Five Things About Writing a Memoir I Didn’t Know … And You Likely Don’t Know Either
Everyone has a story, their story, and many of us decide to tell ours by writing a memoir. Both writing craft books and workshops proclaim, “Write what you know.” So, when I set out to tell my story about thinking I would die from pancreatic cancer before I could walk any of my three daughters down the aisle on their big days, I thought it would be simple. After all, this is something I know, it’s my story. I know all the facts because I lived each of them. What could be complicated about that? After two years of writing and rewriting here are five things I learned.
Memoirs must have a slant.
Good memoirs offer more than a retelling of something that happened to you. Something happened is rarely enough. So, you got hit by lightning. How is that any different than the thousands of other people who are struck by lightning each year? Perhaps it happened when you were skydiving. Still not enough. Same with a shark attack. During the final round of a surfing championship, you a newbie competitive surfer with little chance of winning, and your board are thrust into the air by a great white shark on live TV, better. Again, what’s different? Finding your memoir’s slant is hard work but you must tackle it.
Once written your memoir eclipses your memory.
Part of the writing process is going over and over each sentence, assembling them into paragraphs and then into pages. Figuring out your story arc. What to leave out? What scenes matter? Trying to recall things said. How you felt, the sounds, smells and so much more. The hours and hours, day upon day of writing, and rewriting eclipses your memories. What you have written becomes your memory. Until you have experienced this phenomenon it’s hard to explain it. And sadly, there’s no way back. Your memoir eclipses your memories. They’re gone.
Pushback will come from people you didn’t expect it from.
I have all too clear memories of my wife spending hours and hours day after day with me in the hospital. Of her sleeping next to my hospital bed propped up between two chairs the night of my six-hour surgery to remove my pancreatic tumor. But like all marriages, we had our spats. In trying to show her deep love for me I wrote about how we had struggled at points in our marriage and yet had gotten through them. I had been attempting to show how she had hung in there with me through some pretty tough times and now pancreatic cancer. Considering the reaction I got you would have thought I had an affair with her best friend. My best intention to show her as an astonishing spouse who would do anything for me was met with fury. She felt dirt about the state of our marriage was nobody’s business. After much bickering about this, I decided to cut this out as my slant had been about me not knowing if I would be there for any of three daughters’ big days, something every father lives for. I hadn’t expected her pushback but in retrospect, I understood why.
You have to fling a lot of dirt in the air.
No one wants to read bunk about living happily ever after. They want to live inside your life to understand what you’ve been through without going through it themselves. There is also an air of schadenfreude, German for finding joy in some else’s misfortune. “Boy, I’m sure glad that didn’t happen to me.” Without exposing your raw self, the good, bad, and ugly, your memoir will stink. Readers will sense you have not told them “the whole truth and nothing but the truth” as you would when giving sworn testimony under oath. So, if you’re not ready to run down the street buck-naked you’re not ready to write a memoir. A memoir without dirt is a fairytale. Often celebrity memoirs are all dessert and no meat. Given their big-name, they sell well at first and then get marked down and tossed into the remainder bins. Whether you are an unknown or a well-known big-name you have to fling a lot of dirt into the air otherwise you won’t be believable.
Memories are memories, not facts.
As much as my memories are facts in my mind they are still only memories. There are well-documented cases where people witness the same event but each has a different memory of the event. One of my favorite movies is the 2008 political action thriller Vantage Point where eight strangers witness the assassination of the President of the United States from eight points of view. Each witness swears their point of view is the real one yet no one’s point of view is factual. Much the same is a memoir. This makes writing your memoir all the more challenging. Do I believe what I remember or do I trust some else’s memory? Who’s factual? Maybe neither of us. Memories are mirages in the desert. They aren’t facts.
These are five things I learned from writing my memoir Gut Punched! Facing Pancreatic Cancer. As you write your memoir I hope these things will be of value to you.