While memoir and autobiography share much and can be considered as “cousins,” I want to state clearly and emphatically that neither memoir nor autobiography are cousins to autobiographical fiction. Autobiographical fiction is —well—in the fiction family while memoir and autobiography are distinctly non-fiction.
There is a clear difference—a chasm really—between the choice to write memoir and autobiography and to write autobiographical fiction.
While one has a choice to write on one side of this chasm or on the other, one does not have the choice to call one by the name of the other. The writer owes it to the reader to be clear in how a piece is approached and identified.
Non-fiction and fiction are not the same and identifying the difference is not hard.
Why one reads memoir and autobiography
The reader comes to memoir and autobiography to follow the lead of a person who has had a real life experience. The reader wants to identify with the writer and be supported by the writer’s lived experience.
While the autobiographical fiction writer also—one has to presume—has the reader’s good in mind, the reader cannot bring the same confidence to the wisdom of the writer’s theme as expressed in the story. There is something about fiction that has not been proven.
The reader inevitably asks: “What has the writer made up in order to move the story along?”
In conclusion
The posts below will help you to explore what I mean by my insistence that there is a difference between memoir and autobiographical fiction, between non-fiction and fiction.
I hope that the posts will convince you to stay with memoir and autobiography.
Have you ever succumbed to this memoir shortcut?
“I just added a little bit of fiction to move the story along,” you say, to explain a memoir shortcut you have just taken, joining the ranks of such pseudo memoirist as James Frey in A Million Pieces? Or, perhaps the ranks of Frank McCourt who fictionalized long dialogs in Angela’s Ashes. (No one remembers […]
Memoir vs. Autobiographical Fiction? Which is Best?
I sometimes get asked this question and I have to confess that my reaction is firm. There is a clear difference—a chasm really—between the choice of writing memoir vs. autobiographical fiction.While one has a choice to write one or the other, one does not have a choice to call one by the name of the […]
Only Telling the Truth in Your Memoir Will Set You Free
I urge all readers to commit to telling the truth—100% of it—in their memoir. It’s the only way you will get to the truth—and as they say, the telling the truth will set you free.
Are Your Details Destroying Your Memoir? How to Avoid These Memoir Writing Mistakes
Liberties with facts ultimately, I believe, undermine the authority of a memoirist to present his/her life experience as a lived (vs. fictionalized) version of the mythic journey. The lived hero’s tale must figure at the center of every memoir if the story is to rise above a chronology, a dirge or an encomium.
Which to Write: Memoir or Autobiographical Fiction? There is a Difference!
Should I write memoir or autobiographical fiction? I sometimes get asked this and I have to confess that my reaction is firm. I don’t believe particularly in an either/or possibility. There is a clear difference—a chasm really—between the choice of memoir or autobiographical fiction. While one has a choice to write one or the other, […]
Memoir Versus Fiction, or Is Memoir Fiction?
Is memoir fiction? I emphatically don’t agree that memoir is fiction. Although a memoir invariably uses fiction techniques—and we will look at one in this post it must be an as-much-as-possible true accounting of an experience.
The Difference between a Memoir and an Autobiography
The difference between a memoir and an autobiography can be rather minimal—or they can be fairly large. “So what is the difference between a memoir and an autobiography?” you may persist in asking as so many people do. Practically speaking, for most people, there is no difference. In common speech, the terms are interchangeable. But […]
Fiction and memoir writing: When Is It not a Memoir?
It’s an interesting book, very well-written in terms of style and organization, but my nagging doubt is that it is autobiographical fiction and not memoir…