Truth Or Lie Fiction Vs Memoir How Memoir Writers Can Approach T

Truth Or Lie: Fiction Vs. Memoir—how Memoir Writers Can Approach Truth And Healing

The recent flap about James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces has hit the media with a big bang, bringing the age-old debate about what is acceptable when writing memoir--a “real” story. Every time a memoir is released that gains media attention this debate is raised. Mary Karr, The Liar’s Club, Jennifer Lauck, Blackbird, and Vivian Gornick, Fierce Attachments, all defended their memoirs in various medias, and all said that some recreations of actual reality had to occur in order to write the story and make it interesting.

As a memoir teacher, I find that people are very worried about the ethical issues involved in memoir writing. For example, the writers ask such questions as, “what if I don’t remember the exact conversation when my mother died,” or “I don’t know what clothes I was wearing the day my father went away forever.” I am always moved by these innocent, caring questions, because the writer is trying very hard to be truthful and accurate, and not leave any room to be accused of dishonesty.

In my memoir Don't Call Me Mother I researched the time the train arrived in Perry, Oklahoma to make sure the scene I was painting and the conflict with my grandmother about how long she'd kept my father waiting at the train station--three hours! was accurate. My memory told me it was a long time, but finding the time of scheduled arrival made me feel great--memory was not all I was drawing upon to create a story that would be taken seriously as "real." In fact, when I began writing the stories that eventually turned into my memoir, I was calling it "fiction," but the writing group challenged me about how unrealistic it was that a mother would act the way my mother acted, and that my grandmother was portrayed as "too over the top," thus unbelievable. My answer was, "but it was all true." Their response: "It doesn't matter what is true in fiction, but it does for memoir."

I realized that the power of the story I was going to tell was that it was true, and I did my best to recreate scenes that delivered the truth. Naturally, childhood memory is subjective, any memory is subjective, but over the years, as I talked with people who knew parts of the story and visited locations where the story took place, I discovered that indeed I had remembered very well, and I had not made things up in my mind. However, I am sure that if my grandmother and mother were alive to challenge what I wrote, they would have another point of view.

In order to reach out to the reading public and go beyond private journaling, a memoir writer must create a story that has a shape, drama, and story arc. This may mean constructing a scene that conflates time, or adds costumes to our characters that they may or may not have worn, but our job is to be as accurate and as honest as we can be. If we change the plot of our lives because another plot would be more interesting to the publisher, we are in the realm of fiction. If we say we had relationships we didn't have because it would make a better story, we need to call it fiction.

A memoir writer needs to write a first draft that sifts through the happenings, feelings, and challenges and get them down on the page--a draft that is healing and purging--and important work.

Publishing is another stage. The writer must ask many questions of the work--how much to include, what is the shape of the book, and how to write it so others can identify and understand.

What to say about James Frey? None of us can know for sure what went on for him as he constructed his book, and what he remembered. On January 15, Mary Karr wrote a piece in the New York Times about memoir writing and she had this to say,

"Call me outdated, but I want to stay hamstrung by objective truth, when the very notion has been eroding for at least a century. When Mary McCarthy wrote 'Memoirs of a Catholic Girlhood' in 1957, she felt obliged to clarify how she recreated dialogue. In her preface, she wrote: 'This record lays a claim to being historical - that is, much of it can be checked. If there is more fiction in it than I know, I should like to be set right.'"

Mary went on to talk about how much she learned, and how healing it was when she didn't make passages in her book more "interesting" or shape them into a slightly different story. "If I'd hung on to my assumptions, believing my drama came from obstacles I'd never had to overcome - a portrait of myself as scrappy survivor of unearned cruelties - I wouldn't have learned what really happened. Which is what I mean when I say God is in the truth."

What a great idea—as we write memoir we are reaching for something beyond our conscious selves. In the river of creativity and the search for truth, there are forces beyond us moving us along to a place we didn't even know about, a place of healing and resolution. We can hope that James Frey also has found, or is finding, a resolution for his suffering, and that all memoir writers do the same, by wrestling with what truth is, and writing it out with a full voice.

BONUS : Turbo Charge Your Articles – 6 Ways To Make Them Easy To Read And Hard To Resist

A few years back, I found that the process of writing articles really isn't a process at all – it's an art, and it's a very elegant one.

There are so many ways to make an article easy to read for your audience it's mind-boggling.

While a debate rages on about whether articles should be dense and conversational or sparse and easy-to-read, I find myself in the middle, happy to write conversational articles with loads of impact.

The fact remains: People aren't going to read something that looks like it might take a long time to read. I'm a professional writer and I don't even like to read long articles. (To me, long ezine articles it shows a lack of discipline on the part of the writer.)

Here are a few maxims I've discovered and they've served me well in the past:

● Keep articles to anywhere between 400 and 700 words – anything more than that and you're asking for your article to have single-digit page views. Who wants that?

● Use sub-heds. Short for subheadings, these breaks in the content are mini-paragraphs that move the reader along in the story. I only employ these when I'm writing case studies or articles that approach the 700 word mark.

Note: I only write these after I have written the entire article. I take a good look at the text and then I try to insert a sub-hed every two or three paragraphs. This technique works wonders in making an article appear more readable.

● Use bullets, numbered lists, and bold sentences whenever you're writing the advice portion of your articles.

Quick Tutorial on Adding Status Boosting Advice to Your Articles

It's a must to have advice in your articles. This sets you apart as an expert in your field and makes you likable because you're helping to solve the problems of your prospects.

Here how I used advice in my articles:

● Make sure the advice is actionable – something to reader can do right now to reach a goal, eliminate a problem or become more efficient.

● Include the most important items at the top of the list and the least important ones at the very end.

● Finish strong with a final piece of advice that is not in the numbered list, bulleted list, or bold sentence category. I usually structure the sentence like this one: “Bottom line: Follow a set format to make writing articles easier.”

This allows the reader to leave your article with the one nugget of information that he can finally use to solve whatever problem may be hanging over him at the moment.

Now article writing can be fun because you have the right tools to ensure readers will want to read your articles.

Bonus! How to Put This Concept to Work in Your Articles
Write your articles out without thinking about these tips I just mentioned. Just empty your brain of all the information you have about a particular problem facing your audience and how they can solve that problem.

Then walk away from the article. Don't look at or think about it for at least three hours or so. Next, insert sub-heds to break up the paragraphs into bite-sized pieces. Format your advice into bullets, numbered lists or bolded first sentences.

You'll be surprised at how well your articles will look to someone who's first viewing it.

Doing this, in combination with a phenomenal headline, will send your article views through the roof. People will clamor for your articles and publish them both online, and in ezines.