Memoir, autobiography or biography: what's the difference?

An autobiography covers your whole life. A memoir covers one part of it. A biography is a life story written by someone else. In everyday use the words overlap, so don't worry if you've been using them loosely.

If you're writing for your family, you don't need to pick a label before you start. The definitions below will help you decide what to write, and what to call it when you're done.

Plain definitions of each kind

Biography: a life told by someone else

A biography is the story of a person's life written by someone else, usually from birth onward and based on interviews, letters and records. David McCullough's John Adams is a biography.

If your daughter interviews you and writes your life as "he" or "she," that's a biography.

Autobiography: your whole life, by you

An autobiography is the story of your own life, written by you, usually in order from childhood to the present. It aims to cover the whole life, including the facts of where you lived, what you did and when.

Benjamin Franklin's autobiography is a famous example, and its first part was written for family. Franklin addressed it to his son William, and he appears to have called the work his Memoirs.

Memoir: one part of your life, and what it meant

A memoir is also written by you, but it covers one period or theme of your life, such as a childhood, a war, a marriage or a career. It focuses on what that time was like and what it meant to you, more than on a complete record. The word comes from the French mémoire, meaning memory.

Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes is a memoir of his childhood in Brooklyn and in Limerick, Ireland.

Personal or family history: written for relatives

A personal history is the story of your life written for your family, not for sale. It can be a printed book, a binder of stories and photos, or a set of recordings. A family history goes wider, covering your parents, grandparents and earlier generations.

Ghostwritten memoir: a hired writer, in your voice

A ghostwritten memoir is written by a professional writer who works from conversations with you and writes in your voice, as "I." Your name goes on it as the author. Prince Harry's memoir, Spare, was ghostwritten by J. R. Moehringer.

Legacy letter or ethical will: your values, in a letter

A legacy letter, also called an ethical will, is a letter to your family about what you value, what you've learned and what you hope for them. It isn't a legal document, and the idea comes from Jewish tradition. Here's how to write a legacy letter.

How they compare

Form	Who writes it	What it covers	Usually written for
Biography	Someone else	A whole life, in order	General readers
Autobiography	You	Your whole life, in order	General readers
Memoir	You	One period or theme of your life	General readers
Personal or family history	You or a relative	Your life, often as separate stories	Your family
Ghostwritten memoir	A hired writer, in your voice	One part of your life, or all of it	General readers or your family
Legacy letter or ethical will	You	Your values, lessons and hopes	Your family

What you're writing if it's for your family

If you're writing for your children and grandchildren, you're writing a personal history. The easiest way to write one is as a collection of true stories from across your life, each told like a short memoir: one time, one place, what happened, and what it meant to you.

That's a mix of the forms above. Like an autobiography, it covers much of your life. Like a memoir, each story focuses on one moment. And because it's for family, you can keep the details a publisher would cut: your teachers' names, what Sunday dinner was, what things cost.

A personal history might include stories like "The day I enlisted," "Our first house on Maple Street," "How I met your grandmother" and "What I learned running the store."

You don't need to choose before you start

Start with one story. What you end up with depends on what you write, and you can decide what to call it at the end.

If most of your stories turn out to be about the war years, you've written a memoir. If they run from childhood to now, you've written something closer to an autobiography. Either way, you'll sort them into chapters once you have 20 or 30.

The full method is in how to write your life story. When you're done, you can print it as a book for the family, whatever you call it.

First person or third person

Memoirs and autobiographies are written as "I." Biographies are written as "he" or "she." For a family history, either works.

First person sounds like you talking:

I was 19 when I took the bus to basic training with a paper bag of sandwiches my mother packed.

Third person reads like a biography, as if someone else were telling your life:

He was 19 when he took the bus to basic training with a paper bag of sandwiches his mother packed.

Biographer, an AI interviewer and writer, writes each story from your conversation in first person, like a memoir, or third person, like a biography. You choose, and you can change your choice for future stories in Settings.