Narrative non-fiction: No man's land?

Sounds like a memoir, for which one does follow the rules for fiction rather than non-fiction when it comes to querying agents. I think platform for memoir is nice but less important than having a really compelling and unusual story to tell. Also, one completes a memoir before querying.

Would you say it qualifies as more of a memoir?

Thanks for asking this question! I'm not there yet, but will be soon. I'll be having the exact same questions!

Welcome to no man's land!

It does sound like a memoir. Not as in "writing your memoirs"--but the story of a particular set of experiences you had, rooted in a particular time and place. Sounds like a great book!

Memoir is a funny hybrid, when it comes to querying and submitting. People seem to have varied experiences. (You might want to look at the Life Story forum, where a lot of this is discussed.)

For me, it seemed to be treated like nonfiction during the agent query stage (ie, proposal rather than partial requests, book not yet finished when I started querying.) But now, with my agent submitting to publishers, when it gets to the final stage they seem to want the full ms.

And yes--the platform thing is a big deal, unfortunately. Memoir is an uphill climb!
Susan

j.s.cutler said:

Thanks, that's helpful.

It's a first-person, journal style narrative. I guess it is a memoir.

Perhaps the term "memoir" is throwing me off. It sounds so presumptuous. When I hear memoir I think it must be about some retired general, president or rock star.

Click to expand...

Yes, that's the unfortunate association with memoir. But (as I read somewhere) it's simply a personal account of something you experienced. Whether it's a year in France as an awkward adolescent male or a year working your way through Julia Child's cookbook. (A recent memoir that did well.) Or the midlife discovery of an oddball regional music (my memoir

I loved your site BTW. Both my sons did the same thing, though for shorter stretches. And my book relates to a French-speaking US regional culture.

So drop by the Life Story forum...

Susan

J S Cutler . . . how come your blog doesn't allow comments? If you're not going to encourage people to comment, you might as well write things on a regular website.

That's better.

isn't anyone from NH?! eesh. all these people from MA.



you wrote your mss is complete--have you started to query yet?

Just in case you didnt know, there is a forum here called Life Story Writing that would love to hear from you guys. They might even be able to help answer some of your questions. When I did write, I wrote peronal narratives or memoirs too. (I never know what to call it) but its been a long time since Ive written.

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=42



Yer pal Brian

I'm going to move this thread over to Life Story Writing.

Memoir/narrative nonfiction DOES require a strong marketing platform in order to sell. It also requires that you have told a compelling narrative in a compelling way using well-crafted prose, like quality fiction.

As far as querying agents (who will then query publishers) goes, you should have a book proposal and three sample chapters available to market your book. Most memoirists have their manuscripts completed and polished before querying agents/publishers, but it is possible to sell a memoir based on a proposal/sample chapters alone. (That's how my memoir sold.)

I suggest you spend some time researching/building your marketing platform and also polishing a solid book proposal. Good luck.