Should I Publish My Memoirs?

I won’t bother with a post about ‘Can I Publish My Memoirs’ because social media makes it possible for anyone to publish anything. Nope, it’s the ‘should’ that can be a sticking point.

It is completely understandable that having labored so prodigiously on writing your memoir, you want to share it. Makes perfect sense.

But whether to do so is still a question.

Who is your audience?

Is this memoir primarily a record of your part in your family’s history? That is, is the main intent to document a time or events you would like to pass on to family and friends? If so, then publishing to the wider world might not be imperative.

By all means put your memoir in a form that can be shared, but you may not need to publish on a wider platform.

If that still feels unsatisfying, ask yourself:

Why do I want to publish?

When I originally talked about whether you should write a memoir, I covered some of the reasons why you might or might not want to embark on this arduous journey. Now that you are on the other side of the mountain (yes, I know, mixed metaphors. I like them), they’re still useful to consider.

Reread the whole memoir from start to finish, as if you’ve never read it before. While doing so, ask yourself the following questions:

Does a sense of wanting revenge come across?

You probably didn’t start out that way, but think about whether the work has a tone of I’ve shown them or Take that! If there is a whiff here and there, I think you can rewrite those parts so they are more showing what happened than telling the reader how to feel about the events. However, if there is a strong odor of payback throughout, you might want to consider whether having written it down has gotten it out of your system, and just leave it on your hard drive.

Is there a feeling that you’ve gotten out your side of the story?

Of course, in some sense, that’s what a memoir is. You want to tell your story. I’m not really talking about that. It’s more the sense that you may have tilted the narrative so that you always come out on top. Little niggles that a certain event didn’t happen like that—a little revisionist history at play. I know the temptation is high, but actually readers don’t warm to protagonists who always win. First, because they sense the innate unbelievability but also because—well, do you really like someone who always presents himself as top dog?

These last two items are not entirely to try to save yourself from yourself but also because addressing them will make a better work.

Does your story communicate a larger story/learning?

In rereading the whole memoir, does it feel as if it is conveying a sense of some larger truth beyond the mere events? I know this is high bar, but if you want non-family to enjoy it, it is most helpful if readers can identify their own lives in your events.

Doesn’t have to be the world-is-a-better-place-if-we’re-all-nice, or crime-doesn’t-pay. It can be small but meaningful. I don’t want to give you examples because this is your memoir, but if you think readers will end by feeling they have learned something about themselves or their lives, then your memoir might well be something that needs to be enjoyed by a wider circle than friends and family.

Readers Participate in Your Story

In a previous post, He Shoots, He Shows!, I pointed out that readers participate in your story whether or not you want them to.

I learned this lesson from my first novel (never to see the light of day) which I circulated among friends. One reader thought the heroine Virginia was a bitch because she had a lovely husband but was messing up the nice guy she was having an affair with. Another thought the husband was a villain because his coldness forced his wife into the arms of the nice guy. Another thought the nice guy was a weakling for agreeing to the affair.

See? Same novel but completely different reactions.

Reader reaction

You can’t control how people engage with your fictional (and even non-fictional) work because readers bring themselves to the story. That is, their own world views influence how they see your work. In my example, people’s history/values around marriage, affairs, relationships, etc. are going to affect how they interpret the story.

You can’t control this nor should you try because part of the fun of reading is identifying with the stories and characters. Don’t attempt to take this away from your readers.

Having said that, I suspect that there might still be some niggle.

Participate fine. But I want my message to come across

Understandable.

So, there’s a good news and a bad news thing with this.

The good news is that your mastery of your craft will help get across your message, whether it is the protagonist is more sinned against than sinning or Mary really should end up with John. One of the important ways to achieve this is to show readers unfolding events rather than telling them about them. It ups the chances readers will identify with the story and hence your intent. In fact, if you get feedback that your message is not getting across, it is an opportunity to go back to the work and see how you can show more effectively.

The astute among you will immediately spot the fly in the ointment. “But,” I can hear you saying, “If I show the events, it gives them even more leeway to interpret the way they want.”

That is the bad news bit I was talking about. It is true—showing does indeed give readers more opportunity to bring their own values and perspectives to the piece. So, the remedy for getting your message across (i.e. show) also makes it easier for them to adopt an interpretation different from what you might wish.

Where do we go from here?

The answer is not to pepper the piece with a lot of stuff about how the reader should understand the story, neither in the tell part nor in the characters’ dialogue.

The answer is to accept that the ship has sailed on trying to control the message.

This is not a battle for control nor should it be. If you want to control the message, write propaganda. If you want to write fiction or memoirs, just write it and let the chips fall where they may.