From Memory to Memoir

Don’t Censor Yourself

One of the questions I am asked most frequently at memoir-writing workshops is, “How can I say that?” My response is nearly always, “How can you not?”

Rule #12

Don’t Censor Yourself

Perhaps more than any other genre, memoir is not about holding yourself back. Memoir, as I pointed out in Rule #3, is about “walking the earth naked, clothed only in your truth.” Memoir is about being vulnerable and imperfect. Memoir is about being human.

Still, it’s easy, when revisiting the stories of your life, to feel as though certain things cannot be said, must not be said...dare not be said.

Don’t fall into the self-censorship trap. Instead, ask yourself these questions continually as you write:

•What am I leaving out for fear of embarrassing myself or offending someone else?

•What am I whitewashing or watering down to avoid being judged?

•What am I afraid to say because of what my parents, kids, partner, siblings or neighbors will think when they read it?

Whatever it is, it belongs in your memoir, at least in its initial draft.

Only by writing it all, as you feel it happened, can you honor your stories and can you honor the memoir that has called out to you to be written. Only by writing it all, however painful the memory or traumatic the event, can you begin to exorcise that pain and trauma from your emotional and physical body. Who knows? That act of exorcism may be a key reason why you are setting these stories to the page.

And only by writing it all can you then, in your revisions, discern what is appropriate and what isn’t and shape your memoir’s final drafts accordingly.

Don’t censor yourself. Get it all on the page. Now!

Try This

Write your most embarrassing story, the one you would least want to see in your memoir. It doesn’t matter whether this story ever makes it into the final draft of your book.

Practice telling the truth on the page, regardless of consequences, and feel the relief and release that only the truth can bring you.