Memoir & Creative Nonfiction: Truth as Narrative

Rosemi Mederos: 00:01

If you have plot bunnies coming out of your plot holes, it’s time for a writing break.

If you’ve ever said, “One day I should write a book about my life,” this episode is for you. If you’ve ever said, “One day I should write about this one scene in my life,” this episode is also for you. And if you’ve also said, “But who would even care to read it?”, well, this episode is really for you, my humble overthinker.

Welcome to Writing Break.

Today, we’re exploring memoir and creative nonfiction, two genres that turn the truth into narrative. Your life is a story, but not every moment deserves a chapter in your book. So, how do you decide which parts belong on the page? How do you shape your memories into something readers will want to read? We’ll talk about how to write from life without oversharing, how to balance honesty with craft, and how to build a story out of lived experience.

The Writing Break café is open. Let’s head inside and order something nostalgic.

Memoir and creative nonfiction are not the same thing, but I’m putting them together in this episode so you can see your options when telling the story of your life or of something that happened in your life.

Both memoir and creative nonfiction use the strength of storytelling to tell us the truth. A memoir is not a diary, a list of events, or a transcript of your life events. It’s a narrative built from real experiences that together explore a theme. Common themes for memoir are determination, grit, resilience, shame, courage, and forgiveness. Memoirs can be especially memorable when the theme is not usually explored in memoir. For example, Tara Westover’s Educated details her life growing up off the grid, but it also reflects on the price of seeking knowledge. Jeanette Walls’ The Glass Castle focuses on her parents as well as the fragile line between love and neglect.

Find your central question. Every good memoir has one. What are you trying to understand, forgive, celebrate, escape, or overcome?

Now, creative nonfiction is the umbrella term for any true story told with the techniques of fiction, meaning you can use scenes, dialogue, and pacing the way a novelist does. Essays, travelogues, and even narrative journalism fall under the umbrella of creative nonfiction.

A memoir is personal to the author, but you can write creative nonfiction about yourself or about someone else, so it’s not necessarily personal. Still, both genres are grounded in emotional honesty if not literal honesty. Readers are as much interested in what happened as they are in what it meant.

The goal of memoir is not to give a detailed report of what you’ve been through but rather to reveal what you learned from what you’ve been through. You’re not writing to say, “Look at me.” You’re writing to say, “Look at this part of being human. Have you felt it too?”

Every memoir, no matter how sprawling, needs structure. That means you can’t just start at birth and march toward present day.

Instead, think of memoir as a story arc that follows the truth. Sure, you’re writing a beginning, middle, and end, but more importantly, you’re writing about change. How did the person you were at the start become the person writing the story now?

So you have to ask yourself: What am I trying to understand through this story? What question am I wrestling with? And what moment changed me?

Your reader doesn’t need to know about every single job you’ve held, relationship you’ve had, or existential crisis you’ve survived. Start where the tension begins, not where your life begins.

And keep reminding yourself that if it doesn’t serve your theme, it doesn’t belong in the book.

When in doubt as to whether you should keep or eliminate a part of your memoir, ask yourself, Does this scene reveal something new about me, about others, or about the world? If not, it’s out.

While your memoir is your story, it also reveals something about everyone who walked through your story. And some of those people might not appreciate their cameo. Those people have memories, too, and they might not remember things quite the same as you do.

You own your experience. You don’t own theirs.

Anne Lamott once wrote, “If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.” Which is true, but let’s not turn that into your battle cry. People can tell when you’re out for blood, and it doesn’t go down as well as you think it will.

Here’s my rule of thumb: write with empathy, not vengeance.

That doesn’t mean sanitizing your story, ok? It means writing from a place of understanding, not anger.

You can change names or identifying details if it helps, but not to the point of falsifying events. If you have to fictionalize major events to make them “less awkward,” maybe that story belongs in autofiction instead — and we’ll get to that later. Be kind, but be honest. Memoirists walk a fine line between truth and harm.

When in doubt, ask yourself: “Am I telling the truth, or am I trying to win?” If it’s the second one, step away from the keyboard.

And if you’re writing about trauma, it’s okay to wait until the wound has scarred over. Write from the healed version of you, not the version that is still bleeding. As a sidenote, I do believe there are some real monsters among us, and if they’ve harmed you in any way, you did not not deserve it, you’re not obligated to proffer any understanding for their actions, and I hate them as much as you want me to.

Okay, so you have your truth. Now you need voice, scene, and reflection; this is the holy trinity of memoir.

Voice gives readers connection. They want to feel like you’re talking directly to them. Memoir thrives on intimacy. Readers should feel like you’re sitting beside them, confiding in them.

Scene gives readers immersion. You’re writing about the past, so anchor your reader in it. Use the five senses. What did the moment feel like? smell like? The smallest detail can make the biggest difference: “the taste of burnt coffee,” “the sound of a door.” Include dialogue that sounds authentic.

Balance scene with reflection. After every vivid memory, step back and interpret it. What does it mean now? How did it shape you? Reflection gives readers meaning. It’s what transforms a memory into a story.

And please, no “and then, and then, and then.” That’s a diary, not a narrative.

Avoid the timeline trap. You’re not Wikipedia. Readers don’t want everything. They want something, and they want it deeply. Skip the filler. If it doesn’t serve your theme, it just creates unnecessary background noise.

Also avoid the justification spiral. Not just the justification for why you’re writing what you're writing but also the justification for the actions you took in your life. If your story starts sounding like a court defense, stop. Readers can smell defensiveness. Vulnerability earns trust; justification loses it. Own your actions; admit when you’re proud of what you did or said, and admit when you regret what you did or said.

Do not attempt to get your therapy draft published. Every memoirist should write a therapy draft. That’s the draft where you pour it all out. Release your rage, type in all caps, overuse exclamations marks; put it all down in the therapy draft. But that draft is for you, not your readers. It’s emotional exfoliation. Do it, then set it aside and start the real story.

The thing is, readers don’t want to admire you. They want to understand you.

Now, let’s talk about publishing for a minute.

Memoir and creative nonfiction are not just for the famous. Readers want connection. They want insight. They want truth that feels crafted, not banged together.

But when pitching a memoir, “I lived through something wild” is not enough.

Agents want to know:

Why now?

Why you?

And what’s universal in your story?

If your memoir has a heartbeat beyond your own, it has potential.

However, I’ll be honest with you, unless your story is extraordinary or famous, you will struggle to get a publishing contract for your memoir in today’s market, but I don’t think that should stop you from writing and self-publishing.

With that in mind, not every story about your life needs to be book-length. Essays count too. Shorter forms let you explore moments and ideas without committing to a full book. Creative nonfiction thrives in short form. If memoir feels too personal, or too close to the bone, consider starting off by writing creative nonfiction essays. Literary journals like Brevity, River Teeth, and Creative Nonfiction Magazine publish wonderful work from writers at every stage of their lives and careers. Check the show notes for more information.

t segment from episode 132? This is your moment to bring it full circle. Revise them and submit them.

Now, let’s discuss autofiction. Sometimes truth starts bending itself into art. You might change a name, compress time, or alter a conversation so it hits harder, and suddenly you’re not writing pure memoir anymore.

That’s autofiction; it’s the space where memory meets imagination.

Memoir says, “This happened to me.”

Autofiction says, “Something like this happened, and I’m using storytelling techniques to get closer to the truth.”

Both are valid, and both can be powerful. But if you promise truth, deliver truth. Label your lane, and drive confidently in it. Memoir isn’t about you being special. It’s about you being specific. It’s more than writing about life in general. You’re writing about life through your eyes.

That’s why the small moments matter. The knitting needles in your grandmother’s hands, the one phrase you can still hear from your father, the way the air changed the moment you realized something irreversible had happened.

Memoir is made in those details where the ordinary becomes extraordinary because you noticed it.

Here’s your overthinking prompt for the week:

Think of a memorable event in your life. How would you tell this story in a way that makes what you learned about that moment relatable? First, think of your five senses in relation to that event. Then think about your perspective at the time. And be honest about it; take off the rose-colored glasses and put down the sugar bowl. Now, think about it again from your current perspective. What did you now know that you didn’t know then? And, in the words of too many psychologists, how does that make you feel?

Every other genre we’ve explored this season asks, What if this were to happen? Memoir and creative nonfiction ask, Why does it matter that this happened? In answering that, we often discover who we’ve become. Your memories serve as the medium for your message. When shaped with care, honesty, and courage, they can become art.

Memoir is where the literary and the lived collide. It’s creative, grounded, emotional, and intentional. You can blend forms, such as memoir essays, lyric nonfiction, and braided narratives, but the goal is to discover and share what you discovered. Write to understand something, not to prove something.

Several aspiring authors have told me that they don’t want to pick a genre. They feel it’s limiting. They believe their book is for everyone. Next week, I’ll tell you what I think about all that.

Until then, thank you for listening, and remember: you deserved this break.

Thank you for making space in your mind for The Muse today.

Writing Break is hosted by America’s Editor and produced by Allon Media with technical direction by Gus Aviles. Visit us at writingbreak.com or contact us at podcast@writingbreak.com.