Writing your Memoir: First Person or Third Person?

Over the years supporting people to complete their book projects, I start to hear similar enquiries. One that has come up continuously is the question of voice: should a book be written in 3rd person (John Smith was born in Charlottetown, PEI in 1936) or in the first person (I was born in a small town just north of Salmon Arm, BC)?

The question often arises for two reasons:

• The manuscript is partly written in third person, partly in first person - and the author is trying to choose between them

• The manuscript is not yet written, and the author is wanting further clarity about how to proceed.

I have some fairly clear advice on this one: wherever possible, write a memoir, life story or autobiography in the first person. The first person gives a sense of immediacy and connection: when we hear the first person, we know that we are getting the story first-hand, not filtered through another perspective. And if you are new to writing, as many memoir writers are, writing in the first person will naturally bring out your authentic voice: less of the seemingly objective 3rd person, and more of the real you.

And my second point: if your manuscript is only partially written, continue writing from where you have left off, do NOT go back and edit your writing to shift the voice or anything else. As the author of your life story, it is far more important that you finish writing your first draft than that you make these changes.

Once you have a completed manuscript - all of the stories you want to tell in one document - you could consider going back to improve consistency in voice. Perhaps will choose to engage an editor to do that work for you. Either way: changing voice is a part of the editing/revising stage, and until your first draft manuscript is complete it is important that you stay in the writing phase.

Do you have questions or wonderings about the memoir writing process? Share your questions with the NextGen team and we'll consider your topic for future blog posts. Looking for a good editor for your memoir? See here for more info and to request a quote.