Your Memoir Will Emerge as a Nonfiction Novel

Having a ghostwriter pen your memoir as a narrative nonfiction novel is the perfect option for you, as an author, if your life has become a fascinating drama.

The tools of a narrative nonfiction-style memoir allow us to dramatize a life by finding the central story of that life, then filling in the gaps with research and interview. Tom Wolfe became famous for his autobiographical account in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. This was early narrative nonfiction novel writing at its best and most revelatory. His later novel, The Right Stuff, detailed the lives of others in a similar style: frank and deeply personal, yet suspenseful and thrilling. Such stories are all the more poignant and compelling because of their veracity. 

Jon Krakauer wrote his memoir of climbing Mt. Everest in the form of a narrative nonfiction novel: Into Thin Air. Other works of his, such as Into the Wild, and The Odyssey of Pat Tillman enjoy all the emotion of a memoir without ever sacrificing story-telling skill. This perfect combination helps his books become can't-put-it-down thrillers that cling to the reader's mind and memory forever after. Many more memoir writers, nonfiction novel writers, and their ghostwriters have used these techniques for literary success.

At the same time, numerous memoir writers and their ghostwriters have received criticism for making up entire conversations and entire events in their lives, all for the sake of a best-selling book. It is true that sometimes it helps to invent small events and conversations in order to create necessary transitions in a memoir, but making up important events out of whole cloth is not in the true spirit of a narrative nonfiction memoir.

The thing that makes this style of memoir "narrative" is not the act of making up information, rather it is the act of boiling down the essence of a life and its events into a storyline that is supported by reality. That storyline can be embellished by your ghostwriter with research into parallel plot lines, interviews with relevant persons, and deep thought as to the meaning of events.

So if you are considering authoring a memoir or working with a ghostwriter on the project, you will benefit from getting to know the narrative nonfiction style and its many modern authors. A ghostwriter familiar with the genre can help to bring your idea to fruition and leave behind a memoir that is a fascinating legacy and so much more than a simple detailing of events.

Self-published, your memoir will become both a treasured heirloom and an eye-opening literary work that helps family members understand the real you.

Commercially published, your life's adventures will delight, inform, instruct, and amuse millions for generations to come. No matter how you decide to publish or preserve your narrative-nonfiction-style memoir, working with a ghostwriter to compose it will ensure that you have a wonderful record of your life to last through the generations.