: My autobiography is exciting, but I'm an unknown. Should I make it a novel instead? I've kept diaries all my life and now have over 100...which I've recently started turning into an autobiography
I've kept diaries all my life and now have over 100...which I've recently started turning into an autobiography - where some of the original diary quotes are included along with the new text.
I belong to a local writers group, most of whom are well into their 70's & have led much more 'normal' lives than myself. Today I received their feedback on my first chapter. They seemed fascinated by the content but the general consensus was that, because I'm not famous and "nobody buys memoirs of anyone who's not", it might be better if I wrote it as a novel - though still writing it in the first person.
I've had quite an unusual life involving a great deal of travelling and (in my 20's) was socialising with several notorious rock musicians as well as getting caught up in some rather nefarious activities. I definitely dont have to fictionalise anything! I only discovered this website by googling the query of possible conviction for misdeeds I committed 40 years ago (which were never uncovered) by writing about them now.
So I was wondering:
1. If others on here shared the same view that memoirs, by unknowns, are not a suitable genre for first time writers?
2. The question of admitting to crimes (drugs imparticularly...and more than just smoking some weed!) being liable to prosecution - or possible barring from the foreign countries where those crimes were committed.
PS I'm now 65 & was only naughty in the 1970's!
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@Merenda569
You might benefit from clarifying the difference between an autobiography and a memoir. There are many articles on these topics on the Internet. They might help you find an answer. Autobiographies tend to be chronological; memoirs focus on a theme, topic or event. What makes any story standout is getting the voice right: if you create an engaging persona as a storyteller and tell a good story in an engaging way, the actual genre whether autobiography, novel or memoir will matter less and be a marketing issue rather than a stylistic one.
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@Moriarity138
Many famous authors have made their names on lightly fictionalized versions of their own lives. This is called autobiographical fiction, and it underlies books from To Kill a Mockingbird and David Copperfield to Fear of Flying and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Consider also the movie, Almost Famous, with a similar theme as your own work. It's presented as fiction, even though it features real people, and is transparently based on the life of the famous writer/director who created it.
The big advantages are that you can rewrite history to make it more entertaining, you can combine characters to make them more interesting, you run less of a risk of libel suits or legal culpability (for illicit activities, such as you mentioned), and you aren't constrained by the facts. You also don't have people waiting to catch you out in lies.
Given that fiction generally sells better than autobiography, except for the truly famous, I would suggest that your friends are correct that you would be better off changing a few names and calling this a novel "based on true events" rather than an autobiography. (About the only person I can think of who became famous primarily through straight autobiography is Maya Angelou, and she's perhaps a unique case.)
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@Phylliss352
My personal opinion is to try sell it to an agent as an Autobiography first - but make the back cover matter interesting - so that someone who picks it up and reads the cover - even though they don't know you, suddenly wants to buy the book to find out more. If you fail to get an agent after a few months of trying - turn it into a novel and try that.
I believe in doing things in a way that you can reverse them - if you do it as a novel first, you can almost never go back to doing it as an autobiography.
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@Kevin153
I have an additional possibility to consider: Get yourself better known.
Submit some of the episodes of your story to widely circulated magazines, especially magazines that serve the audience you want to reach.
Contact writers and reporters for national and local media outlets (magazines, newspapers, TV, websites) to see if they're interested in your story.
Publish some of the episodes yourself, either on your own website or someone else's platform, such as Medium.com, YouTube, …
Other ideas I haven't thought of…
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