Tag: Autobiography

Autobigraphy, Finish Writing Your Novel Now!

How to write an autobiography: Telling the full story of your life

Mandy Webster

We often hear “memoir” and “autobiography” used interchangeably, but they serve very different purposes. A memoir is a slice of life—a deep dive into a particular time, theme, or transformation. An autobiography, by contrast, is your full life story—from childhood through the present. It’s the comprehensive telling of who you are and how you became that person, meant to offer not just facts but also meaning.

An autobiography attempts to tell the full story of a person’s life, typically in chronological order. It starts at or near the beginning—childhood, family background—and proceeds through adulthood, covering major events, accomplishments, and lessons learned. Think of it as a wide-angle lens: an overview of a life from beginning to (almost) end.

In this post, we’ll look at how to write a true autobiography. And if you’ve been following my series on going back to basics and applying the steps of the novel writing process to your own work, you’ll be pleased to know the same steps apply here. Whether you’re writing fiction or nonfiction, the process of planning, structuring, drafting, and revising holds up. The main differences lie in where your material comes from—memory and research rather than imagination—and how you go about shaping your story.

Continue reading “How to write an autobiography: Telling the full story of your life” →
Finish Writing Your Novel Now!, Memoir

Memoir vs. autobiography: What’s the difference—and why it matters

Mandy Webster

If you’ve ever wondered what separates a memoir from an autobiography, you’re not alone—it all comes down to scope and storytelling style. When browsing the nonfiction shelves or choosing your next book club pick, you’ve likely seen the terms memoir and autobiography used almost interchangeably. While they both draw from real lives, these two forms of life writing are distinct in both structure and purpose. Understanding the difference isn’t just helpful for readers—it’s essential for writers, too.

While it’s common to write an autobiography in a formal or even academic tone, a memoir leaves more room for the imagination.

Autobiography: The Whole Life

An autobiography attempts to tell the full story of a person’s life, typically in chronological order. It starts at or near the beginning—childhood, family background—and proceeds through adulthood, covering major events, accomplishments, and lessons learned. Think of it as a wide-angle lens: an overview of a life from beginning to (almost) end.

Continue reading “Memoir vs. autobiography: What’s the difference—and why it matters” →
Digital Marketing, Essays, Memoir

My Final Paper | Teaching Life Writing as a Life Skill: Normalizing the Deviant Self via Personal Narrative

Mandy Webster

I finally finished the class I was taking this semester and turned in my 22-page final paper on Thursday. Yay! While I shared several of my earlier papers here on my blog throughout the semester, this paper is just way too long for that. So, I decided to see this as an opportunity to explore a new (to me) publishing platform that I had previously only used for reading: Scribd.

It turns out, Scribd is super easy to use. You can embed your documents right into your blog as I have done above so your readers don’t even have to leave your website! You can also charge people to read your documents on the Scribd website. I’m not going to do that with this paper, though. You may feel free to read it here in tiny text, or click through to the Scribd website or app to read it for free at your leisure! Continue reading “My Final Paper | Teaching Life Writing as a Life Skill: Normalizing the Deviant Self via Personal Narrative” →

Book Reviews, Memoir

The Stories We Tell | An analysis of Mary Gordon’s “The Shadow Man: A Daughter’s Search for her Father”

Mandy Webster

Pieter Claeszoon - Still Life with a Skull and...
Pieter Claeszoon – Still Life with a Skull and a Writing Quill (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This semester, I am taking a graduate-level course in women’s life writing, partially in an attempt to generate interesting and intellectual content for my blog. Throughout this course, we will be writing “course autobiographies” on some of the texts we are reading. The following is my analysis of Mary Gordon’s The Shadow Man: A Daughter’s Search for her Father.

The stories we tell

The Shadow Man: A Daughter’s Search for her Father is the story of a woman who has based her life on the testimony of unreliable witnesses. Her entire sense of self is disrupted when she realizes that many of the stories she has lived by are not true. While this is not the type of text I would normally choose to read for fun, I do believe it holds value as a teaching tool. In addition to telling the story of Mary Gordon’s search for her father, this text also sets an example of how all humans construct stories about who they are. Continue reading “The Stories We Tell | An analysis of Mary Gordon’s “The Shadow Man: A Daughter’s Search for her Father”” →