Core rule: memoir is selection, not life summary
Every person, event, emotion, and detail should serve the governing inquiry or action.
Evidence: treat memory honestly
Distinguish these sources from one another:
- remembered fact
- reconstructed sequence
- records
- other people's accounts
- present interpretation
Structure: organise around the change, not the chronology
Avoid autobiography by chronology. Organise around the decision, change, tension, or recognition.
Character: be fair to your past self
Your past self deserves the same fairness as any other character. Do not make the earlier version stupid merely to make the present version wise.
Opening: a moment that holds the later tension
A moment that contains the later tension often works well.
Ending: present understanding with its limits
A personal essay need not turn experience into advice.
Main risks
Watch for these failures:
- hindsight creating inevitability
- self-explanation replacing scene
- moralising the past
- selective memory supporting the preferred identity
- invented dialogue or precise details not actually remembered
AI role: check and question, never invent
Timeline checker, hostile interviewer, missing-context detector, reader-response critic. Never invent lived details.