Memoir or Teen Fiction?

Kimmie

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Hi all,

10 years ago I wrote the story of my life from age 16-21, mainly so didn't forget as it was an interesting and emotional time for me. I re-read it the other month (10 years later) and found myself so engrossed in my own life story it was like reading a good old teen drama, only I'm not sure if I enjoyed it so much because it was my own life or if it generally does make for a good read?

It's basically lot a love triangles, all breaking my heart and shattering the little confidence I had, but I learnt a lot from it and wouldn't be the person I am today if I hadn't have had those teen/early 20's experiences. It's currently written in memoir format but I am very aware that most memoirs are of something more dramatic, such as survivors of abuse etc. There is a big psychological undertone to the story about self esteem and having too much dependency on others to make you happy. I do feel like I've portrayed the emotions well in my writing and it's not a typical 'who loves who.' I've written a lot about how things made me feel and how I felt 'hideous and repulsive to men' and therefore thrived of male attention, even if it meant hurting others.

I honestly don't know if it's something that's better off left stored on my own PC to be read only by me, a teen memoir or maybe even turned into teen fiction. I would be looking at self publishing.

Would appreciate any feedback, Many thanks
 
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Curlz

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If you publish this in any form, it will be exposed to other people's criticism. Are you ready for that? And have you tried to let somebody else read it (or excerpts of it) already? It's obviously full of personal stuff, so you must be absolutely happy with other people having such a close look at your life. If you are not ready for such big reveal, then perhaps it's better to stay unpublished, or published under the guise of "fiction".
 

Kimmie

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Hi, The idea is to do it totally anonymously, all names (including mine), places etc will be changed so no one can be identified.
 

Elle.

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Even if you change names and places before you self-publish, which you would have to do anyway if you turn it into fiction, it won't stop people commenting, leaving feedback (positive or negative) about your life even if they don't know that it's your life. I agree with Curlz that the first step would be to have someone read it and preferably not a friend or a family member but someone you can give you objective feedback.
 

frimble3

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It may be worse if it's sold as fiction, because people won't even cut you slack for being an actual person.
How would you feel about people calling your life 'unrealistic', 'melodramatic' or other things that nay-sayers might say about fiction?