Memoir or Fiction?

[danielmc]

We all take inspiration and ideas from the real world for our fiction works, but what happens when the lines become a little more blurred between the two?

I'm on the final leg of the second novel, (first out on submission) a memoir dealing with the usual fun subjects, sex, drugs, gambling, and was wondering if anybody else had hit the dilemna of calling a WIP a piece of 'fictionalisation', or a straight forward memoir?

Do agents want to see 'based on a true story' or 'is a true story' on a query letter?

Also, the book deals with various criminal activities, and i am using real names and probably opening myself up to grief in the future, if published, so is it better to just call it Fiction?

The question of legalities regarding a memoir have been discussed elsewhere on the boards, so i won't get into that minefield, though my understanding is (from a UK legal position) that if the people are not in the public eye, and that they won't lose financial income due to the story being told, then I cannot be called for slander or defamation.

Any other writers wrestled with this one?

[scarletpeaches]

Plus, if someone accuses you of slander/libel, the onus is on them to prove that what you say isn't true, unless they have lost income or a reputation as a result of what you say, in which case, you're in trouble.

[danielmc]

Scarletpeaches - I see what you mean, but i doubt if any of the people involved will be crawling out of the woodwork to defend themselves anytime soon! And it wouldn't be hard for me to prove, if they did. The whole situation is/was a big grey area in the eyes of the law anyway, so I feel that i have little to worry about in that regard.

Further to my first post, I'm looking at this issue from a craft point of view as opposed to a legal one. There are freedoms in fictionalising the story, but i feel by using this fictional freedom i will dilute the story and create plot where there was none, characters that weren't there etc.

Once i was 50k into it i rewrote from 1st person to 3rd limited to see how it came across(not bad but not great), then I changed it back again. Im happy with voice, content, even style, but have rumblings about something. Can't quite put finger on what though!

[aruna]

Another aspect is the saleability of it. I believe that you'd hve more luck with a novel than with a memoir. Memoirs are hard to sell, unless you're famous or, say, lived among the 9/11 bombers for a year.
Hard luck/down-and-out/life among the lowlife memoirs are really a dime a dozen!

[DamaNegra]

I wrote a novel once, and it turned out to be a fictionalized memoir, the MC was a combination of me and my closest friends, and the troubles she had to go through were a combination of my friends' and my problems. I decided to put it off because there was a point when it became more of an autobiography than a fiction novel, and I didn't feel comfortable with it.