Write Part of My Memoir in November, Day 4: Memoir vs Autobiography

Welcome to Day 4 of my exploration of memoir writing that is turning out to be as confusing as it is illuminating.

For example, when I started this challenge I was certain I was writing a memoir. Now I’m not so sure.

In the review of Elvis Costello’s recent book that I linked to yesterday, the reviewer uses the terms “autobiography” and “memoir” interchangeably.  That’s not unusual. Amazon and brick-and-mortar stores also conflate these categories. The line between them is fuzzy.

According to a piece on the LifeRich Publishing site, chronology and comprehensiveness are key to autobiography, while “a memoir provides a much more specific timeline and a much more intimate relationship to the writer’s own memories, feelings and emotions.”

According to the site:

Memoirs are typically

• less formal
• less encompassing
• more concerned with emotional truth toward a particular section of one’s life and how it makes you feel now
• less obsessed with factual events

Autobiography is essentially

• made up of detailed chronology, events, places, reactions, movements and any other relevant information that inhabited the life of the subject
• focused on facts –  fact, above all, is its foundation

I am covering a rather large block of time in my book, more than 20 years. And, as I noted on Day 2 of this challenge, I’m spending a great deal of time fact checking. Given that the travel publishing industry is the backdrop, veracity seems essential.

In addition, although I am concerned about a narrative arc to move the story along, a feature associated strongly with memoir, I don’t necessarily feel that the arc in my book is all that emotional. My revelations are usually humorous — which doesn’t make them any less valid but it does put them a bit outside the memoir box.

Or does it? Memoirs tend to have stronger, more individual voices than autobiographies do. And I’m not famous enough to be writing an autobiography.

So…am I writing a hybrid? If so, what shall I call it? A memography? That sounds too much like mammography. An automoir? Too similar to an auto mall.

Incidentally, I think Elvis Costello wrote an autobiography, but the reviewer wishes that he had written a memoir because memoirs are shorter. Maybe I should wait until I see how long my book is before I decide what to call it.

Tags: autobiography, automoir, memography