Do you have an idea for a book you want to write about your life? Before you begin, it's essential to determine which type of personal narrative suits your story best—autobiography or memoir. While these genres both involve writing about one's life, they differ significantly in focus and approach. Let’s explore the key differences between autobiography and memoir so you can pick the best format for your story. 

What Is Autobiography? 

An autobiography is the true story of someone's entire life as told by that person. If an autobiography were a scrapbook, it would feature pictures of your whole life.

Autobiographies are typically written in chronological order and include details about your family of origin, upbringing, friends, and relationships throughout your life. It often includes events such as career moves, major milestones, and other moments that were significant to you. Though an autobiography covers the breadth of your life, it should not be solely composed of facts and data. It should include personal reflections and insights you learned and want to impart to others. Autobiography is a great format if you want to chronicle your life to leave a legacy for future generations and an archive of your family history.

What Is Memoir? 

A memoir is also a true life story, but it focuses on one specific aspect of your personal story rather than your entire life. The focus could be on anything from an illness or injury to overcoming a challenge or facing adversity in some way. Instead of capturing the entire scope of your life, your lens narrows in a memoir to highlight key memories that illustrate a larger theme that others will resonate with and learn from. Memoir is the perfect genre when you want to share a transformative experience in your life that may help others learn and grow too.

In an interview with Jane Friedman on Ronit Plank’s podcast, Let’s Talk Memoir, Friedman says, “Memoir is when you're writing a first-person story focused on some problem or challenge in your life. The lens you’re applying is your own. The life you’re reflecting on is your own. You can bring in research and current events, but the focus is on your own journey.”

Limit Your Scope

In her video “Three Things to Consider When Writing Your Memoir,” author and instructor Alison Wearing says, “Memoir only aims to cover one aspect of a life, one event, one relationship. This narrow focus allows us to go deep because we’re not trying to cover everything. Memoirists deliberately limit the scope of their stories. This makes the story more interesting.” Think of your memoir as going an inch wide and a mile deep.

Think of your memoir as going an inch wide and a mile deep.

There are no rules about what must be included in the memoir or how long it should be (though typically they range from 60,000 to 80,000 words). Memoirs can cover any amount of time from just one day up to a few years—or even decades! But the big difference between an autobiography and a memoir is that an autobiography is a story of a life, whereas a memoir is a story from a life.

The Memoir Paradox

Memoirs are often more personal than autobiographies because they tend to dive deeper into feelings, emotions, and thoughts instead of simply recounting events as they occurred chronologically. Paradoxically, though your memoir is personal, it’s not actually about you. Memoir differs from autobiography primarily on this point.

“Your personal little story must illustrate a bigger universal theme, such as grief, or coming of age, or coming out or stepping into something,” says Wearing. “Our personal stories invite the reader to resonate with this bigger theme and tap into the universal experience of a certain theme. Being able to express a larger insight and theme is what makes memoir so powerful. We are not writing about ourselves but through ourselves to something greater.”

Autobiography or Memoir: Which Is Right for You?

So how do you know if you should write a memoir or an autobiography? The main way to choose is to consider why you’re writing about your life and who your story will be for.

If you want to capture the history of your life so that your family will have a lasting chronicle of who you are and how you fit on your family tree, an autobiography may be the right choice for you.

But if you’re trying to tell a story from your life to explore and illuminate a larger theme, then memoir may be your path.

Whether you choose autobiography or memoir, know that you are embarking on a journey that will bring great satisfaction as you write and reflect on the memories of your life.