Should You Write a Memoir or an Autobiography?

Bookstores and libraries are full of people's memoirs and autobiographies. If you are thinking about writing your life's story, then you should know the difference between the two types of nonfiction books.

Memoirs and autobiographies often get confused because they both contain the same type of factual information. However, there are some key differences. So, let's set the record straight about these two types of works to eliminate some of the confusion.

A Memoir

The word "memoir" comes from the French word mémoire, which means memory. A memoir contains true stories from the memories of a person's life usually written by that person or by someone else on behalf of that person. The writer uses the first person pronouns “I” and “me” throughout the manuscript to detail what he remembers about his experiences, events, and feelings during certain periods in his life.

Writers share their memories from a significant time period in an orderly fashion. They might write about their childhood, school days, their family when they were growing up, accomplishments, successes, and failures. They also reflect on related themes throughout their lives.

There are four main types of memoirs.

1. Flashbacks: The author provides a backstory by going back and forth between the past and present.
2. Chronological: The author writes about his experiences in the order in which they happened.
3. Themed: The author includes only memories based on one specific theme.
4. Overcoming: The author focuses on one struggle and shows how it affected his life.

There are several ways memoirs can be written. They can be written in the past or present tense. They can be written as a linear narrative, or the memoir can be divided into different sections. Not all memoirs are alike, but all memoirs should be written in the first person with the writer being the central character. Memoirs are often written to help others with a struggle the writer has overcome.

An Autobiography

Autobiographies are stories of the writer's life written in chronological order from childhood to the present time. It includes special marker events in the author's life along with lessons learned from his experiences. Like a memoir, an autobiography is also a true story of a person's life written by that person. When we look at that long word, we see that it is made up of three smaller Greek root words: “auto,” meaning self; “bio,” meaning life; and “graph” meaning write.

Also like a memoir, the pronouns "I" and "me" are used throughout an autobiography. All information is factual from the beginning of the author's life up to the time of the writing. That's why most people write their autobiographies later in life. Surely, a 60-year-old man's autobiography will have more information in it than a 6-year-old girl's.

That doesn't mean young people should not write their autobiographies. There is a long list of memoirs, autobiographies, and diaries that were written when the authors were 20 years old or younger. For instance, the well-known published Diary of Anne Frank was started when the Jewish girl was only 13 years old. Her last diary entry was when she was 15 years old. She wrote about what happened to her and her family in chronological during their two years in hiding from the Nazis during the occupation of the Netherlands from 1942 to 1944. In 1945, Anne Frank died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The publication is a classic that is studied in high school.

People used to think only well-known people should write autobiographies to share with the public about how they became famous. However, anyone can write an autobiography because all people have something to share about their lives.

Final Words

Whether you write a memoir or an autobiography, they both will be your story that will be preserved for you, your family, and the general public for generations to come. Both memoirs and autobiographies are great ways to share your story with the world.

Since memoirs and autobiographies are so similar, it might not matter to you which one you choose to write. Take into consideration that the autobiography's main goal is to present a more complete view of a person's life while a memoir is organized around a major theme and is not as complete.