When I began work on my first memoir, I started by doing a theme analysis. I was working on a PhD in education using a methodology known as autoethnography. I began the process by analyzing my blog posts – which I had written as “field notes” while living through breast cancer treatment. Once I had identified themes, I identified the key posts that demonstrated the themes, as well as the posts needed to glue the story together. I re-wrote with a more evocative style based upon what I had learned from reading Evocative Autoethnography and other books by Caroline Ellis and Art Bochner.
I finished the first draft of my dissertation then decided not to complete the PhD. Although I think the insights I developed and shared as a result of the research I did were useful, I felt like my illness narrative was lost in the process. I felt like the focus was wrong. I wanted to tell my story, and I felt like something was missing in the way I was telling it.
After a couple of years, I dusted off the chapter I had written that was my story. I edited it again, updating the story to tell it in present tense. I hired an editor. I shared it with several friends to get their feedback and collect their edits. Then I took the leap and self-published it – first on Amazon then moved it over to Draft2Digital so that it could be available on many different platforms.
My first memoir, Never knew I wanted to be a breast cancer survivor, was born out of the autoethnographic research I did.
I’m working on my second (and third) memoirs. They are coming from a very different place. They are being written for the sake of the story. The focus is much more on the narrative. I’m sharing my lived experience and doing my best to bring the reader along for the journey. The focus is no longer on themes, but rather on the story itself.
I recently applied to and was accepted into an MFA in Creative Nonfiction – another academic journey, but this one is focused on the story for the story sake, rather than the story for the research sake. It feels more appropriate to what I wanted to be doing with the story in the first place.
I have been reflecting on what the difference is between autoethnography and memoir as both involve an evocative storytelling and both involve types of research. I started by asking chatGPT to do deep search/research on the difference between autoethnography and memoir. The result was interesting if not a little verbose.
I asked myself, what does this mean to me.
The first difference for me is in the audience. Autoethnography is written for academics. Memoir is generally written for a wider audience – the general public or a specific subset of the general public.
The real difference is in the purpose. Autoethnography at its heart is about the analysis of the experience. Memoir is about sharing the experience itself.
As someone writing illness narrative, I see more value in sharing the experience itself. For me, personally, I see and hear about how my memoir has impacted the lives of others. That to me is the value in memoir and in my case, that is the value in sharing my illness narrative.
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