I recently read the piece below in The Times, and asked Blake, an old colleague and friend, if he might allow me to reproduce it here at the Boot Camp. He kindly agreed. Hopefully we will get together for a Zoom talk about writing soon, which I can post on this site.
In the meantime, the article below contains excellent advice for any would-be memoirist. I have added my own comments in italic.
Blake: I’ve written three family memoirs as well as a non-fiction book about a murder case, and although I set out not knowing what I was up to, over the years I’ve learnt a few things about the process. Here are some thoughts — friendly suggestions rather than stern commands.
1. Be honest
Clear a space in your head so you can write freely rather than worrying what your siblings, neighbour or ex-lover will think. You might be painting a portrait of your mother, for instance, which you intend to be affectionate. Does that mean omitting moments when she behaved badly — the time she smacked you, say, or the Christmas party where she got drunk? No. You have to depict her warts and all, not pretend that she was a saint. I faced this when writing about my dad, a bully and cheat who was also charismatic; my job was to show both sides. Don’t pull your punches. Truth is your priority. The affection will still come through.
Blake is absolutely right about this - truth is the priority. The real issue, though, is not how much of the truth to withold for the sake of the subjects of the book, but whether you can find enough truth within yourself to write effectively in the first place. Because being an honest narrator is a real challenge, given all the self deceptions and false memories all of us are prey to.
2. Be brave
It takes courage to write “I”. Far from being narcissists, most memoir writers I know are hesitant creatures who fear that their story isn’t worth putting on paper and potential readers will think, “Why bother — who cares?” But if this is a story that you’ve been brooding on and need to get out of your system, then it’s worth telling — first to yourself, then (as you redraft) to share with others. Memoir, unlike fiction (which if it chooses can be fabulist, fantastical and otherworldly), rests on lived experience. The reader’s knowledge that the story really happened to you, rather than being invented, is what resonates.
Bravery is one way of putting it. It depends on your personality. When I wrote ‘The Scent of Dried Roses, my memoir, I was told I was brave. Really, I just wanted to be the centre of attention - a flaw many writers suffer from, lucky for us, since it provides motivation to write in the first place.
3. Put us there at the scene
Memoirs need detail. The five senses. The weather, décor, clothes, food, gestures; the small and precise particulars that authenticate a scene and allow readers to sit right next to you. If we’re at your side, we’ll be on your side. And close-up, in-the-moment recall achieves that. Any journal or notebook you have kept will be invaluable in re-immersing you in lost time. When I wrote about my sister Gillian in my recent memoir Two Sisters, I drew on old letters and diaries to help to portray her as she changed from childhood through marriage and motherhood. The book would have been poorer without that detail.
Detail is absolutely crucial in all forms of writing. To write wellis to notice. Most people see themselves and the world around them as a sort of blur of experiences and sensations. Memoirists have to be far more clear headed.
4. Use dialogue
Reported speech is lame. If you’re recreating a pivotal scene, we need to hear the actual words spoken. True, if you’re going back decades, “actual” may be unlikely, even impossible. But you remember the context; you know the idiom the speakers liked to use; you can’t forget their tone of voice and favourite phrases. It’s an approximation, not a tape-recording. But readers accept that. A memoir is unavoidably subjective, but dialogue adds realism. It’s a token of plausibility –– a mark of reliable narration.
I was nervous about making up speech, because people , I thought might accuse me of being inauthentic. However, properly handled, within limits and in good faith, invented dialogue can be very effective as device, so long as the dialoge representsan authentic truth and not something just ‘made up’.
5. Dramatise yourself
The narrator can’t be a blank sheet. Virginia Woolf said that the reason so many memoirs are failures is that “they leave out the person to whom things happened”. If you’re exposing others, it’s only right that you do the same: lay yourself open, send yourself up, embarrass yourself. Don’t worry about alienating readers. Admit your flaws. A flawed narrator is more loveable than a goody two-shoes.
To admit your flaws is simply to admit to being human.
6. Be selective
Memoirs are a slice of life, not the whole cake. What are the key moments or episodes that you want to explore? It helps to have a dominant theme or motif — an illness you survived, a death you mourned, a journey that changed your life. Readers want an experience they can connect with — what happened and all the thoughts, feelings and dilemmas you went through. The aim should be a tight chronology with varied pace, not lumbering birth-to-grave autobiography.
This is the difference between memoir and autobiography. A memoir is simply a sample of a life, selected to illustrate a certain theme which the writers wishes to explore.
7. Find the right tense
Television documentaries often use the present tense when narrating past events (“Should I have her bumped off or is it better to divorce her, Henry VIII wonders as he canters on his mount through Greenwich Park”). Many memoirs do the same: to write about a childhood episode as if you’re experiencing it in the moment will make it more vivid and immediate. But the present tense also prohibits retrospection — you now weighing up you then — and there will be sections in a memoir where you need the measured reflection that the past tense allows.
I never know how to find the right tense - except by trial and error. Even then it’s a guess.
8. Hide your research
Memoirs are more than memories — you’ll use letters, interviews and archive material to tell the story, especially for events when you weren’t present or need to supplement your restricted point of view. In writing about my mum’s Irish upbringing in Things My Mother Never Told Me I talked to her relatives in Kerry, and in documenting her medical career I spent time in a research library. The facts are important. But weave them in. Don’t let archival material skew the momentum and clog the story. You’re not writing an academic treatise. What matters is the pulse of a life.
Absolutely. You don’t have to be constantly be reassuring your reader that you know your onions. It’s tedious. Have some self confidence and the reader will believe in you.
In his essay Politics and the English Language, George Orwell — one of many writers to learn from if you want to write non-fiction — laid out five rules for writing, then added a sixth: “Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.” It’s good advice. Rules are there to guide you. And to be broken.
Neat post Tim. Your italics interpolated into Blake Morrison's words from The Times enhance what was already a lively, cut-to-the-chase article.
Not sure that writing memoir is terroir that will ever I tread texts trails through but I have enjoyed reading memoir and also reading authors' such as Blake Morrison and yourself on the experience of writing memoir.
Signpost, for others who may be interested: using the Search facility on The Guardian Online, recalling that I'd read Blake Morrison on memoir there previously, using the simple search phrasing 'Blake Morrison Memoir' brought up three articles he'd contributed over recent years. Each an interesting variation on the theme of memoir, just as your posts on memoir and your unabridged reading of 'The Scent of Dried Roses' here in Boot Camp have been. On The Guardian I found the following review on the reissue of your memoir pithy fair comment: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/nov/29/scent-dried-roses-tim-lott
This has appeared with immaculate timing for me, Tim. I'm currently reading And When Did You Last See Your Father? and also writing a memoir. Thank you.