
Usually, an author only writes an autobiography later in life or if they’ve lived a particularly remarkable life to date, for example, a celebrity or politician. If autobiography casts a wide net, then memoir casts a deep one. This style of writing recounts where the subject was born, grew up, and went to school, their personal life, career, friends, and relationships. On the other hand, an autobiography can be a chronology or narrative of nearly the entirety of someone’s life. It covers her twenty-year battle with this disease rather than her entire life or career. Caroline Knapp’s Drinking: a Love Story is a famous example of a memoir. Anyone can write a memoir at any point in their lives. Memoirs often include themes such as alcoholism, love affairs, starting a business, hobbies, and interests. In a memoir, an author tells personal stories that relate to each other and a theme that underpins the book, often conveying a message or worldview.

Memoirs delve deep into a single topic or concept from an author’s life. Memoir is sometimes confused with autobiography, but they are not the same.
#Writing a memoir how to#

That’s because this type of honest writing isn’t like writing genre fiction or non-fiction. It was also fun and a new type of writing I still needed to explore more.Īfter taking several courses, reading books on the topic, and speaking to a coach, I learned that while everyone has a story, only a few take it and turn it into a memoir. It was a challenging creative project that took longer than I imagined and was immensely rewarding. I spent the lockdown of 2020 writing a memoir about my experience of becoming a father unexpectedly in my early twenties. Are you wondering how to write a memoir? This guide explains how aspiring memoir writers can write about their own life stories for a book.
