How to Write Your Memoirs

Presidents do it. So do writers, actors and business leaders. They write memoirs. What would be in your story?

Seems like everyone is writing memoirs these days, with the web, e-books and self-publishing providing the vehicle for everyone from celebrities to average Joes to pen or punch his memories into book form for the world (or at least their loved ones) to see. Seems that people love to read them, too. In late May of this year, for example, five of the top 10 books on The New York Times nonfiction bestsellers list were memoirs of one form or another. We're clearly interested in the lives of the famous, the infamous and even the not famous at all.

Unlike a biography, which is usually a little more objective given the burden of historians and biographers to get the facts straight, a memoir is really an unfiltered and personal version of the writer's life -- the facts as he or she saw them. Of course, given the perspective of time and distance, those facts can easily morph into personal fictions, too. In 2006, Oprah Winfrey was embarrassed after promoting James Frey's memoir, A Million...