Writing the Memoir
Wow. Way trickier than I thought. Fifty pages into my first nonfiction book, here's what I've learned:
1. There's no place to hide. In fiction, there's the reliable "Any resemblance to persons living or dead..." disclaimer, but in nonfiction it's life without make-up. Maybe some blush-on and eyeliner for the "creative nonfiction" types, but memoir writing (memory lapses aside) had better be the truth. The real truth. If I (you) starting leaving out uncomfortable facts, we're done. Might as well go watch football.
2. What has started as a straight nonfiction book is tilting toward memoir. Which is a process of editing life. We leave out the meaningless times (we all have years of them) in order to find a coherent thread. A narrative line that both makes sense of life, and amplifies its significance. Example: Patricia Hampl's THE FLORIST'S DAUGHTER. From the get-go we understand intuitively that this book is not about climbing mountains or inventing an AIDS vaccine; that it's a "small" book wherein the main character has forked no lightning; a book about family. You can never go wrong writing about family (we all have one), and with Hampl, the sentences alone are worth the price of the book.
3. One can write several memoirs. We can't--probably shouldn't--try to write the "definitive" memoir. Rather, there are multiple threads in our lives, and the goal is to pick one and follow it forward.
4. Nonfiction books can be placed on a continuum of the author's voice and visibility. For example, we could write a biography that, by nature, should have nothing at all to do with us. The far other side is the intensely personal memoir (the "confessional", ala James Frey) that is all about us. And of course there and endless gradations between those two poles. My friend, the late Jon Hassler, a novelist, was once asked, "How much of your fiction is based in real life?" His answer: "27.4 percent." (He was a wry, witty guy.)
4. One should not talk too much about writing in-progress. (This I've known for a long time.) Nattering on, describing what one is writing bleeds away psychic energy that you need for yourself and for the book. Don't give it away. Put it between the imaginary covers of your book-to-be. . . .
And now, back to work.
Posted by will weaver at 10/6/2009 7:25 AM 
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: writing the memoir nonfiction narrative threads
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: writing the memoir nonfiction narrative threads
Hey, Will, don't knock the value of chatting about one's work mid-process. It's one of my more effective procrastination tools....
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Re: "intensely personal memoir (the "confessional", ala James Frey)" -- you must have missed all the blow-back followed by Oprah's rebuke after the discovery that his "confessions" were, at best, highly embellished -- that is, fictionalized...
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Thank you for your insights on the writing of a memoir. I learned several helpful things from your thoughts on this.
I attended a workshop on writing a memoir in Hubbard, MN. which was excellent. But, it still left me with many unresolved questions once I got started writing once I was home.
Your comments addressed some of these very issues. Thank you very much.
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