Memoirists have a special challenge: tell a good story,
driven by themes which must not overwhelm the plot.
My late father was urged to write a memoire/autobiography,
because his life’s story encompassed the momentous events of Jewish history of
the 20th century. He survived the Holocaust (ghetto and
concentration camp) to go to what was then Palestine, and fight to establish the Jewish
state of Israel. He was critically wounded in the battle for Jerusalem. He was
part of a group that established a kibbutz. He went on the represent Israel in
cultural aspects in France and Argentina.
Even one of these chapters would have made a poignant book.
He was an academic historian, and wrote beautifully, having had poems
published. He was the one to tell his story, right?
But he refused to write his memoires. He told me that people
who write their life story inevitably lie, embellish, or seek justification.
“Fiction allows the writer to tell much deeper truths,” my
father told me.
When I first wrote the story that would evolve into a
published novel for middle grades, it was half biographical. By the time it
took its final form, the details were more fiction than fact, and I submitted
it as such. I was told by one editor who wanted to take it to acquisitions that
it would be more likely to be acquired as a memoire. I, like my father, turned
that down. The story had left the honest facts of my life’s story long before, in order (as my father would have put it) to tell the deeper truth and tell it as
a better, tighter story.
One blurb I got referred to The Voice of Thunder as “fictionalized
biography.” Fair enough.
Memoirists have the advantage that when submitting their story,
they present it as true, and it is easier to sell it that way. But keeping it
true while making it tight and compelling is a hard hill to climb.
See this
post about the special challenges of seeking to traditionally publish memoires.
9 comments:
Interesting insights. Thanks for sharing.
Wise words from your father, though I would still have loved to hear this story.
I do so love memoir but it is challenging--my editor and I had some very interesting discussions on this while I wrote Tongue-Tied. Fiction definitely allows one to explore deep truths. It's probably more powerful. And Voice of Thunder is beautiful. But still, I wish your father had penned his story too.
I really enjoyed this post. I'm one of those who believe that fiction tells the truth better than memoir can. Often fiction moves me more deeply than factual reporting does), and I think it is the way fiction can probe deeper to the universal, whereas facts often just stay at the surface.
I would love to write about the behind the scenes of being a lunch lady. It would have to be fiction because nobody would believe the truth. lol
I'll have to read The Voice of Thunder! I think memoirs can be very interesting. But I understand how they can easily become fictionalized.
Your father's story sounds so fascinating.
I had a semi-famous relative who led an interesting life. But when I approached his daughter about me writing a biography, she shut me down. I decided it was just as well. The information that's publicly available is conflicting. I think his daughter was afraid I'd dig up something unflattering. I was very fond of him and I'm glad I didn't write it after all.
I'm so glad my husband's uncle finally told one of his stories to someone who published an anthology of stories of people who survived the Holocaust. He would never talk about it to us, his family.
I would have loved to read your father's story, especially since he shared some of my own father's experiences in the ghetto and camps, though not in Israel. What if you wrote his biography?
"What if you wrote his biography?"
Not going to happen, MirkaK. He didn't want it, and I certainly wouldn't.
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