Writing Memoir vs Biography: What’s the Difference?
By Mary Kole
Mary Kole is a former literary agent, freelance editor, writing teacher, author of Writing Irresistible Kidlit, and IP developer for major publishers, with over a decade in the publishing industry.
If you’re confused about the difference of memoir vs biography in today’s publishing landscape, you’ve come to the right place. Writing a memoir or autobiography can be a great way to share your story with the world. But what’s a biography, then? And what about creative nonfiction? All of the terms can blend together, so it’s important to understand the differences between these categories before you begin writing. Let’s talk about memoir vs biography and clarify, once and for all.
Memoir Vs Biography: What is the Difference?
A memoir is a collection of personal recollections that are related to specific moments or experiences in the author’s life. A memoir uses narrative techniques to tell a good story around a specific universal theme. It is written in first person point of view and is usually focused on one topic, such as addiction, parenting, adolescence, grief, illness, marriage, faith, etc. Memoirs aren’t just transcriptions of your life, and they can read more like a novel than a nonfiction article. They should include things like dialogue, setting the scene, character descriptions, and more.
Autobiographies are more similar to memoir than to biography, but can have a wider focus in terms of time and topic. You can use a chronological narrative here, and spend less time exploring various realizations and revelations (which are generally deployed using interiority). An autobiography is more concerned with the facts than the feelings.
On the other hand, a biography is the story of events and circumstances of a person’s life, written by someone other than that person. Authorship is a key difference in the memoir vs biography question. Usually, people write biographies about a historical or public figure. They are always in third person point of view and carry a more formal and objective tone than both memoirs and autobiographies.
Creative nonfiction, or narrative nonfiction, is another genre that describes real events using the techniques of fiction writers. It reads as a novel, but is factually accurate. Most memoirs fall into this category, and you will sometimes see these terms used interchangeably.
Am I Writing Memoir Vs Biography?
When deciding whether to write memoir vs biography or other forms of narrative nonfiction, it is important to consider the scope of the story that you want to tell. An autobiography typically encompasses large swaths of a person’s life, while a memoir is less rigid and can focus on a specific sequence of events, timeframe, or theme. Memoir tends to be a book-length work, while creative nonfiction can be a personal essay or blog post … even a recipe! When it comes to memoir vs biography, memoirs have more creative license to massage events to fit into themes and arcs.
It is also important to consider who your audience is in choosing whether memoir vs biography is more appropriate for your situation. If you are writing for your family to record your experiences and thoughts, that's a memoir or autobiography. If you want to publish your work for a broader audience, determine what makes your story special enough that others will want to read it. Biography is not written by you, though it could be written about you. Most biography subjects are household names or have a very specific niche audience that will want to read their story. (Not to pick nits, but some memoirs aren’t written by the subject, either, though this is done by using a ghostwriter.)
Ultimately, understanding memoir vs biography can help you decide which category is best suited for your story and your style of storytelling. Whether you choose to write a memoir, biography, autobiography, or creative nonfiction, you are the only one who can tell this specific tale—so what are you waiting for?
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