Ask the editor 15: Writing a memoir

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Writing a memoir

‘A memory,' writes Edward de Bono, ‘is what is left when something happens and does not completely unhappen.' Not the most romantic view of it, perhaps (for that you might want to read Proust or Cicero) but de Bono is pointing to something elusive about the past that is worth thinking about. Memory is here, in the sense that we are experiencing it now, but also clearly there, in another place, beyond our remembering but somehow present; unless it is completely lost to an individual or a society so that, to use his ugly but useful term, it has unhappened.

Writing is always in some sense an act of memory. Perhaps this is because memory is as much an imaginative act as an empirical one. In this sense writing is an invaluable act of cultural retrieval; the writer brings back events, and people, that might otherwise be lost. I am speaking largely of non-fiction here but I suspect it applies in many respects to fiction too. In this article I look at a specific act of retrieval: the art of the memoir.

Writing about lives (one's own, someone one knows or knew, someone once famous or who perhaps deserves to be) has been a staple of literature since literature was understood as a form, as a genre of art. Suetonius wrote compelling - and regularly scurrilous - stories about great Romans two thousand years ago, and the genre has retained its popularity, and its power to immerse us in other lives, ever since.

There are three general categories in the literature of past lives: history (and here I would include historical fiction), which often focuses on an individual but tends towards a broader sweep; biography (and autobiography), which aims for a comprehensive account of a single (and often singular) life; and memoir, which does something related to the other genres but not quite identical.

What exactly is a memoir? It is interesting to see how those who attempt to define it often struggle to distinguish it from biography. I would suggest that the easiest distinction is this: a memoir uses biographical material but it is partial; and partial for a purpose. It is not the story of a person's life; it is the story of that part of a person's life that holds a lesson for writer and reader.

That lesson need not be high-minded and literary; there is a value (and a joy) in simply celebrating a life, or part of a life. One might say that we deserve other people's memories of us. But more regularly, a memoir focuses on an aspect of someone's life: a period of adventure in exotic locations; a career helping others; an individual experiencing an important or dramatic historical period or event; an invention or discovery and the work that went into it.

A book that, for instance, looks at Gandhi's time as a lawyer in South Africa might not be a comprehensive account of his life; but it captures a part of his life that had profound ramifications for his future and, one might say, his ultimate destiny. The reader is invited, in an odd respect, to forget the biography as a whole and concentrate on an aspect of it. The reward for this act of elision is, more often than not, an insight: into the person at a significant point in his life; into the world he inhabited in that period; into the momentous - and often mystical - process that signposts the future for an individual, the path to greatness, notoriety or grace.

The best memoirs have precisely this kind of character. They tell a story, of course; but the story is not the whole point of the exercise. There is an element of metaphor involved that transcends the matter of fact. It is not an empirical recounting of the fact that X did Y; it is an inquiry into how or why they did it, and what we as readers can learn from it.

If this sounds too sombre and didactic, then take heart from the greatest writers of memoirs from the past; they were not always so po-faced in their approach. In fact, some were known to play a little loose with the facts and produce what one might term weaponised gossip. W G Clark, a Victorian writer (who could probably do with a suitable memoir of his own before he sadly unhappens), had this to say about some of his predecessors:

When two memoir-writers [Suetonius and Tacitus] had told the same tale, they accept it and endorse it, without a suspicion that both may be lying.

Quite. The point is that a memoir, though it may be properly - or spuriously - high-minded, is not a sermon; it's a slice of life. And life never slices neatly into segments we can file away as finished. Memory, infamy or pure curiosity draws the past towards us in all its messy glory. What a good writer adds to this emergence is what makes reading it more than an exercise in prurience. In a word, meaning; whether serious or comic, the writer distils meaning from mere events.

So if you are minded to write a memoir - of a famous person, a beloved friend, or a slice of your own life - or compelled by the breadth of a life to record it for posterity, your task is more than the simple act of memory. If you want your memoir to rise above the level of anecdote you must fold insight and meaning into the account. If you can achieve this you have done more than remind us of people and events past; you have brought the past to life and given it a new purpose, and that is an eminently worthwhile project.

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When he isn't editing, Noel Rooney writes a regular column for Fortean Times magazine, and wilfully obscure poetry. He lives in South London with his family and rather too many animals.

Ask the Editor 1: What genre is my book?

Ask the Editor 2: the submission letter

Ask the Editor 3: Writing a synopsis

Ask the Editor 4: Why do I need you?

Ask the Editor 5: Non-fiction submissions

Ask the Editor 6: Writing non-fiction

Ask the Editor 7: Researching for a book

Ask the Editor 8: How I assess a manuscript

Ask the Editor 9: Why do I need a report?

Ask the Editor 10: Writing your blurb or cover copy

Ask the Editor 11: English Language Editing

Ask the Editor 12: The limitations of editing software