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As many of you know, I've written two memoirs (so far!). One is about the painful early years in trying to figure out how to help my daughter, Jaimie (Not Just Spirited: A Mom's Sensational Journey With SPD). The other is about my childhood being raised by a mother with untreated bipolar disorder and alcoholism (White Elephants). Even though I'm narrating these stories, they aren't only my stories to tell. What I mean is, there are others directly or indirectly involved in the telling of the stories---and some of them aren't excited with me sharing them. Sound familiar all you memoir and personal story writers out there?
I didn't find as much of that when Not Just Spirited came out but very much so with White Elephants. In fact, I was actually advised by many people to create a fictional version of the story so that it would be more...'warmly accepted'. I've never been afraid to talk about things that may seem taboo to others but after the story came out, I panicked.
What would my family and friends in the book think?
This is actually a very common thing that many writers face, not just those of us writing memoirs addressing serious issues. Alot of people really don't like their business out there for the world to read whether the story is fun, happy, terrifying, goofy or serious. And one of the most popular questions I'm asked in interviews is, "What did/does ______ think of what you wrote?" I guess I just deal with that because certain stories need to be told a specific way. That doesn't mean I disregarded what so-and-so would think of what I'd written but more remembering that I could still tell my story while being respectful of so-and-so's feelings. We're talked about this several times in recent issues of WOW as well as here on The Muffin but let's talk about the three different ways you can share a story:
(1) Fictional: As I mentioned above this was how I was told to write White Elephants. Here you'd simply tell your story through fictional characters. This is the 'safest' way to tell a personal story because you can hide behind the characters you create, altering the setting, location and other things that would make it recognizable to those involved (or at least veil it so they won't feel threatened).
(2) 'Based on a True Story': Hollywood tells stories this way all of the time. The story or events are true but names, characters, location, etc. have been changed so it's standing on the fence between 'fiction' and 'real'. Again, this helps veil certain things (or people) but you can actually say the story (or events) really happened...to someone.
(3) Memoir: This is the route I went. You tell the story. The whole naked truth with all the people, events and/or issues invovled--the good, bad and ugly. This is the most difficult for others involved with your story because you're naming names. There are things you can do, though, to make it a bit easier:
- Talk to those involved. Tell them you're writing this story and ask how they'd feel. Some people won't care, others may not want to be involved. For those who don't want to be involved, try working around that
2 Comments on Three Ways to Write Your Memoir/Personal Story, last added: 10/4/2011Display Comments Add a Comment
In my writing groups, we discussed these issues.
Thanks for providing realistic choices.
You cannot even imagine how helpful your article has been to me! Thanks a lot!