
You’re saying, in essence, this is who I was, this is who I am now, and here’s how that happened. They should be able to see themselves in your transferable principles and universal truths. In that sense, while it still contains your experiences, in the end, it’s really about the readers. While an autobiography would cover your entire life from birth to the present, a memoir would be theme-oriented, using carefully selected stories from your life, designed with the reader in mind. The Major Difference Between Memoir and Autobiography Knowing the differences between memoir and autobiography can improve your chances of getting agents and publishers to pursue your manuscript. You should read dozens of books in your genre so you can pitch and market yours effectively. It’s important you identify your specific genre so you know its conventions and expectations. The goal is the same as in fiction: a story well told.

Unlike pure academic, technical, and straight journalistic writing, creative nonfiction uses fiction writing techniques to tell a compelling true story.

What Memoir and Autobiography Have in Commonīoth genres fall under the category called Creative Nonfiction, a term that can be also applied to biography, travel writing, personal essays, interviews, blogs, and more. Let me walk you through the differences so you can be confident which you should be writing. They often live on the same shelf in bookstores.īoth are nonfiction and contain facts from someone’s life, so what’s the difference?

You may have heard the terms memoir and autobiography used interchangeably.
