Autobiography, Memoir and Anecdote

English II

Autobiography vs. Memoir

• Both are based in truth. • Both require a good deal of research, which can range from phone

interviews and trips to places you once lived, to sitting back into a comfy chair and doing some deep, focused remembering.

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/knowing-the-difference-between-an-autobiography-an.html

vs.

Autobiography

• Focuses on the trajectory of an entire life • Starts at the beginning and progresses

chronologically to the end

• Feels more like a historical document; tons of fact-checking and very specific dates/information

Autobiography

• Strives for factual, historical truths • Typically is written by a famous person

Memoir

• Focuses on a key aspect, theme, event, or choice in a life

• Starts anywhere and can deftly move around in time and place

• Feels more personal; less intense fact-checking

Memoir

• Strives for emotional truths

• Can be written by anyone

Memoir and Accuracy

• Good memoir borrows from fiction, following the rule that the story is not as important as the way it’s told. • Fiction writers use dialogue, description, scenes, and metaphors to

make these nobodies feel like the most important people in the world to the reader. Similarly, memoirists adopt fictional techniques to make their stories -- whether about a trip around the world or a hike through the woods -- feel as important as global affairs.

http://www.biographile.com/autobiography-vs-memoir-the-changing-landscape-of-recollective-writing/21575/

Memoir and Accuracy

• The downside is that memoirists sometimes use so many fictional techniques their books become, in essence fiction. • Memoirists are accorded creative license in retelling their stories -- no

one believes the writer has had a tape recorder going from birth, faithfully recording every conversation the writer ever had (not to mention documenting what the weather was like, what everyone was wearing, and what was on the menu that day.) • When the memoir is not just a book of memory, but a piece of the

historical record, the stakes change.

Anecdote• An anecdote is a short and amusing

or interesting account, which may depict a real incident or person.• An anecdote is always presented as

based in a real incident involving actual persons, whether famous or not, usually in an identifiable place. However, over time, modification in reuse may convert a particular anecdote to a fictional piece, one that is retold but is "too good to be true".

Anecdote

• Sometimes humorous, anecdotes are not jokes, because their primary purpose is not simply to evoke laughter, but to reveal a truth more general than the brief tale itself, or to delineate a character trait in such a light that it strikes in a flash of insight to its very essence.

Anecdote

“You need an interesting character you can relate to, and they have to get into a situation where things happen to them, and then something else happens, and something else. There are surprises, and you can’t anticipate what will happen next.”

Ira Glass, host of This American Life

Anecdote

“Then, there’s the part of the story where I make some really big statement like, ‘There’s something about the kindness of strangers.’ Because you can’t just have an anecdote. It’s got to mean something. You can have people read the little story from the Bible, but unless you tell them, you know, the lesson they’re trying to draw from it, it’s not a real sermon.”

Ira Glass, host of This American Life

Your Assignment

• Turn the story you wrote at the beginning of class into an anecdote.• Be sure to emphasize the relationship

between the animal and the human in the story.• Why do you find this story interesting?

Make sure your reader understands this.