I called or talked to my family soon before the New York Times ran an excerpt . Some writers have the hardest time with the family angle. I have a close family, so it was awkward but worked out just fine. But since memory is a fickle thing, I tried to interview people when I could.

What if their recollection of events is different from yours? Do you change your story or go with what you remember?

I went back and investigated where I could (this or that way on the course?). If not, I used what I recalled since it’s my story. Fortunately, I wrote race recaps after I ran some of them, so I had those posts to refer to when I wrote the book.

What advice do you have for someone wanting to write a personal essay or memoir?

For essays: Practice. Try to write every single day – and not blog posts, but material you can shape and edit. If you need help on starting up (or starting again), check out Writing is My Drink . I went to it when I started the essays that became “Running: A Love Story” even though I’ve been doing this for some time.

For a memoir: I had the first (very bad, incomplete) draft of “Running: A Love Story” before I approached agents. I had four chapters done in the proposal that went to publishers. Some need more. Memoir writing is a serious time commitment where you’re not guaranteed a book at the end. It takes practice and a leap of faith. Also: read essays and memoirs. You’ll see what works for you and what doesn’t.

One of the best pieces of advice I’ve gotten is an old one: Read 10 times more than you write. I still do this. It helps.

How long did the memoir process take you, approximately?

From the first terrible draft through publication, just over two years. In that time, I also had to write an agent pitch letter, pitch agents, choose an agent, do a proposal to go to publishers, choose the offer, sign a contract and then – oh yeah! – write the thing. Then go through edits, legal read, publicity until: publication day.

If someone is interested in getting a personal essay published, how do they find an outlet for it?

I go back to something I said before: Read essays. Like that outlet? Start pitching. This is why reading a lot is crucial.

Most outlets want to see the whole essay, not an idea (even if you’re established). I sometimes have an outlet in mind. If they say no, I edit/adjust and pitch to the next target on my list. Don’t have any idea where to start reading good essays? Read the Best American Essays series. See where they were published.

What should writers not do when writing and pitching an essay?

Don’t send attachments. Don’t tell a sob story as to why you need the essay to be published. And don’t send pictures. Follow the “Keep It Simple, Stupid” philosophy: Show editors the essay in the body of the email, and get out of their inbox. And if the editor rejects it, they can do so for a lot of reasons (not enough space; something similar already running). Don’t get snippy. You want to keep that door open for when the right essay of yours meets a need that editor has. Also, avoid signing “work for hire” or “all rights” contracts. You’d be giving them rights to your story and your life. Oh, and don’t write that essay for free, even if someone says you’ll get exposure for it. Just don’t.

Any other advice on writing about your own life, whether for a personal essay or a memoir?

This kind of writing is very personal. It’s not for everyone – and that’s totally OK. You may be trying to write about something still too raw. If so, step back, write a funny piece about your dog, and come back. That might be two weeks later. That might be too years later. Don’t hurt yourself to do this. “Running: A Love Story” took a lot out of me. I don’t think I could write another book like this. And that’s OK with me. Oh, and expect to make people angry, sometimes for small reasons (like they disagree about how you described their hair color). And keep at it. I started out writing very bad personal essays when I was 18. I’m 35 now. I still have a ways to go.

What are you working on now?

I just wrapped up a piece for espnW. The New York Times Well running newsletter just launched; I’m part of the team working on that too. You can sign up for that newsletter here . I am also on my spring book tour! You can see those dates here . Oh, and I’m training for my sixth marathon – because I decided to do something physically exhausting at an already exhausting time. I write a weekly newsletter about all this, if you’d like to keep up: http://www.tinyletter.com/jenamiller .

Whether you’re writing a reported essay or another type of article, ProfNet can help you with your search for experts. All you need to do is fill out a quick form telling us what you’re looking for, your deadline, and how you want to be contacted, and we’ll send it to the appropriate experts in our network. The best part? It’s free!  Get started here.

Maria Perez is director of online community relations at ProfNet, a free service that connects journalists with quotable experts.

Share this:

• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
• Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
• Click to print (Opens in new window)

Tags: ConnectChat memoirs personal essays

You may also like...

How to keep your blog readers engaged.

March 13, 2014

 by · Published March 13, 2014 · Last modified May 10, 2015

The Recipe for a Career in Food Blogging

April 17, 2014

 by · Published April 17, 2014 · Last modified May 10, 2015

The Ins and Outs of Op-Ed Writing

July 17, 2014

 by · Published July 17, 2014 · Last modified May 10, 2015

Search Beyond Bylines

Welcome to Beyond Bylines, Cision PR Newswire’s blog for the media.

To learn more about PR Newswire for Journalists, an award-winning resource for journalists, bloggers, freelancers, and other media, visit https://prnmedia.prnewswire.com

Featured Post

Subscribe via Email

Subscribe to Beyond Bylines and be notified of new posts by email.

Email Address

Feedspot Top 60

• Craft and Criticism
• Fiction and Poetry
• News and Culture
• Lit Hub Radio
• Reading Lists

• Literary Criticism
• Craft and Advice
• In Conversation
• On Translation
• Short Story
• From the Novel
• Bookstores and Libraries
• Film and TV
• Art and Photography
• Freeman’s
• The Virtual Book Channel
• Behind the Mic
• Beyond the Page
• The Cosmic Library
• The Critic and Her Publics
• Emergence Magazine
• Fiction/Non/Fiction
• First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing
• The History of Literature
• I’m a Writer But
• Lit Century
• Tor Presents: Voyage Into Genre
• Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast
• Write-minded
• The Best of the Decade
• Best Reviewed Books
• BookMarks Daily Giveaway
• The Daily Thrill
• CrimeReads Daily Giveaway

The Case for Writing a Memoir in Essays

Beth kephart on the power of fragmentation in books by sonja livingston, megan stielstra, and more.

When Sonja Livingston began to write about her life with an itinerant mother and six siblings in the raw corners of western New York, she wrote, she says , in snatches. “I wrote of living in apartments and tents and motel rooms. Of places where corn and cabbage grew in great swaths. Of the Iroquois on their reservation outside of Buffalo.”

But when Livingston tried to connect these fragments into a memoir, she told Bookslut interviewer Elizabeth Hildreth in March 2010, she ran into a problem:

I tried to connect them in [a] way that was more typical in terms of a traditional narrative. At one point, I think I had twelve long chapters. But it felt all wrong. . . . So I returned to the manuscript, and began structuring it the way the memories had come to me, in distinctive snapshots, and ended up with 122 little chapters.

The book, Ghostbread , became a kind of memoir-in-essays—a poeticized true story in which all the unnecessary things are absent from the pages. There are, indeed, 122 small chapters, plus an epilogue—some chapters no more than a paragraph long, most stretching over two to three pages. There are no forced transitions between these chapters, but there is the continuity of chronology, with the book beginning with the author’s lineage and birth and ending (just ahead of the epilogue) with her graduation from high school. Livingston never pretends, in Ghostbread , that memory unfurls like some single silk ribbon. She upholds the integrity of each “distinctive snapshot.” Singularly, these elements seduce us. Together, they relate a life.

In The Wrong Way to Save Your Life , Megan Stielstra also relies on distinct, self-contained pieces to present a sustaining view of the life she has lived. Like Livingston, Stielstra works chronologically, presenting her life in four primary sections, each pertaining to a decade lived—ten, twenty, thirty, forty. Unlike Livingston, however, Stielstra chooses to explore and present her life through longer essays (four per section) that consistently spring from her stated determination to “look at the fear.” Stielstra’s fear of being stuck. Her fear of dogs. Her fear of losing her father. Her fear of depression. Her fear of the possible outcome for a child sick with cancer. If chronology dictates the placement of the pieces, fear provides the thematic adhesive.

The memoir built of pieces is gigantically plastic; it welcomes new versions, new interpretations. In Meet Me in the In-Between , Bella Pollen explores the roots and impact of her insatiable wanderlust in narrative true stories—about the inevitable need for attention by the young middle-child version of herself, say, or about love affairs gone wrong, or about encounters with her elusive father in movie theaters—bridged by alluring graphic art that economically and emotionally relays stories Pollen chooses not to tell with words, such as the ones about her family’s transatlantic journey and her parents’ separation. These miniature graphic memoirs, created by the illustrator Kate Boxer, enable Pollen and the reader to see Pollen’s world through (as Pollen notes in the acknowledgments) another pair of eyes while also marking the passage of time. There might be a lesson here for the rest of us—the possibility that we, too, someday, will ask an artist to embolden our book with their own particular take on our lives.

Or perhaps the writer will choose, as Brian Turner does in his memoir about his experience and perception of war, My Life as a Foreign Country , to imagine one’s self as a “drone aircraft plying the darkness above my body.” Turner’s worldview has been shaped by his time as a sergeant in combat. His sensibility is that of a poet. His book operates as a series of not-always-continuous distillations of war, of family history, of reckoning. Each piece—some a single paragraph long, some running over the course of many pages, some reading like prose poems, some reading like narrative—stands on its own. The adjacencies are sometimes obvious, and sometimes less so; this is not designed to be a straightforward read. Turner, it seems, wants us to see his world as he now sees his world—in fragments, in fractions, in fever dreams. He wants to present us with the insoluble puzzle of war and its long drag on memory. The cumulative force is extraordinary and suggests a potential way in for those of us who live with competing versions of ourselves, our character, our stories.

A Song for the River takes as its primary material the years Philip Connors spent as a fire lookout in the Gila Wilderness. His themes are isolation, loss, and the afterlife of forests and friends—themes that might have easily been presented as a traditional collection of essays.

The five long essays (some stretching to over fifty pages) and the final “Catechism for a Fire Lookout” of Connors’s book are bound as if by centripetal force. The characters we meet early on in one essay are met again in the next. The metaphors suggested in one essay reverberate in later pieces. Connors’s quest to understand why what he loves—a lookout friend who dies while taking a ride on his horse, environmentally minded teenagers who are killed when the plane they are flying in goes down, the forest itself—keeps disappearing is not just catalogued but magnified, until the man who is “scribbl(ing) to mark my passage through those places I have loved most” in the third essay is writing, by the fifth, “We are learning more all the time about how to love.”

Connors apportions the essays and arranges them so that the reader is able to grow with him—to watch as, despite all those losses, he extends past his naturally lonesome self. In essay after essay, Connors returns to his lookout and considers what he sees. In essay after essay, he struggles to come to terms with the changing landscape and the death of friends. By the end, Connors has become a more symphonic self—no longer isolated in his solitude, unafraid to speak of and for those he has lost, capable of hearing music in the river, capable of sharing it.

Connors, with his book, teaches us the art of iteration and the power afforded by the memoir built of pieces. He makes us believe that his discrete essays—some elements of which were first published in very different forms—are somehow aware of one another, looking back over their own shoulders, or arcing ahead, or pausing to remember what has or has not yet been said, has or has not yet been felt. Connors has done far more than simply arrange his pieces, in other words. He has deliberately and with great skill folded them into each other. In doing so, he teaches us how to study our own work for echoes and persistent themes.

__________________________________

From issue #73 of Creative Nonfiction , available now.

• Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)

Beth Kephart

Previous article, next article, support lit hub..

Join our community of readers.

to the Lithub Daily

Popular posts.

Follow us on Twitter

Your Weekend in Virtual Book Events, Oct. 2nd-4th

• RSS - Posts

Literary Hub

Created by Grove Atlantic and Electric Literature

Sign Up For Our Newsletters

How to Pitch Lit Hub

Advertisers: Contact Us

Privacy Policy

Support Lit Hub - Become A Member

Become a Lit Hub Supporting Member : Because Books Matter

For the past decade, Literary Hub has brought you the best of the book world for free—no paywall. But our future relies on you. In return for a donation, you’ll get an ad-free reading experience , exclusive editors’ picks, book giveaways, and our coveted Joan Didion Lit Hub tote bag . Most importantly, you’ll keep independent book coverage alive and thriving on the internet.

Become a member for as low as $5/month

What Is the Difference Between a Memoir & Personal Narrative?

Christopher cascio, 26 sep 2017.

Personal narrative is a term used to describe any narrative that tells the story of the author, and memoir is merely one type of personal narrative. The differences between memoirs and the other types of personal narrative -- autobiography, personal essay and fictionalized memoirs and novels -- usually have to do with the purpose of the narrative rather than the way in which it is written.

Explore this article

• Autobiography
• Personal Essay
• Fcitionalized Personal Narrative

Memoir, in the simplest of terms, is nonfiction's answer to the novel. A memoir is a story that relies on scenes to communicate character, conflict, plot and theme just as it would happen in a novel. More specifically, a memoir is when the author uses specific events of her own life to distill and extract meaning, and communicate that meaning to the reader. For example, in Lucy Grealy's memoir "Autobiography of a Face," Grealy chronicles her lifelong battle with disfigurement after having one-third of her jaw removed during her bout with cancer as a child. What makes it a memoir is that she uses these events to show how she finally comes to understand that she is not defined by her face, but by the person she is underneath.

2 Autobiography

Autobiography is a mode of nonfiction similar to memoir, except that autobiographies focus more informing the reader about the remarkable life of the author rather than selecting specific events for the sole purpose of communicating an emotional theme. In this way, autobiography can be said to deal with "just the facts." An example of autobiography would be Bill Clinton's book "My Life: The Presidential Years."

3 Personal Essay

Personal essay is often confused with memoir, and for good reason: The difference is a fine shade of definition. A personal essay, like the memoir, uses the author's experience to communicate a theme that will -- if the author has done her job well -- resonate with her readers. The difference, however, is focus. The memoir focuses primarily on the author: It's the author's story; she is the subject. The theme is extrapolated by the reader, and is not told directly or communicated in any sort of thesis statement. In a personal essay, conversely, the message is the subject, and the author uses her experience as more of a vehicle to communicate the message. Furthermore, personal essays are usually -- as the name suggests -- essay-length and not book-length.

4 Fcitionalized Personal Narrative

While some might disagree that personal narratives can be fiction, novelists write their own stories all the time. A famous recent example is James Frey's "A Million Little Pieces." The book -- originally printed as a memoir -- was exposed as having been written with added fictional elements. In his book "Can't You Get Along with Anyone?: A Writer's Memoir and a Tale of a Lost Surfer's Paradise," Allan C. Weisbecker reports that Frey had first pitched the book as a novel, but his publisher would only buy it if they could label it as a memoir.

• 1 Lou Ann Walker: Memoirist, Journalist, Editor and Writing Professor; Stony Brook Southampton
• 2 Autobiography of a Face; Lucy Grealy
• 3 My Life: The Presidential Years; Bill Clinton
• 4 Can't You Get Along with Anyone?: A Writer's Memoir and a Tale of a Lost Surfer's Paradise; Allan C. Weisbecker

About the Author

Christopher Cascio is a memoirist and holds a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing and literature from Southampton Arts at Stony Brook Southampton, and a Bachelor of Arts in English with an emphasis in the rhetoric of fiction from Pennsylvania State University. His literary work has appeared in "The Southampton Review," "Feathertale," "Kalliope" and "The Rose and Thorn Journal."

Related Articles

What Is the Narrative Argument of "The Jilting of Granny...

Critical Thinking Questions Regarding Nonfiction

How to Write a College Book Analysis

How to Write a Reflection Essay

What Is Expository Writing?

Narrative Vs. Descriptive Writing

How Does First-Person Narrative Affect "To Kill a Mockingbird"?

Fiction Vs. Nonfiction Writing Styles

The Difference Between Argumentative & Narrative Paragraphs

How to Make Assertions in Literature

The Differences Between Themes & Topics

How to Make a Story Look Like It Is a Newspaper Article

How to Write Book Titles in an Essay

What Are the Writing Elements for a Personal Narrative?

APA Format for Graphic Novels

What is a Personal Narrative?

How to Use Quotes in a News Article

What Is a Descriptive Essay?

The Difference Between Narrative & Non-Narrative Writing

How to Write a Book Report in APA Format

Regardless of how old we are, we never stop learning. Classroom is the educational resource for people of all ages. Whether you’re studying times tables or applying to college, Classroom has the answers.

• Accessibility
• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• Copyright Policy
• Manage Preferences

© 2020 Leaf Group Ltd. / Leaf Group Media, All Rights Reserved. Based on the Word Net lexical database for the English Language. See disclaimer .

Memoir vs Essay - What's the difference?

As nouns the difference between memoir and essay, usage notes, related terms, external links, derived terms.

• Skip to main content
• Skip to primary sidebar
• Skip to footer

Memoir coach and author Marion Roach

Welcome to The Memoir Project, the portal to your writing life.

Writing Memoir vs. Writing “My Memoirs.” Which is it and Why?

Writing Memoirs  vs. Writing “My Memoirs:” On the Importance of Structure

by Albert Flynn DeSilver

Dear Writer,

One of my favorite memoirs of the last ten or fifteen years is Robin Romm’s The Mercy Papers: A Memoir of Three Weeks.  What? A memoir that only covers three weeks of a life? And is less than 200 pages? How is that even possible?

When I first set off to write my own memoir, ( Beamish Boy , The Owl Press, 2012) I was convinced that I was setting off to tell the story of my life to date; I was born on this date and then I grew up here, and these are my parents, and then this pretty dramatic thing happened that shaped me, oh, and then this one, and then this other happened, and now here we are all caught up to the present time, and I’m okay now, things are resolved and figured out for me—hah!

That would be writing my memoirs , which is the practice of chronicling your life one event at a time in orderly sequence, not the literary genre of memoir . This is an important distinction, because what separates the two practices, is structure.

When writing your memoirs  you can pretty much just cruise along telling the reader what happened. But when writing a memoir , you want to engage the reader in deeper elements of dramatic structure. In this way you don’t have to rely exclusively on super-dramatic events (and what if you didn’t experience a ton of those? What if you didn’t grow up with distant alcoholic parents who left you in the care of a violent and abusive governess, and so went on to start drinking at age twelve, by nineteen become a devout binge drinker winding up first driven over by your best friend after passing out drunk in a driveway then, a year later, handcuffed to a hospital bed under arrest with no idea how you got there, only to sober up enough to venture to Africa where you contract malaria, dysentery, and the clutches of a prostitute during the height of the AIDS crisis, only to survive, move to California and wind up in a psychedelic therapy cult?). What you do have to do is learn the elements of story structure in novels, scripts, and plays that pull readers in to your particular narrative. Let me just mention a few.

Time . What is the time frame for your story? Robin Romm in the Mercy Papers uses the time frame of the last three weeks of her mother’s life, and how that inspired her to reflect deeply on their relationship. Yes, she goes back in time and explores the past, but most of the action is happening during these three weeks. It brings the emotions forward and makes for a very compelling read. The book was born out of a journal she kept during this time and keeps some of those elements alive in the writing. When thinking about time, think about those pivot points, those dramatic experiences that irrevocably changed you and set you on a new path with new knowledge, and insight about your self and the world.

Character and Cast List.  Who is going to populate your story and why? Make sure these characters are there for a reason, shaping your evolution as the protagonist on a journey of transformation. Who are your antagonist(s)? Your allys? Your Jester/Tricksters, Spiritual Guides?

Place/Setting. Where does this story take place and why? How is landscape a character? How does this place shape your evolution or create themes of transformation?

Inciting Incident/Strong Beginnings . How are you going to get your readers into the story? Is there a dramatic/emotional incident that can launch us into the narrative?

Rising Action/Mystery. You are on the journey of no return, running into roadblocks, being thwarted and turned back, suffering loss and despair, but you press on. Don’t tell us everything right at the get-go. Leave us hanging, keep us turning pages. Lead us down dark corridors of drama and emotionality, where you as the protagonist are spiraling into a funnel of major consequence with seemingly no way out.

Conflict/Climax. There should be a highpoint where the stakes are high, the gauntlet has dropped and everything changes for you. You survive the journey and act differently in the world with new understanding new insight. You carry the golden chalice through the kingdom to enlightening others. You are the heroine of your story.

Resolution/Redemption.  How are you going to end this story of transformation? What have you learned? Has their been an insight, a reconciliation? Explore the change in you, the heroine. How do you integrate these experiences to date and move on to the next adventure in your life?

Congratulations. Bravo. To be continued.

In closing, begin by thinking about your story like a great novel or play. Consider classic three-act structure. Consider the “Hero/Heroine’s Journey” in terms of Mythic Structure as explored by Joseph Campbell, and beautifully articulated for writers in The Writer’s Journey  by Christopher Vogler.

Read Robin Romm’s The Mercy Papers and reflect on not only how to use time, but the particularities and intimate sensory details of your own life to drive an emotional story that captivates readers! But most importantly, enjoy the journey, the practice and process!

Author bio:

Albert Flynn DeSilver   is an American poet, memoirist, novelist, speaker, and workshop leader. He received a BFA in photography from the University of Colorado in 1991 and an MFA in New Genres from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1995. His work has appeared in more than 100 literary journals worldwide including  ZYZZYVA, New American Writing, Hanging Loose, Jubilat, Exquisite Corpse, Jacket   (Australia),  Poetry Kanto  (Japan),  Van Gogh’s Ear  (France), and many others. He is the author of several books of poems and the memoir  Beamish Boy , which Kirkus Reviews called “a beautifully written memoir. . .poignant and inspirational.” Albert taught as a California Poet in the Schools for more than a decade working with thousands of children throughout Northern California and beyond. He also served as Marin County, California’s very first Poet Laureate and has shared the stage with U. S. Poet Laureate Kay Ryan, bestselling authors Maxine Hong Kingston, Cheryl Strayed, Elizabeth Gilbert, legendary Beat Poet Michael McClure and many others. He is the founder of Writing as a Path To Spiritual Awakening, a workshop and retreat series, interactive book project, and online course experience.

HOW TO WIN A COPY OF THE BOOK I hope you enjoy Writing Lessons. Featuring well-published writers of our favorite genre, each installment takes on one short topic addressing how to write memoir. It’s my way of saying thanks for coming by. Love the author featured above? Did you learn something in the how-to? Then you’ve got to read the book. And you can. I am giving away one copy, and all you have to do to win is leave a comment below about something you learned from the writing lesson or the excerpt. I’ll draw winners at random (using the tool at random dot org) after entries close at midnight Monday, May 21, 2018. Unfortunately, only readers within the US domestic postal service can receive books. Good luck!

Share this:

Related posts:

• How to Choose Your Memoir Structure
• Mother-Daughter Memoirs in the News
• Recommended Memoirs: New Books. Read and Learn How To Write Memoir

GET THE QWERTY PODCAST

Subscribe free to the podcast

Reader interactions.

Cassandra says

April 19, 2018 at 7:11 am

I think what you said here is paramount: “What you do have to do is learn the elements of story structure in novels, scripts, and plays that pull readers in to your particular narrative.” Applying this perspective moves one from writing about “what happened” to turning “what happened” into art.

Dana Schwartz says

April 19, 2018 at 7:59 am

I also loved Robin Romm’s memoir and was fascinated by her use of time. Your post reminded me of the importance of setting, and how that can be a similar to a character, one that changes over the course of the book.

Penelope Childers says

April 19, 2018 at 8:22 am

I found this post to be eye opening and extremely helpful. I write memoir and have attended many writing conferences but have not had it presented just this way.

April 19, 2018 at 8:32 am

I appreciated the neat summary of the elements of a memoir’s narrative structure. I’ve learned many of these points before, but not quite so succinctly.

Brenda Horrigan says

April 19, 2018 at 9:56 am

This post helped me understand why I am drawn to reading certain memoirs–because there is a focus to them that promises to teach me something specific. (Most recently I re-read Jennifer Boylan’s “She’s Not There” and realized it was the experience of being inside someone who is trans that drew me to the book years ago.) In turn, this post helped me to realize the importance of defining the focus of my work-in-progress in the same way (and helped me see how to do that). It’s tempting to let one life story lead to another life story. But by keeping the reader in mind and understanding why s/he might have picked up your book, it helps me as a writer stay on track.

Marcia says

April 19, 2018 at 10:17 am

I love the delineating of the dramatic structure. I just attended a workshop on writing memoir at the wonderful Calvin College Festival of Faith and Writing. The topic of structure was discussed but this explanation above makes it so much clearer than the thoughts on structure we had time to explore. Thank you!

Anne Haehl says

April 19, 2018 at 10:28 am

I know I need the story structure and rising action. Don’t know how to do it, though. Hope I can get help with that.

Lynn Bauer says

April 19, 2018 at 12:10 pm

This wonderful post directly addressed what I’ve been struggling with and what holds me back. Thank you!

Shannon Tsonis says

April 19, 2018 at 12:13 pm

Conflict/Climax. That’s been a tough one for me! When you are thinking about an event, the whole thing seems cataclysmic, so pinpointing that one spot in a memoir still seems to elude me. I love that this underlines the fact that no matter what the theme of your memoir is, there are key points of similarity that all successful memoirs have.

April 19, 2018 at 12:14 pm

I’ve been reading a library copy of Writing as a Path to Awakening and would be thrilled to get my own! AFD writes from the heart, gives practical advice in small bits, and has encouraged me to write more. Thank you.

April 19, 2018 at 12:55 pm

How is landscape a character? Well, this caught me by surprise. I grew up in a funeral home and I am considering how much of my writing includes glimpses into that unusual “landscape”. Thank you for this great post. I would love to read the entire book.

Stephanie T. says

April 19, 2018 at 5:37 pm

Very interesting content, disappointing mechanics. Anyone writing memoir out there, make sure to get a good proofreader! ;)

Judith Magee says

April 19, 2018 at 11:04 pm

I have been struggling mightily with structure. I appreciate how you laid it out story structure as a blueprint for a memoir. I look forward to reading your book. What a great title!

April 19, 2018 at 11:07 pm

I am reminded that like all good stories there must be mystery and conflict. Figure out the moments of awakening and weave the tapestry.

April 20, 2018 at 11:50 am

“Lead us down dark corridors of drama and emotionality, where you as the protagonist are spiraling into a funnel of major consequence with seemingly no way out.”

This feels like the starting point for me. I’m there, now, spinning headlong into the consequences of a painful family estrangement I never wanted; but another family member did want this, and thus chose it for the both of us.

April 20, 2018 at 1:56 pm

This is a truly wonderful piece about the key elements of memoir — succinctly presented. All of it is extremely helpful, but I especially appreciated the point Mr. DeSilver makes about the characters in a memoir. He writes: “Make sure your characters are there for a reason, shaping your evolution as the protagonist on a journey of transformation.” He states this so clearly.

Sabrina says

April 22, 2018 at 1:58 am

A memoir about a three-week long time period? I’ll have to read it and see if I can tighten my 4 month time span even shorter if it makes sense for the story. Thanks for reminding us that a very short time period can pack a punch as well.

April 22, 2018 at 3:52 am

The more I learn about writing just reminds me how much I have to learn and how little I know.

I love this: “Congratulations. Bravo. To be continued.”

It almost drips with sarcasm in my mind, like, sister, now that we covered this bit, roll up your sleeves ’cause the real work is just starting.

My hell has nothing on this guy.

Thanks for the post, Mar.

Tanja Buzzi Moriarty says

April 24, 2018 at 1:34 pm

I’m inspired by Mr. DeSilver’s instructional post . I’m tempted to dust off my shelved manuscript, Dad on the Doorstep: A Daughter’s Journey Getting Her Father Off the Street and Into His Own Place (working title). I am encouraged to revisit and focus using the elements of story structure DeSilver lists here, as well as Marion’s Roach Smith’s “This is a story about_________, as illustrated by_________. ” Hoping the process will help me fill-in those blanks so I can get out from under this…procrastination? Paralysis?

SITEWIDE SEARCH

Join me on instagram, mroachsmith.

Advertisement

Supported by

Can Fed Officials Still Nail the Landing? As Rate Cuts Near, It’s a Moment of Truth.

The Federal Reserve was about to cut interest rates, turning the corner after a long fight with inflation. But now, its soft landing is in question.

• Share full article

By Jeanna Smialek

The Federal Reserve’s fight against inflation was going almost unbelievably well. Price increases were coming down. Growth was holding up. Consumers continued to spend. The labor market was chugging along.

Policymakers appeared poised to lower interest rates — just a little — at their meeting on Sept. 18. Officials did not need to keep hitting the brakes on growth so much, as the economy settled into a comfortable balance. It seemed like central bankers were about to pull off a rare economic soft landing, cooling inflation without tanking the economy.

But just as that sunny outcome came into view, clouds gathered on the horizon.

The unemployment rate has moved up meaningfully over the past year, and a weak employment report released last week has stoked concern that the job market may be on the brink of a serious cool-down. That’s concerning, because a weakening labor market is usually the first sign that the economy is careening toward a recession.

The Fed could still get the soft landing it has been hoping for — weekly jobless claims fell more than expected in fresh data released on Thursday, a minor but positive development. Stocks rallied in the wake of that report, with the S&P 500 rising 2.3 percent by the end of the day.

Given the possibility that everything will turn out fine, central bank officials are not yet ready to panic. During an event on Monday, Mary C. Daly, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, suggested that officials were closely watching the job market to try to figure out whether it was cooling too much or simply returning to normal after a few roller-coaster years.

“We’re at the point of — is the labor market slowing a lot, or slowing a little?” Ms. Daly said, as she pointed to one-off factors that could have muddled the latest report, like Hurricane Beryl and a recent inflow of new immigrant workers that left more people searching for jobs.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .