One of the most frequently asked questions by EditsMadeEasy clients who are exploring the option of writing personal histories is whether they are preparing a memoir or an autobiography. In fact, when many writers feel compelled to record the story of their lives, they often face this question—as well as the questions of which elements the writing requires as critical to the genre, or what must be extrapolated from events, or in just what ways, if any, the memoir and autobiography are different. Or maybe they’re the same thing? While both the memoir and the autobiography have elements in common, there are also ways in which they differ. To determine whether your project falls into one category or the other, here are a few points to consider.

Memoir

The MEMOIR is the less constructed of the two genres. It does not need to span the life of the writer but can be about a single day, a special moment, a fragrance, a particular color (that leads you to recall a shirt of that color that you wore in high school, an event during which you wore the shirt, what your best friend thought about your clothing choices, etc.). These seemingly disparate thoughts are your memories and a memoir is like a memory book; that is, it can be a collection of your thoughts and feelings about any one particular time period, person, place or thing. It is mainly what you remember and not necessarily a detailed account of facts and events as you would find them in a piece of journalism. It is more like a diary entry than a newspaper article.

Let’s say you have decided to capture something from your life experience on paper. This can be a happy or sad event, a life-threatening or life-changing one, or you can simply be compelled to write about why you like to spend time at the beach. You begin to recall your subject and—in the way of all thinking minds—you begin to have many thoughts that seem to be off the topic. For example, the beach recalls a particular bathing suit you owned when you were sixteen, the smell of fried dough wafting across the boardwalk, the diets you were always trying, your envy of your friend’s svelte figure, her parents, parenting your own children, and so on. You seem to ramble on but you eventually bring yourself back to that beach and what pleasure it brings to you and why. That is memoir.

Note that this piece of writing did not necessarily include the day, time and place of your birth, your maternal or paternal grandparents, the story of how or why they came to this country or where they are living now, historical events that shaped you, your spouse, and other factual details of your lifespan. These elements would be some of the things you might include if you were writing an autobiography.

Autobiography

The AUTOBIOGRAPHY, then, is subject to a more structured approach and is considered to be an entire life’s history. Even if you are only sixteen years old, like Justin Bieber, your autobiography must cover the events that led up to the present time and place so the reader gets a sense of your personal history. The autobiography allows less room for mental rambling than the memoir. It should stick to topic, be concise, and take the reader down a particularly straight and narrow path. As a once-popular television detective used to say, “Just the facts, ma’am.”

Just the facts, however, does not mean that your autobiography needs to be dull and lifeless. In fact, it should not be, because the purpose in writing an autobiography at all is to make the seemingly mundane take on a new and vibrant meaning so the events of your life add a new dimension to who you are for the reader. You want to insert your personality into the telling of the events in such a way as to make the reader come away understanding you a bit more, feeling closer to you and empathizing with your choices in some way.

Above all, in both memoir and autobiography, readers must receive some benefit in the long run. Readers should be entertained, or amused, or horrified—if that’s the story you decide to tell. And, while the personal is often the universal, an autobiography that is too far removed from any reader’s experience will fall flat, as will a memoir. Keep your readers in mind at all times—your ideal readers, that is—and your story will become the vehicle by which you reach them and pull them in, whether that  is through a memoir or an autobiography.

Next: How to Identify Your Ideal Reader.

IRENE—Read more about this editor

“How do I find an agent?”

Hello. If you’re reading this blog, then you’ve found one. But before you send me your children’s book or your romance novel, you should do a bit of research. It won’t take long to discover that I don’t represent either of those two genres.

“Is there an agent for me?”

Thankfully, there exists a plethora of agents, each with their own unique focus. It’s likely that among them lies a good potential match for your project. That is comforting, but it leads us back toward our initial question.

“Where do I look?”

If you wrote a memoir that shares a lot of similarities with Eat, Pray, Love, and you’re wondering who to send it to, you can start by going to your bookstore and picking up a copy. Seriously. Most works of nonfiction have within them an Acknowledgements section in which the author thanks their mother, their sister, their 8^th grade English teacher, their cat Fifi and their agent. The great thing about researching at a bookstore is that Eat, Pray, Love is usually shelved alongside other memoirs. You can then browse and find similar titles with agents who you know for a fact have signed a manuscript in your genre. 

“Do I really have to spend all day in a bookstore?”

Well, no. I highly recommend it for several reasons, but if it just isn’t feasible due to location or time constraints, you could go about it a different way. In fact, even if you are able to do so, you should augment that research with other existing resources. The information you glean from a bookstore is limited by shelf space and their concerns about moving product. For example: they tend to stock some of the newest and hottest political books, which may be of use if that’s what you are writing. But they will also stock books written by public figures long dead, whose agents, if still living, have retired or moved on to a different genre. And meanwhile, a current book which may be similar to yours is not stocked because the public is more apt to buy Richard Nixon’s book on Vietnam. But perhaps the biggest reason to seek additional resources is that even if you find all the names you need at the bookstore, you end up with just that: names.

“How do I contact these people?”

There also exist plenty of good printed resources that list reputable agents who are appropriate for your particular work, as well as their contact information and desired methods of submission. My favorite of the books is the Jeff Herman Guide to Book Publishers, Editors & Literary Agents. It thoroughly covers what an agent is looking for, even to the point of including interviews so you know their favorite books, what kinds of stories are important to them and other information to help you determine whether or not they are a good fit for your manuscript. Another excellent book is the Guide to Literary Agents. This is released by the same people who make the wildly popular Writer’s Market series. But take note: Writer’s Market itself has a lot of excellent general information regarding publishing in different venues, but it will not help you specifically search for an agent. In addition to books, there are also trade magazines that feature agent information. I was just featured in the October 2010 issue of Writer’s Digest, for example.

“Can’t I just Google it?”

You can, if you want to waste a lot of time navigating Google and not getting the best results. The Internet at large is not regulated in its content, so choosing to swim in that ocean leaves you vulnerable to sharks and scam artists. I’ll touch on tips for avoiding them in my next post.

“So, I’m to avoid the Internet?”

Actually, no. The Internet can be your most useful resource for obtaining the most up-to-date information. The books I listed come out once a year, and the appropriate trade magazines are released monthly or weekly. The Internet, on the other hand, brings you information in real time. The Guide to Literary Agents blog is an excellent resource that should find its way into your RSS reader. Its new agent alerts feature complete interviews and listings of what the agent is/isn’t looking for. Also online, you can sign up to receive Publisher’s Lunch via email. You can get a free version that will keep you up to date on happenings in the industry, or you can pay a small fee to receive notifications of recent publishing deals. You can also sign up for access to Publisher’s Marketplace, which is a paid service at around $20 per month. This provides a daily updated, searchable database that lists all reported publishing deals since the year 2000: the title, author, genre, a brief description of the manuscript, which agent represented it, which editor at which house bought it and roughly for how much. You can even search their database of agent and editor contact information.

“Cool. I’ll send my manuscript right away.”

Not so fast. There is one more step. After making your list of agents, take a moment and visit each of their websites. Submission requirements vary from agent to agent, even within an agency. People are different, and everyone has their own system that works best for them. Some prefer email attachments or pasted chapters, others just queries. Some even ask for hard copies. That’s ok. It’s their system, and it’s in place for a reason.

And while you’re on the agent’s website, check to make sure that they are still looking for your type of manuscript. For example: 5 years ago, everyone and their mother wanted to represent teenage vampire stories. And now, publishers have all but stopped buying them. As a result, a particular agent may now be looking for zombies. Often, they will post their latest wish list on their blog. As with seeking litmags for your short stories, paying close attention to the type of work an agent is looking for will save you a lot of time and unnecessary “Not right for me” rejections.

GORDON—Read more about this editor

Got a Story to Tell?

Has anyone ever said you should write a book? Maybe you have some interesting characters in your family or a story or two worth telling. Perhaps you were involved in a defining moment in history. Or maybe you would like to keep your children and grandchildren aware of the family’s roots. Writing a memoir can help preserve history as experienced through your personal perspective. Whether or not you feel the reading public at-large would be interested in your story, there can be other reasons for composing it.

Memoir writing not only recounts history; it helps put the events of your life in order. Writing can help establish a fresh perspective and open new avenues of self-discovery. Digging through your memory banks can produce answers to questions that may have bothered you. It may help you locate lost relatives or clarify family events that have previously been a hazy memory. The reasons for writing a memoir are as varied as we are, but the steps needed to put words to paper are the same—no matter what our personal goals. The real challenge, however, is how to get started.

Getting Started

Like most nonfiction writing, a memoir can best be accomplished by starting with an outline. The outline should be chronological and contain the specific people or events you are most interested in writing about, along with the specific timeframe you would like to cover. To start out by trying to cover your entire life is probably not the best way to go, since it will dilute your story and make the task seem onerous right from the start. Once you have a basic working frame, you can begin to gather information to fill in the blanks around the story. Then, if you feel there is more to be added to the story, you can always add to your outline. Think of each outline entry as a possible chapter in your memoir.

Besides keeping the chapters chronological, it is helpful to put them in a natural linking order. For example, perhaps you have decided to write about moving to the United States from a foreign country when you were five years old. Your initial outline might look like this:

I.                   Living in the USA

A.     The physical move

1.       where you came from

2.      how you traveled

3.      when you moved

4.      who came with you

5.      what you brought

6.      why you moved here

 Note: Try to write as much as you can about each of these points-not just one sentence. Make notes of the people you need to talk to who can provide more information, i.e. those who traveled with you or those who stayed behind. Try to give reasons for what you brought, why you left your homeland, or why you chose a certain geographic area. When you have exhausted all these topics, move on to the next part of your outline, which might be:

 B. Your American neighborhood

 Note: Use the who, what, when, why and where approach again to form the initial structure for your memoir.

The hunt for information will probably be both the most fascinating and the most arduous part of your memoir. First, gather all the material you have at hand: scrapbooks, old photographs and family albums, letters, newspaper clippings, magazines and so forth. Separate them according to their relevance to your outline. Next, note living family members who can provide or share more information with you, or make a list of items you would like to research in the library or online. Most of all, have fun on your hunt for buried family treasure!

Have some experience with memoir-writing? Or questions or ideas about this topic? Leave us a COMMENT to share your thoughts.

IRENE—Read more about this editor