What Is the Difference Between a Memoir and an Autobiography?
What this post covers:
The main difference between a memoir and an autobiography.
The three key questions I ask authors.
One author’s journey.
The Main Difference
Simply put, time span. Blog post complete.
Only joking! But really the main difference is time span. A memoir is focused on a specific sequence of events or a specific time period in the author’s life, whereas an autobiography is a story that covers the entirety of the author’s life without necessarily focusing on a particular theme.
So, which one have you written?
Three Key Questions
When an author comes to me with a book that they believe fits into the memoir or autobiography category, I spend time sitting with the author first to discuss a few key questions:
Who is your audience? In other words, who is going to be drawn to pick up this book and read it based on its content?
What is your central message? This can be hard for authors to pin down sometimes, especially when writing about your own life experiences, but the clue is in the name—a central message is at the center of everything to do with your book. I like to think of it like this: We run into each other, and you mention you are writing a book. I say, “Awesome! What’s it about?” How would you tell me about your book? What elements of your story would convey in the five-minute conversation that will effectively translate what your book is about?
How do you want the reader to feel when they are done reading? This is a question that’s not as often thought about in the writing community, but I believe it’s an important one. Readers pick up books in the memoir and autobiography genres to experience the character’s journey through the events being described. They want the emotional highs and lows and how you felt through them so they can feel the connection to your story. An additional, wonderful part about memoir and autobiographies are that they inspire the reader as they walk their own journey. Often, people will pick up books in these genres because they relate in some way to the central message of the book.
The author and I now have the “who,” “what,” and “how” of the manuscript, which means we can start working on the “which.” That is, which category does my book fall into?
One Author’s Journey
Almost every time the book is going to be a memoir. This is because memoirs deal with themes that convey a message. And even when an author doesn’t think their manuscript has an identifiable central message, by the end of my consultation with that author, we typically identify one main message, with at least one other smaller message that branches off the main one.
Recently, I sat with an author who was writing what he thought was an autobiography. He had invested a substantial amount of time researching his family’s history. It was a wonderful and fascinating tale of his forefathers’ emigration to Australia and how the family established its legacy and grew its generational wealth. Then, it took a turn into his own life, detailing the success he had found in business, and then another turn at a seismic shift his life took when he was diagnosed with a debilitating neurological condition. His initial thought was that it had to be an autobiography because how could those themes of ancestry, business success, and a neurological condition come together into a specific sequence of events tied together under one central message? It had to just be about his life rather than a central message.
Through our conversation, I was able to show him that not only was it possible, but his work actually held one very powerful message: our human resilience to survive in the face of incredibly tough personal and cultural circumstances. It’s a message that we can all identify with in our own lived experiences. The identification of his central message helped us to focus his writing, pulling on the material that showcased this central message and easily cutting down his word count from 170,000 to a more digestible 80,000. It also focused his marketing efforts. He now had a solid grasp on his central message, the type of reader that would be interested in that message, and how he could present his book so that readers knew what they were getting the moment they looked at his cover.
So, if you are struggling to know if your manuscript is a memoir or an autobiography, I suggest asking yourself those three key questions:
Who is my audience?
What is my central message?
How do I want the reader to feel when they’re done reading?
If you would like help defining those questions, please reach out on my website form and let me know you would like a consultation. I offer free 30-minute consultations, and I would love to talk with you about your project.
