The agent’s answer
There is no reliable formula for memoir platform. Kelly calls the genre 'scary' to agents and editors because, as she puts it, there's not really an answer to the question. She treats memoir as an exception to the no-full-manuscript rule, because a memoirist may need to write the whole book, and notes memoir is written like fiction. Her test for whether a personal story clears the bar is a tension between two qualities: it has to be universal enough that readers recognize something of their own experience in it, and simultaneously so specific and unrelatable that it becomes worth reading 75,000 words about. She uses Wild, Educated, and Hillbilly Elegy as worked examples. In each, the relatable core is ordinary: grief, family strife, working-class life. The distinguishing edge is what most readers will never live through, whether that is a hike on the Pacific Crest Trail, leaving what Kelly calls a family cult and going on to earn a PhD, or a move from Appalachian life to an Ivy League school. Hussain adds that a memoirist should ask why a total stranger would want to spend 250 to 400 pages with their story, which Kelly affirms, noting that some writers realize mid-process that their story suits a private journal or family legacy project better than a published book.