How to Write a Memoir
Everyone has a story worth telling. Not everyone has the time, skills, or patience to write a 300-page book about it.
This guide is for the people who have lived something worth reading, and want to get it on paper in a way that does it justice.
What Makes a Memoir Different from an Autobiography?
An autobiography covers your whole life, chronologically. A memoir focuses on a specific period, theme, or transformation.
Most people who want to "write about their life" actually want to write a memoir, a focused story about:
- A period of dramatic change (building a company, surviving illness, immigrating, grieving)
- A central relationship or loss
- A transformation in how you see the world
- A career or life philosophy built through hard experience
Memoirs have a narrative arc. Autobiographies have a timeline. The memoir is almost always the better book.
Step 1: Find Your Through-Line
The most common memoir mistake is trying to include everything. A memoir needs one central thread, an emotional or thematic question the book is trying to answer.
Ask yourself: What is this story really about?
Not the events, the meaning. A memoir about starting a company isn't really about founding rounds and product launches. It's about identity, risk, belonging, failure, or love. The events are the vehicle. The theme is the destination.
Your through-line is the answer to: What did I learn, lose, find, or become?
Step 2: Choose Your Scope
You don't need to start at birth. Pick the period of your life that contains the story you want to tell, and start there.
Most memoirs cover 1–10 years of a life, not a whole lifetime. If your story is about building your first business, start the book on the day you quit your job, not your childhood. Weave in backstory where it's relevant.
Common memoir scopes:
- A pivotal career chapter (founding, selling, failing, rebuilding)
- A health crisis and recovery
- A family story, raising children, losing a parent, navigating a difficult marriage
- An immigration or displacement story
- A spiritual or philosophical transformation
- A professional career that shaped a worldview
Step 3: Structure the Story
Memoir is narrative nonfiction, it follows story structure, not a report structure. A basic narrative arc:
- The setup, Who you were before the central events began
- The inciting incident, The moment everything changed
- The struggle, The heart of the story; what you faced, tried, failed, learned
- The turning point, The moment of insight or irreversible change
- The resolution, Who you are now; what you've become
You don't have to follow this rigidly, but most compelling memoirs hit these beats.
Step 4: Write Scenes, Not Summaries
The most common mistake in first drafts: telling what happened instead of showing it.
Summary: "It was the hardest year of my life. I worked constantly and my marriage suffered."
Scene: "She left her coffee on the counter three mornings in a row without saying goodbye. I noticed it on the third morning. By then she was already gone."
Scenes put the reader inside the experience. Summaries keep them outside. Great memoirs are mostly scenes, with summary used to transition between them.
Write the moments you remember most clearly. Don't reconstruct dialogue perfectly, write it as you remember it, with a note that conversations are recalled from memory.
Step 5: Be Honest About Yourself
The memoir readers trust most are the ones where the author is honest about their own failures, contradictions, and blind spots.
You don't need to be the hero of your own story. In fact, the memoirs that resonate most deeply are the ones where the author admits: I was wrong. I hurt people. I didn't understand what was happening until later.
Readers forgive flawed narrators. They don't forgive dishonest ones.
Step 6: Handle Other People Carefully
You can write honestly about real people in memoir. You cannot write falsehoods presented as fact. The legal and ethical standard:
- True things are generally protected
- False statements of fact presented as true are defamation
- Emotionally unflattering but true portrayals are generally fine
Practical guidance:
- Change names and identifying details for minor characters who didn't consent
- Consider sending relevant sections to family members before publishing
- Consult a publishing attorney if you're writing about litigation, abuse, or criminal conduct by named individuals
How Long Should a Memoir Be?
| Type | Word Count | Pages (approx.) |
|---|---|---|
| Short memoir (tight, focused) | 50,000–60,000 words | 150–200 pages |
| Standard memoir | 70,000–90,000 words | 230–300 pages |
| Extended narrative | 90,000–120,000 words | 300–400 pages |
Most memoir agents and publishers look for 70,000–90,000 words. For self-publishing, any length that serves the story is acceptable.
What If You're Not a Writer?
You don't need to be a skilled writer to have a memoir worth reading. You need the story. The writing craft can be provided by someone else.
Many of the best-known memoirs, including those by celebrities, executives, and athletes, were written or co-written by professional ghostwriters who captured the subject's voice and shaped their raw material into a compelling narrative.
TurnkeyBook offers done-for-you memoir writing for $2,800:
- Our writing team interviews you and gathers your story
- We produce a professionally written memoir in about 7 days
- You receive the full manuscript in PDF and Kindle .epub format
- Full copyright transfers to you, it's your book, your story, your name