Memoirs are the perfect way to tell your story, but there’s no reason you can’t use facts to make it more convincing and engaging. In fact, most professional memoir writers often use facts in their stories to make them more engaging and interesting.
The memoir you write doesn’t need to be told in strict chronological order. Blending your factual information, anecdotes, and personal details will help set your memoir apart from the rest and make it easier for readers to follow.
Even if you’re writing a fictional memoir, using factual information like research, interviews, and statistics can help strengthen your story and make it more compelling for readers. But don’t just take our words!
Read this blog to find out the top 7 reasons why professional memoir writers blend factual information in their story writing and why you should also do the same. If you’re a writer that wants to write a memoir, this blog will be the best thing you’ve read today!
What Is Factual Information?
Factual information is any piece of information that is accurate and verifiable. This includes things like dates and names, as well as factual statements about the author’s life.
The key difference between factual information and opinionated information is that factual information has been verified as being true by an outside source. This can include third-party sources like book reviews or newspaper articles.
Why Authors Often Blend Factual Information In a Memoir
Nearly all memoirs include a fair amount of facts, and there are good reasons why. Here are the top seven reasons:
Factual Information Grounds The Reader In Reality
The most common reason why authors add factual information is that it grounds the reader, in reality, making them feel like they’re part of the story. In fiction or non-fiction, facts are necessary for grounding the reader in reality. So they can understand where things are happening around them or what happened before this point in time (i.e., historical events). Authors often blend factual information into their memoirs because they want to give readers a sense of what life was like in the past. This helps them know what is real and what isn’t: Is this person really talking about themselves? What did they do after this event?
In addition, using factual information lets authors create more detail about their characters. So their stories feel authentic—like they’re actually living out their lives on paper. However, authors must make sure these facts are accurate before adding them to their written works. So that readers aren’t misled about what the author believes happened in the past.
Facts Help To Create The Author’s Voice
It is also common for authors to blend facts in fictional memoirs to create an author’s voice or style. This can be done for many reasons, including the desire to tell a story that would otherwise not be possible or the wish to include accurate information.
Furthermore, Factual information is often the best way to show readers what your life was like. And it’s a great way to connect with readers on a personal level. It helps people feel as though they know you, which can help them connect with your story.
Facts Tell A Deeper Story
While you might think that blending fact and fiction is only to add flair to your memoir, there are also some other advantages to doing so. The facts can help build a larger story that goes beyond what you’ve experienced.
The book will be more than just your life story. It’ll also be about what happened in the world around you at that time, which will add an even deeper layer of meaning (and interest) to your account.
Factual information can also be used to add depth to an individual character in your memoir. If you know something about your subject’s personality or background. This can help readers better understand why they are acting in certain ways during certain situations.
Facts Are Great For Building A Narrative Around
The way you tell your own story is part of what makes it exciting or boring. So don’t be afraid to use facts to build the narrative of your life. If you want to write about how you started college and dropped out, begin by providing some context. Did you love the classes? Hate them? Are there any other factors that might explain why someone would drop out early in their college career?
Once the reader understands why this happened, they can understand how it fits into the story of your life as a whole and what it says about who you are now.
Facts Help Define You As The Expert
You can use facts to establish yourself as the expert on your own story. For example, if you are writing about your struggle with mental illness and how it affected your life, you can include information about how it’s treated in other cultures or by other people from different walks of life.
By citing facts like these, you will help readers understand that you have done the research and learned from others. This makes them more likely to trust what else you say about the topic and it shows them that you know what you’re talking about!
Facts Make Your Book Stronger
When it comes to writing your memoir, using factual information can make your book stronger. As a memoirist, you’re the expert on your life. You know what happened and how it felt. But when you blend that factual information with personal experience, it creates a stronger book.
There are two main ways how authors use facts to strengthen their memoirs: interviews and research into other people’s lives that parallel yours. Both help deepen your knowledge base so readers know more than just what happened directly in front of you during those events. They also get perspective from outside sources within the story world itself!
Memoir Authors often also include interviews with other people and you can do that too. This is because interviews with other people also add a lot of depth to your memoir. They can help you tell a more complete story and provide readers with a better understanding of you as a person. This is especially important if you’re writing about yourself for the first time. Interviews help give your book authenticity and make it easier for readers to relate to what you’ve written.
Facts Help Keep The Reader Engaged
When writing a memoir, it’s important to use facts not only to support your argument but also to keep the reader engaged in what you’re saying. A memoir is self-centered by nature, and as a writer, you want readers to relate to your story. Briefly including factual information helps draw the reader into your world without taking away from the narrative too much.
For example, if you have ever read a memoir about someone’s life, you may have noticed that some parts of the story are more interesting than others. The author may have included some details about his or her childhood that are not relevant to the main storyline but are still interesting to read about.
Memoirists always use this sort of blend even if they aren’t necessarily trying to. When I wrote about my childhood in a book named The Butterfly Year, I used facts about butterflies. Along with stories from my own experiences as an amateur lepidopterist (a person who studies butterflies). These elements helped me create a rich world for readers without telling them too much about my own life story. Or making them feel like they were reading nonfiction instead of a novel.
Final Thoughts
Avoiding the temptation to sprinkle a hefty dose of fiction into your true life story is challenging for authors writing a memoir. However, blending fact and fiction is not just for memoir writers. It can be used in any genre and with any type of book. When authors mix fact and fiction, it can make for an interesting read. But you should always be careful not to get confused between what is real and what is made up.
