Navigating Creative Nonfiction Memoir Jargon
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[00:00:00] Every writer at some point or another gets asked what they're writing. Even if you don't identify as a writer and you casually come out saying that you're writing something, nothing makes you feel more like a fraud than. Not really knowing the answer to that. So how can you avoid that feeling of feeling like a rookie when you're answering?
[00:00:23] I'm gonna break down in this episode about what the actual style is, what the actual jargon is, so that when somebody asks you what you're writing, you know what the category is, it will also help you delete. The unnecessary. My name is Karen Wilson, and I'm an indie author, speaker, and story coach. And in this.
[00:00:46] Episode of the Creative Life in Motion Podcast, we are gonna dive into different memoirs and categories of books that all fall under the creative nonfiction umbrella so that when you are asked, even if it's by yourself, like, what is it, then I am. Writing you can confidently answer This, not only will help you write your book faster, but it will help you finish the book that you have already started.
[00:01:17] So let's dive in. When I was writing my first book, uh, be Weightless like Your Body, love Yourself. When people would ask me what I was writing, I would say, oh, well it's a creative nonfiction. Because, you know, it has my stories in it, what I learned from my experiences. So it's personal stories and, and that's kind of like how I would talk about it.
[00:01:41] I'd be fumbling through and people would come back to me, oh, oh, so you're writing a memoir? And I'm like, no, it's not a memoir. Is it creative nonfiction? And they'd say, well, does it have, are you writing about yourself? And I'm like, well, yeah, I'm, I'm using my personal stories. Well, well then it's a memoir and I'd say back again, no, it's a creative nonfiction.
[00:02:06] What I didn't understand then was that. Creative nonfiction is a great big umbrella and if, if that's a book that you are looking at writing or a category that you're looking at writing, you know you wanna share stories and you know you wanna share truths and lessons and even calls to action, help people through something that you professionally or personally know that you can help people through with based on the stories and the experience and the lives.
[00:02:37] Experience that you have, then it can get really murky about like what it is actually that you're trying to write. Is it a memoir? Is it a business book? Is it this, is it that, and when it comes down to when people are asking you about it or when you know, if. If you do decide that you're going to publish it because you're writing a piece that you want to publish, when it comes to categorizing it, if you're not going to self-publish or even if you are going to self-publish, you need to know.
[00:03:10] What it is that you're writing. If you feel like you don't identify as a writer because you haven't authored a book or you've never been paid for your writing, then sometimes it can feel very intimidating to even say out loud that you're writing something. It's, it's kind of like, it's a secret. You don't want anyone to know because then if they know, they might ask questions.
[00:03:33] And what if you don't have the answers to those questions? So the first thing I had to. Figure out is like, why am I so offended by being told that I'm writing a memoir? And number one, I thought. Memoir writing is like just a book about me, but I had that kind of mixed up. I thought memoir was actually an autobiography, and there is a significant difference in that.
[00:04:03] And I'll, I'll share with you what it is just in case you're like, oh, I didn't know that. The reason why I thought I think it was an autobiography is because my ma Ma, when she was 94 years old, she published a book and I'm looking at it right now and it's all in French, so I can't understand it, but it is quite clearly.
[00:04:26] A book on her life, some poems that were written in it. And it goes through the narrative journey of the life, like Born Here, did this, had this, and it's a beautiful, beautifully written book because it actually crosses into memoir slash creative. More creative because it has poetry in it as well. So it's, it's a fusion and that's where book writing can get kind of confusing and which is why I like to use the creative nonfiction umbrella because it really does.
[00:05:03] Um, cover all the bases, but if we're real about it, one day you're gonna be asked, what is it that you're writing? And if you're writing personal stories, yes, it does fall under memoir. So let's identify what this means. An autobiography is.
[00:05:22] The story of your life from the moment you were born and all the things through it. So there's that. And a memoir is a story from your life. So. I'm gonna get deeper into the different styles of a memoir. My book here, be weightless, like Your Body, love Yourself. I'm holding it in my hand right now and I'm, I'm looking at it and I'm thinking, okay, so this is not a story of my life.
[00:05:52] It is a story from my life about the transformation that, um, took place in the, in a certain time period of my life. With, with a theme of the ugly side of weight loss, this book would fall under the transformative. Memoir, it's taking the readers through a theme of my life, one of my theme core, uh, belief system.
[00:06:22] The ugly side of weight loss was exposed and just really opening up to like, what, what does it really mean to love your body? And sharing how I came to like my body. First so that I could love my body later. And so it's called a transformative memoir. I found this book that I haven't read before by, uh, who is it?
[00:06:51] By Margo Wood, and it's called A Prairie Chicken Goes to Sea. So a memoir can also take place over a specific period of time. Like it's, it's like a, an event in your life that you could like tell stories about. And this book would be in that style of memoir. A prairie chicken goes to see a country girl experiences exciting and often humorous adventures with her husband while boating follow Margot as she deals with the death of her husband, decides to continue coastal cruising.
[00:07:25] Often single handed and carry on the task of expanding and updating Charlie's charts guides. So it's, it's definitely a deep and personal memoir. Event and time in this woman Margot Woods life. And, uh, it's definitely memoir style, but it's like one event and one theme put together for one experience.
[00:07:56] Again, creative nonfiction is the top umbrella for all of this. And then there's this book that I'm holding to Melody Beauty, journey to the Heart. This is also follows Under Falls under the Creative Nonfiction, but it's a little bit different. It's daily meditations on the path to freeing your soul. So every day there's a little story and a little meditation that's definitely memoir based.
[00:08:24] There's so many different ways you can go in these memoir styles. Then you have Stephen King. I was talking about this book not too long ago on my YouTube channel and on writing, it's a memoir of the craft, so he's sharing his experience in life on writing. So this is a thematic. Memoir. Uh, and there's a cross between Stephen King's life story and his practices on writing for the writers.
[00:08:54] I love this book. I've listened to it twice on audio. Then I had to get the physical book so that I could like look at it and touch it. And then there's Margaret Atwood. She actually ca wrote a book called The Book of Lives. My husband just picked me up this one. It's, it's a pretty big read. Um, it's got a billion pages on it and she calls it a memoir of sorts.
[00:09:26] Now I'm really looking forward to digging into this one. Uh, definitely my summer read. I just got it for my birthday, but. I, I don't know. This could be the memoir of all memoirs, so it's good. So, so why is this important? Why am I going through all of these things? For each one of these styles, you're gonna have a slightly different way of how you're talking about it and how you're focusing on it, and also how you're outlining it.
[00:10:00] In my opinion, all of these outlines would look slightly different, but there's going to be the same architecture on all of them, right? You, you're gonna need to know what it is that you're doing, what it is that you're teaching, what is categorized of it, and all the other stuff. There are actually six.
[00:10:24] Main memoir types. Let's dive a little bit deeper into there. There's the transformation journey. I give you an example of, of my book, be Weightless, like Your Body, love yourself. So now when people ask me, well, what, what type of book did you write? Well, it's a creative nonfiction. I can actually get a little bit.
[00:10:46] More detailed, I can actually say it's, um, a transformative memoir. So knowing those words, if you're ever talking to an agent over dinner because you've just like been thrown at the same table and they find out that you're a writer and you, you need to know the terms of your book because they might wanna make a book deal with you on that table.
[00:11:11] These are the things that are going to help you. Move forward with talking about your book later, because even if you are not planning on publishing it, but you do want other people to read it, you're gonna need to know how to talk about it. So this is kind of like the first step. Uh, the second type is a teaching memoir, so most books will, are probably gonna cross over to that.
[00:11:37] If you've had stories and you have life lessons, it's going, it's going to teach people things that, you know, uh, then there's also the confessional memoir, uh, you know, just thinking about that. It's not for the faint of heart. It's definitely a place where I would want to be sure that I am leading the stories with that ni nice neutral tone and allowing the reader to co-create the experience.
[00:12:08] It's a delicate dance, right? Confessionals can be heavy or they can be humorous, and, uh, it's, it's not for the faint of heart to just jump into that. Then there's the historical or cultural, and that's self-explanatory. Um, you know, going in a, a, a certain timeline or certain culture and, and re you know, doing a memoir style with that theme in the thread.
[00:12:37] There's a childhood. You could go through your childhood as a memoir. And what are the learned experience? You see this a lot in, um, you know, self-help where. Say you're reading a book and, and they're identifying, you know, what were the limited beliefs planted in me as a child? That might be an example of someone that is going to have a lot of childhood stories.
[00:13:03] Um, you know, talking about possibly the belief that was planted and then how to solve that or how to identify your limited belief patterns. I don't know. That's just an idea I had. Then there's the event memoir, which is, I gave you that example with, um, the Book of a Prairie Chicken Goes to Sea, and it's one specific event of this woman's life that the book is on.
[00:13:30] I have not read the book, but by the description. It seems thematic over that one specific event, so you know as a reader of what you're getting. Once you know your memoir type, then the next step is getting your outline and your structure ready. I made a video about that on my YouTube channel. I'll make sure that it's linked below in the description here.
[00:13:56] But before you jump off and go check out that video, we need to talk about how structure shapes your story. Okay, so there's. A couple of timelines. We've kind of already touched on this, but there's chronological or thematic. You could do it in a chronological chronological. You could also do it in a thematic way.
[00:14:17] I'm also working on another book that I've titled a walking book, because I really don't have another good title at this point. The title will come out of me in the next little bit here as I finish the editing process, but thematic. Thematically. It is a memoir on walking, but it's more so everything that walking does except for the weight loss and it, and it goes into like, there's a little bit of poetry, there's lots of personal stories, and there's also actionable steps, so it fits under.
[00:14:54] Again, creative non-fiction always fits under creative non-fiction, which is always a good answer. My book sits at the Edge of Transformative Journey and a teaching memoir, right? So it's transformative and it's teaching. There's a lot to be said about discovering your stories. You know, as I work with more and more people with story and help coach them through how to share personal stories, what I hear a lot is, is that it's scary.
[00:15:28] Yeah, it can, it can be scary because sometimes we're, we're going into places that we, we haven't, you know, really been for a, for a while, but the personal stories that you share do not have to be heavy. It doesn't mean you never, you never go down that path. You never explore that heavy story. But even if the topic that you wanna talk about is heavy.
[00:15:55] You don't have to tell the big heavy story. And it's so beautiful to, to watch the transformation of people thinking, oh, well I thought this would be hard, and actually it's really fun and I see so many, so much lightness when I thought it was all not that right? So I think that. When we put ourselves out there to tell anything that's personal, whether it be on paper or orally, uh, it's there's this sense of vulnerability of judgment.
[00:16:30] And when it comes from a place of really knowing how to present the information and allow your audience or your readers to co-create with you, it becomes a completely different experience and you can't start that process. Without writing things that you, you might not think are good. Stephen King says you cannot edit a blank page, and garbage writing is way better than no writing at all.
[00:17:04] And I say there is no garbage writing because the garbage writing is. Unclogging the dream for the for, for the good writing to come out. You have to, you have to practice this. It is, we're so conditioned to get everything so quickly, we're so conditioned to have. Things done for us in a moment's notice and with, with everything that's changing and AI generating anything and everything for us, I think this is a craft that we need to pay attention to and we need to keep our pencils going or our keyboards, and without having help, and this is why I'm, I'm really diligent about having human first writing.
[00:17:55] Because AI does not know how to tell a personal story. It just doesn't. It doesn't have those emotions. One more thing we need to talk about before we go, and that's. That's a question that I get is like, well, what if I just wanna write a book for my business and I'm using client stories, I'm not really using my stories.
[00:18:19] Or what if I want to write a collection? What if I wanna gather a bunch of people and, and they all submit their stories and, and, and what is that called? Well. Good news, both of them still fall under creative nonfiction, but let me just decipher this for you. It's definitely those two are not memoirs because they're not all your personal stories or stories where you are the main character and maybe it's something you have served or whatever.
[00:18:50] It's a memoir when you are the main character of all your stories. Even if you're doing a collection of essays, you are the main character of all your stories. It's a memoir. If you're pulling in other people's stories, it's more, it fits more into the anthology category. When I write my books, I, I usually don't have case studies.
[00:19:17] I think it would be fine to have a case study collective without like. Outright saying, this is my case study. I, I would love to have a collective book in the future of people that I've worked with, but they're not like saying, oh, well because of Karen and I did this. They're, they're, they're taking ownership of their story.
[00:19:42] I like to use my writing as a tool to walk side by side, and if that inspires people to work. With me then great. There's different ways that you can, you can go about that, but if it's stories about other people, then obviously it's, it's not a memoir anymore. It's a business book. And the great thing about it is that it all falls under that creative non-fiction.
[00:20:07] Right. So your first answer can always be, I'm writing creative nonfiction. The one question that's gonna categorize your memoir that you can ask yourself is this, what did I want? And how did getting it or not getting it change me?
[00:20:23] Your answer reveals your memoir's core. And that core will determine what structure it fits.
[00:20:30] If I were writing. A business book today in 2026 that's going to help me be my business card. I would lean further into. The memoir style than the client case study. You can use client case studies all over your website. You can use them um, in your videos or your sales copy. But when it comes to writing your book, people will not connect with just success.
[00:21:05] After success. People will not connect. I think people are getting smarter about. Being sold to, and, and I'm very careful when I say this because client case studies are, people connect to them because they can see themselves in it. They can see themselves in, in the struggle, um, in where they are in the moment.
[00:21:32] And as a small business owner, or you know, if you're writing a book for a cause. Something to do with your business as, as a client card, you're, you're actually, you're giving away that connectivity and I don't know. I, I think it's just. I missed opportunity, but like, let's, let's bring this all home. The next step is to take that big idea and put it into action.
[00:21:59] So the first thing that I want you to do is I'll make sure that there is a video down below to get this outline out of your head. It's the one that I put on to YouTube. Take out your calendar, block off some time on your calendar, and go ahead and go through the steps about getting your big ideas. From your head to the page, then there's actually sitting down and doing the work.
[00:22:26] So once, once you have your outline and once you've done the steps to outline your outline, as I like to say, which means you know what's gonna go in every single chapter, again, I have a FI, I do have a framework that walks you through that. Then all you need to do is just sit down and write and let this come outta you.
[00:22:48] Let this hit the page. Write relentlessly. I love to say like, write that messy, rough draft, like there's a tiger chasing you. Get the words out onto paper and really the faster and the, you know, like the less editing you're doing during your first rough draft. It, it, the, the better it is because you can never edit a blank page and without the whole thing being out there in a rough draft manuscript, you, you don't have anything.
[00:23:21] We have a tendency to wanna put the stickers on before the car is even built. And so don't worry about if you're gonna publish it or not publish it, what you're gonna title it, what you're gonna do, like. What's gonna come out of you? Just, just, just get it outta you. Use my framework. I'll make sure that there's a link in the description below where you're listening to this podcast and get into that next video.
[00:23:49] I'll make sure that that's linked in below and I'll, I'll, I'll see you over there. Okay? Um, that's about it for now. I'll see you next time. Bye.
