That was the question of our discussion in creative writing workshop tonight.  My friend Bill Heather is an architect. He is also a writer in my creative writing workshop group. The group is tutored by Isabel D’Avila Winter, a published author. Pamela Jeffs, another writer-friend suggested that I should blog this discussion and my own response, to help writers who are planning to write autobiographies and memoirs or fiction based on real life stories.  I begin with Bill’s email to me and others in our group.

Bill Heather: Hello all you aspiring and proven writers,

• Is there a limit to what you can mine from your own life experiences for a story?
• Are authors of autobiographical fiction or memoir at risk of alienating their family and friends in their search for that elusive storyline?
• Is ruthlessness in search of your best fiction a necessary attribute of a writer?
• Would you publish a story if it could destroy the marriage of your closest friend?

There are good questions to ponder as we head towards the end of another year, and ones which are addressed in the attached article from the November 2014 issue of the Monthly. Link at the end of my response to Bill.

My Response to Bill: Dear Bill and friends,

Thank you Bill. I found the article very interesting and very true. The most safe writing would be fiction.

The pen does ‘cut’ deeper than the sword.

 

In my Memoir writing, I question everything I write. I know there will be a lot of ‘hurt’ of others as well as my own. I have created pain in many stories I read in our evening workshop. For example, if I had told my mother the old uncle rubbed my sore leg the ‘wrong way’ I think there would have been some serious charges or bloodshed in my family. The man is dead now but if I spoke about it now – what could happen? I don’t know. I also spoke to my mother and step brother about some stories I have written so far, and we discussed them. These stories were all painful…my stepbrother is my late step father’s son. But my step brother is my best friend – we are very close.

So my point is, as often as I do, I ask, should I just change my memoir to fiction and pretend it is not me or get my ‘freedom to express’ in fiction? Perhaps some stories could be written differently, safely..? Those and others are questions I ask myself all the time. 75% of what I have written, I don’t bring it to our workshop, I am scared to. Sometimes, I write the whole thing and then delete it.
Every now and then, I write fiction for the class exercises, because, this gives me the freedom to write freely without guilt, pain, horror and more. I totally lose myself in the ‘fake’ when I write fiction.
I deal with my writing the truth ‘problem’ this way; I write about me, the events, people and places and things that affect me. I write it all, then I decide what I can manage to live with, and I keep that story. I tell myself, ‘stop thinking about everyone else’. I just write ‘my’ story. I can always pull out what I think is too much at the end of the day. The final choice is mine, and I have to live with it.

I hope that makes sense.

Joycelin

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Click here to read the article by Ceridwen Dovey : Monthly 11.14 pp42-45