The Challenge That Changed My Course

Make it yours

Three ways to take this prompt somewhere nobody else will.

1. Let someone else in the story have the best line.
2. Write the part you'd rather skip.
3. Include a detail only you would remember: a smell, a song, a phrase.

Writing biography and memoir books

A real life, told with the shape of a story.

A biography tells someone else's life; an autobiography tells your own, start to finish. A memoir is narrower: one stretch or theme of the author's life, told with a novelist's tools. Memoir is where most new writers start.

What readers expect

• A true story with a narrative arc
• An honest, distinctive voice
• Scenes, not just summary
• Meaning drawn from experience

A tip before you start

A memoir isn't your whole life. Pick one thread, such as a year, a relationship or a question, and cut everything else.

More about biography and memoir in our book genres guide