How to write a memoir: focus, outline, scenes, living people, copyright and legal deposit

What is the difference between a memoir, an autobiography and a life story?

People use the three words loosely, and this guide found no official UK definition of them. This page uses a working split of its own, written to help you decide how big your project is. An autobiography tries to cover a whole life from the beginning. A memoir takes one slice of a life, such as a career, a marriage, a move abroad or a childhood in one street, and builds it around a theme. A life story is the relaxed cousin of the two, put together for relatives and friends with no plan to sell a single copy.

Why bother with the split? Because it settles how much there is to write. A complete life, in order, is an enormous undertaking; a single slice is something you can actually complete, and completing it is what turns a heap of recollections into an object a grandchild can pick up.

If you cannot decide, start with the family version. Short chapters are easy to rearrange later, and you can widen the project once you see how much you have.

How do you choose the slice of life your memoir covers?

A memoir leaves most of your life out. What stays in is whatever hangs together. Before writing anything, try completing this line: “This book is about the years I ___, and what they changed about ___.” Two blanks filled means you have a focus; if they stay empty, what you hold is probably a list of happenings.

Four questions help narrow the theme.

1. Which stories do relatives ask you to tell again? They already work out loud.
2. Which period divides your life into a before and an after?
3. Who will read it? A book for your children can be warmer and more detailed than one for people who do not know you.
4. What would be lost if nobody wrote it down?

Pick material that can be told through scenes. A scene needs somewhere to happen, a handful of people and an event. “We were poor” is a statement. “The Saturday we ran out of coins for the meter and ate dinner by candlelight” is a scene. Notice that the second version also shows the reader what poor meant, without the word.

Settle on your readers early, since they change the ground rules. Among relatives, nicknames, in-jokes and endless cousins are part of the fun. Further afield, every one of those needs a line of explanation. Who reads it also alters the legal position, which comes up below.

If your slice involves someone else’s story, such as caring for a parent or growing up beside a sibling, remember that it is your account. You are writing what you saw, felt and did, not a biography of them.

How do you plan an outline and chapters?

Think of the outline as a running order for your scenes. Jot each memory on an index card or a single line of a notebook page, adding a sentence for what happened and another for why it still matters to you. Once you have a pile, you can start shuffling it.

1. Jot down every scene that fits your theme and hold back from judging any of them. Fifteen to thirty brief lines is a fair target.
2. Circle the five to eight that hit hardest. Together they form the backbone of the book.
3. Lay the backbone scenes out in the sequence you would like your reader to meet them. Moving forward through the years is the least risky option, though you can open on a gripping moment and then rewind.
4. Bridge the gaps with smaller scenes that show how you travelled from one backbone scene to the next.
5. Give each chapter a single line saying what the reader will take from it and what has shifted by the last page.

Hold the outline lightly. It will shift as the writing gets going, which is perfectly normal. If you want a longer, researched project that includes records and photographs from several generations, see our guide to making a family history book.

How long does it take, and how long should a memoir be?

No standard length is claimed here, because no UK publisher source was read for this page. What you control is the pace, and simple arithmetic shows what a steady pace produces. The table uses a weekly target and shows how many weeks a given length takes.

The point of the table is that a modest pace finishes a real book. Missing a week costs you that week’s words, not the book.

Begin with the scene you recall most vividly rather than with chapter one. Starting in the thick of things lifts the weight of the opening and shows you how your own voice sounds on the page. The first chapter can wait until you know what the book is really about.

How do you write scenes people can picture?

A scene works when the reader can stand in the room. Give it a place, a time of day, two or three people and one thing that changes. Then add detail that only you would know.

• Start close to the action. Cut the lines that explain how you got to the room.
• Use one or two senses a scene: the smell of the coal fire, the hum of the fridge, the scratch of a school jumper.
• Let people speak. A line of dialogue you remember, even roughly, brings a person back faster than a description.
• Say what you did, not what you were. “I hid in the coat cupboard until the shouting stopped” says more than “I was a nervous child.”
• End a scene on the image or the line that matters, then move on.

Human recollection is never a perfect record. Dates blur, and two relatives can recall one Christmas quite differently. Let the first draft be your version. Flag anything unconfirmed with a brief margin note, say “check year”, and sort those out at the end so the writing keeps moving.

For a long list of questions you can use on yourself or on a relative, see questions to ask your grandparents. If you prefer to follow prompts, journals and templates, our life story guide covers that route.

How do you write about living people without causing harm?

Nearly everyone in your memoir is a real person, and a few of them will read it. Consider it a question of good writing before it is a question of law. What follows is general information drawn from public sources and is not legal advice. Should you intend to publish to the public and describe identifiable people unflatteringly, speak to a solicitor first.

If the book stays in the family

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) says purely personal or household use of personal data, with no link to a professional or commercial activity, falls outside the UK GDPR.⁶ A book you sell, or publish as part of a business, is a different case; our guide to writing a life story with AI gives the ICO points in more detail.

If the book goes to strangers

Defamation is the legal word for a false statement that harms someone’s reputation. The Defamation Act 2013 (section 1) says a statement is not defamatory unless its publication has caused, or is likely to cause, serious harm to the claimant’s reputation.⁷ Section 4 gives a defence where the statement was on a matter of public interest and the person who published it reasonably believed that publishing it was in the public interest.⁸ A caveat on territory: this page did not check which parts of the UK the Act covers, and the law in other parts of the UK differs and was not checked, so do not assume these passages apply where you live. They are two provisions among many, and this page does not say how a court would apply them to your book.

This page also does not cover privacy law for living people, because no UK source on it was read for this guide. If your story reveals private details about someone who has not agreed, take advice before you publish.

A checklist: who is in your story?

Two habits serve you well whoever is involved. Own your feelings as yours: “I felt ashamed” is both fairer and more truthful than “he was a coward”. And drop whatever you cannot back up and do not need.

Who owns what you write?

GOV.UK explains that copyright in your written work arises automatically. You do not have to apply or pay a fee, and there is no UK register of copyright works.¹ Written work is usually protected for 70 years after the author’s death.²

You also hold moral rights. These include the right to be identified as the author and the right to object to derogatory changes to it. The owner of the copyright can keep these rights or waive them.³ The Intellectual Property Office adds that the right to be identified as author must be asserted before it applies, and that moral rights cannot be sold or transferred.⁵

If you hire someone to write for you, ownership is not automatic. The Intellectual Property Office says the creator, not the person who commissioned the work, is the first owner of the copyright unless it is agreed otherwise in writing. Without a clear contract, the person who commissioned the work may only get a limited licence.⁴ Selling copyright needs a written, signed document.³ So if a ghostwriter drafts your memoir, agree in writing who owns the finished text before the work starts.

If you use an AI tool to help, the position is less settled, and our guide to writing a life story with AI sets out what was read for this site and what was not.

Should you write it yourself or hire a ghostwriter?

Broadly, you can take one of three roads: go solo, talk your stories through with a helper such as a relative or an editor, or engage a professional ghostwriter. What suits you turns on your spare hours, your budget and how much of the voice needs to stay your own.

What does a ghostwriter cost in the UK?

This guide cannot give you a figure. No UK rate chart or price list that could be read was found, so no price range is written here, and a number from memory would be a guess. What you can do is ask each person for a written quote and ask what it includes.

• Interviews: how many, how long, and in person or by phone.
• Research: who checks dates and names.
• Drafting and revisions: how many rounds of changes the price covers.
• Ownership: who owns the finished text, put in a signed document.⁴³
• Credit: whether you will be named as author, and how.⁵

A written scope protects both sides, and it is the quickest way to compare quotes fairly.

How do you edit, proofread and finish?

Get to the end of a rough draft before you start tinkering. Then leave it in a drawer for a few days and read it out loud, and rewrite every spot where your tongue trips.

1. First pass, shape: does every chapter have a single purpose, and does the running order hold up?
2. Second pass, scenes: wherever you have merely summed things up, see whether a particular moment with a place and a person would land better.
3. Third pass, voice: strike out any line you would never say aloud.
4. Fourth pass, facts: test names, dates and places against old photographs, letters and the relatives who were there.
5. Last pass, typos: only when the wording is settled, and preferably on a printout.

Pick early readers who will be frank but fond of you, and hand each one a single question to answer, for instance “Where did your attention drift?” or “What are you left wondering about?” A pointed question tends to bring back more than a vague request for thoughts.

Photographs deserve a little care while you work. Keep originals away from food and drink, and scan or photograph them so that the copy goes in the book while the original stays safe. If you need to use someone else’s photograph, remember that for commissioned photographs made after 1 August 1989, the photographer is the first owner of the copyright unless it was agreed otherwise.⁴

To turn pages into a book, add captions, a contents page and a short note at the front saying who wrote the book and when.

Should you print for family, self-publish or look for a publisher?

This guide does not rank the routes or quote royalty rates, agent practice or self-publishing costs, because no UK source on those was read. It sets out what the sources do say, and the choices that follow from your audience.

Legal deposit in plain terms

Under section 1 of the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003, anyone who publishes in the UK a work covered by the Act must, at their own expense, deliver a copy to the deposit library entitled to it. Printed books, pamphlets, magazines and newspapers are covered.⁹ The British Library says that anyone who publishes in the UK and Ireland needs to give it one copy, whatever the content, format or language.¹⁰

The Act also has a rule for new editions: a work that is substantially the same as one already published in the same medium in the UK is not covered.¹¹ This page does not state a deadline for sending the copy, or the rules for the other deposit libraries, because those were not found in the sources read. The British Library page also notes that service had been disrupted after a cyber-attack in October 2023, so check what it says today before you post a copy.

A booklet you print only for relatives and hand out in person is a different matter from a book you publish. If you are unsure which side of the line you are on, ask the British Library before you print.

Where Memory fits

Chutex offers Memory, a service in preparation in which Aria, an AI, helps a person tell their life story, keeps the memories they choose to share and can prepare a book they review together. The service has its own page on this site: Chutex Memory. Memory gives no diagnosis. It is not a health professional and does not replace one.

Whichever tool or helper you choose, a memoir still rests on the same three things: a focus, some strong scenes and a regular routine. To gather more material, have a look at our family history book guide.

Frequently asked questions