Researching Your Memoir

A Look at How, Why and Where to Find Factual Information

Apr 9, 2008

Despite being a personal account most memoirs designed for commercial publication will need some degree of research to be critically acclaimed or accepted.

It may seem like a strange concept to do research for a memoir. After all the very point of a memoir is that it is about the writer's own life. The one thing for which no research should be necessary. Unless the writer is a hermit however then there will almost always be some research which needs to be done when writing a memoir. Especially if the memoir is being written for possible publication rather than just for the fun or therapy of the writer.

What Research Might be Needed When Writing a Memoir?

A family memoir or a memoir which mentions family members may need different levels of research from just talking with people, to formal interviews to a spot of genealogy. Sources of information can be family trees, genealogy websites, birth, death and marriages registrations, censuses and newspaper clippings. Even other family member's diaries or memoirs.
A technical memoir. If the memoir is centred in a specific industry research may be needed to create broader picture of what was going on in that industry at the time which affected the writer. Sources of information can be records held by the company, the company website, trade union information, leaflets, business plans and reports, newspaper and business journal reports and interviewing people working for the company.
A medical memoir. If writing about a medical condition for example the writer is suffering from a degenerative disease, research may be needed to write about symptoms, treatments and statistics. Sources of research could be medical websites, medical books and journals, memoirs of other sufferers of the disease, interviews with relatives and friends of the sufferer and again news reports.
Even if no other research is needed it is likely that basic research will be done by using a dictionary, thesaurus and gramatical guide.

Someone new to memoir writing may want to research how to get started with writing or how to find inspiration. Sources of research would usually be in the form of writer's websites and books, talking to other memoir writers and of course articles like this.

If an integral part of the memoir relies on the understanding of a place such as a house, town or country then research might take the form of library research on local history, reading news reports and information of political climate, geographical climate, economical climate, architectural influences, well known local characters and social and moral standards of the time.

Does Every Memoir Have to be Researched?

Most definitely no. If the writer is writing the memoir purely for personal reasons then there are no rules. If the memoir is for public consumption however then research, at least a little research, is recommended. For every reader who reads without judgement there will be two readers who read with a critical eye and three readers who love to point out flaws, inaccuracies and inconsistencies.

To avoid a public literary slaughtering then the writer should be 100% confident in the accuracy of everything they write. That isn't to say that personal views and opinions can't be voiced as that is the beauty of memoirs but the writer should always keep in mind that any facts they mention should be exactly that. Facts.

The copyright of the article Researching Your Memoir in Memoir Research is owned by Dulcinea Norton-Smith. Permission to republish Researching Your Memoir in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.