Thanks for the great article. As a journalist turned fiction writer, with a whole lot of personal real life thrown in, I am utterly drawn to memoir. Your site has been a valuable find as I explore the realm of life-story writing.

Shirley

Jerry

Thanks so much for your compliments. It’s great that you are here from the writer’s forum, http://www.absolutewrite.com (a great place for writer’s to communicate.)

There is a very thin boundary between authentically told story and memoir, and I find they can scratch the same itch in both reader and writer. I’ve done some interviews about this issue (search my blog for Naomi Gal). I’m reading “The Power of One” a cult world-classic “based on a true story.” And next week I’m going to be talking to Xujun Eberlein, the author of a book of short stories about writing her life experiences as fiction.

I don’t recommend looking too hard for discord. Instead look for passion and power. There is plenty inside every life. It’s the storyteller’s job to find it.

Jerry

You do such a wonderful job of describing the essence and beauty of memoirs – not to mention the specific ones that I always feel I have to read after you bring them up! “Getting a glimpse into the human condition,” “exhuming the remains,” and the process of gestation and explanation – great stuff.
I knew I wanted to be a writer for a long time – even before I had any life experiences to tell of. Much of my life growing up lacked the discord that’s often necessary for a good story, but once I got in my twenties I found some. Sometimes I feel like I was consciously looking for it. I mention this at the end of my book.

Anyway, I might be marketing my book as fiction, but I have to wonder if anyone will ever ask if it’s true? First person POV from a female narrator my age…I always wonder how close to life others’ fiction is sometimes. But as long as it’s a good story, that’s what counts!