Final answer:
Nonfiction has multiple purposes, a memoir is a type of nonfiction focusing on one aspect of an author’s life, and a biography tells the life story of someone other than the author. Both fall under the creative nonfiction category.
Step-by-step explanation:
Understanding Nonfiction and Its Types
Nonfiction serves multiple purposes, including providing information, teaching, entertaining, and persuading readers. As for self-written works that focus on one aspect of the author’s life, this is referred to as a memoir. A memoir is distinct from an autobiography as it concentrates on a specific theme or period in the author's life, while an autobiography spans most or all of the author's life. On the other hand, a biography is a nonfiction account of someone else's life, generally crafted by an author other than the person whose life is being chronicled.
Both memoirs and biographies are subsets of creative nonfiction, which tells true stories in an artistic way. By utilizing literary devices and techniques borrowed from fiction and other artistic mediums, creative nonfiction often narrates these true stories with a special emphasis on prose style and a vivid, detailed approach that can captivate readers. This genre can range from personal narratives and memoirs to autobiographies and literary journalism, each differing in their scope, focal points, and narrative voices.