When you sit down to write about your life, you might wonder: Is this a biography or a memoir?
The difference is more than just page count. A biography tells the full sweep of a life from birth to death, often told chronologically, fact-checked, and complete. A memoir, on the other hand, zooms in on a particular slice of your life. It explores a theme or thread that connects the moments you choose to share.
Here’s the thing: you can have more than one memoir. William Faulkner’s oft-quoted advice to “kill your darlings” means you must be willing to cut the parts of your work. These may be parts you personally love the most. As a writer, this can be challenging.
You need to be ready to remove these elements. They could be a clever phrase or a beautifully crafted sentence. Sometimes, it’s even an entire subplot. Remove them if they don’t serve the story as a whole.
The “darlings” are those bits you’re emotionally attached to, but which distract, slow down, or confuse the reader. Faulkner’s point is that good writing is about clarity. It is also about cohesion and the reader’s experience. It is not about the writer’s sentimental attachment to certain lines.
Your darlings may not be needed now, but stash them in the basement for your next project. Larry David and Woody Allen keep notebooks with sentences they overhear or incidents they experience for future reference.
Write freely, but edit ruthlessly. If it doesn’t serve the story, let it go. Rather than “kill your darlings,” keep nurturing them in the guest room until they become relevant for another story.
Life is made of many threads. I wrote Beyond Heart Mountain. It started as a newspaper column. The column was about the lingering shadow of subtle and overt racism toward Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor. Those echoes have shaped me to this day.
I also wrote A Twinkle at the End. It’s my story of rising from the deathbed. I weave that experience into my decades of navigating the health care system.
Different slices, different truths, both memoirs.
The story in Beyond Heart Mountain began as deeply personal. I realized my experiences weren’t mine alone. I aimed to make my personal story useful to people. I placed it into a broader social context. I hoped this would make it relatable to the general public.
Same with A Twinkle at the End. Many people have faced death in a hospital. I chose to incorporate that experience into my perspectives on health care, which is an important topic these days.
I was offered a publishing contract for Beyond Heart Mountain after my first pitch. That strange sequence of events planted the seeds for a third memoir. The Zen of Creative Imperfection is about my unorthodox writing journey. I’ll update that book with all these stories about the writing craft I’ve been composing.
You are thinking about writing a memoir or trying to write one. If you find yourself stuck or avoiding it because vacuuming is more important, you are dodging your truth. I wrote about this in my post on knowing yourself and Ernest Hemingway’s “one true sentence.” Your job is to tell the clearest, most honest thing you can. Do this one line at a time.
The beauty of memoir is that it doesn’t require you to tell everything. It only requires you to share the truth of what you choose. You can focus on the moments that matter most. These moments illuminate both your life and a universal human experience.
Resurrect your cast-off darlings for another memoir.
If your story’s been knocking on the door of your mind, answer it. Put down the remote. Get off the couch. Write that one true sentence, and the rest will follow.
Do you have questions or comments? Ask Besty Bot about the writing craft and how to publish your book with Best Chance Media!
