what's the difference between a memoir and a story????

Answer 1

As a literary genre, a memoir (from the Latin memoria, meaning "memory") forms a subclass of autobiography, although it is an older form of writing. Memoirs may appear less structured and less encompassing than formal autobiographical works as they are usually about part of a life, often a public part, rather than the chronological telling of a life from childhood to adulthood/old age. Memoirs have often been written by politicians or military leaders as a way to record and publish an account of their public exploits.


A story can mean a sequence of events:

A narrative, more specifically:
A piece of literature (also known as a tale):
Novel or specifically, an epistolary novel
Short story or a novella
Frame tale, a narrative technique
Fable, fairy tale or tall tale
Play, usually consisting chiefly of dialog between characters
Anecdote, a brief tale narrating an interesting or amusing biographical incident
Bedtime story, an entertaining or instructive, soporific, and often extemporaneous tale for a child
Urban legend, sometimes called Whale Tumour Story (WTS) in the UK
Plot, the storyline holding a narrative together (also in the context of movies)
An essay or news article, in journalism slang
Organization story, in organization studies, is fragmented, collectively enacted, and co-constructed
User story is a way of illustrating software requirements, often used in extreme programming
A depiction of history

Answer 2

a memoir is a retrospective autobiography, except with less of a storyline than an autobio might have... so it's just kind of free-flowing little anecdotes and memories from one's past. A story typically has a structure and a point to it. An introduction, a build-up, a climax, conflict-resolution, and conclusion.