Suspense in a memoir is a fiction technique that can be used effectively to add both interest for the reader during the reading of the story and to pull the reader along to the end of the memoir.

Every successful memoir has to be mindful of not only edifying the reader but with entertaining the reader sufficiently to continue reading to the end. A memoir that fails to entertain is perhaps also a memoir that has failed to edify as the reader will not read the book in its entirety

While foreshadowing suggests something is about to happen, suspense is more focused on describing what is happening with the suggestion of dire consequences or of indescribably wonderful results.

An example

If the story had to do with climbing a rock face, you would describe the distance between rock footholds and perhaps how narrow they were and then you would make allusions to how high you are and how injured you would be if you fell.

Suspense builds excitement and tension.

Obviously not every part of a memoir can be chock full of suspense, but a judicious use of suspense now and then can perk up a memoir.

In conclusion

A memoirist is encouraged to make use of fiction techniques, but the writer must never delve into fiction. If you are climbing a 15-foot cliff with plenty of vegetation to grab hold of, you cannot for the sake of suspense graduate the cliff into Yosemite’s El Capitan! Doing so is fiction, and fiction is not allowed in a memoir—but the use of suspense in a memoir is.