Should I do Research for My Memoirs?

First off, you need to know that I hate research so you need to take that into account when you read this post. My preference is to write it first and then figure out if it’s right. In fact, I’ve suggested in other posts a way to write both fiction and memoir which is more haphazard but I think more effective. However, I recognize that just because I don’t like doing it, doesn’t mean that some isn’t necessary.

Do I need it?

Depends on the type of memoir you’re writing. If it is intensely personal—your take on surviving cancer, or losing a child, or winning the Nobel Prize—you probably won’t need much. Checking names or dates, etc. all make sense but you are already the expert on this type of memoir.

Memoirs might need more research if you want to delve back a bit into your family history. Even if the focus is on you, as it should be, there may be facts or background which might help to illuminate what happened in your life.

What kind of research?

Again, depends on the type of memoir you are writing, but some sources might be:

Interviews with relatives. Relatives and older friends can provide an adult perspective on your childhood memories. Or provide answers to questions you’ve always wondered about.

Historical record: Particularly if you are covering when you were young, it might be useful to read any histories of that early period. You can be reminded of situations you’d forgotten or how the period shaped behavior which makes sense put into its context.

Old photos or diaries. Naturally. Don’t forget any teen diaries you have tucked away. Cringe material, I know, but it again might jog your memory on incidents or insights from that time.

Other memoirs dealing with a similar topic. If your memoir is focused on a particular major event in your life, reading how others handled your topic can give you ideas on how to approach it and even how to structure it.

For more on this, go to the good article called Why Research is Important to Your Memoir.

But it’s not a research project

This, I think, is the biggest trap with undertaking research, particularly before you start writing. If your objective is to fully explore your family tree, by all means, go ahead.  But that’s not a memoir.

You should be researching enough to inform your memoir, but not a lot more. It is easy to be trapped in a never-ending cycle of research because every fact you dig up will lead to three more questions.

In addition, you may not know what facts/background you’re going to need before you start. It’s more likely to come up when you are writing. So just-in-time research might be preferable. In particular, it avoids doing a whole lot of research that you don’t use, or worse, try to shoehorn into the story just because it’s interesting.

So research if you must but not necessarily research.

Can/Should I Make Up Stuff for My Memoir or Personal History?

Of course not. You don’t change history

True. Well, at least you should not rewrite your personal history. As I’ve mentioned in another post, Do I Have to Tell the Truth in a Memoir? , the real downside of doing so is that you are unlikely to create a good story if you spend large parts of it hiding or distorting your past. There is a presumption in a memoir that you are telling the truth (unless you are a movie star or a politician—all bets seem to be off for them).

Having said that…

Unless you have perfect recall, there are likely moments which you can’t remember and are trivial—the color of the dress, the number of fish you caught, the weather that day. If it isn’t critical to your story, it makes sense to make it up rather than subject your reader to: “I think his name was Fido but that might have been the previous dog which was also a cocker spaniel.” Just call him Fido. Beyond the trivial detail, there are a range of other possibilities for not truth-telling.

Reasonable

There are instances when you might want to move beyond the literal or factual truth.

• It was too much of a coincidence that they were both there at the same time—it had to have been planned.
• Her nervousness and ill-temper made me think that she was seriously worried about something even though she denied it.
• “I can’t believe you’re accusing me of that,” when all you actually remember is a denial.

Stretching history

Maybe it’s okay; maybe not. It’s a judgment call.

• Combining characters: Say you have a mess of cousins, none of whom will figure largely in your narrative. You could draw a character which represents your cousins and let him/her stand in for all. Of course, be prepared for Hey! There’s no cousin Lex!
• Cutting corners: Readers get bored if an action is repeated too many times. Getting married, not getting married, reuniting, breaking it off, giving the engagement another try, a blow-up which calls the wedding off. Unless this is the main focus of your story and you plan to put a lot of meat on those bones, this repetition is tiresome even if true-to-life.  You might need to cut the number of repetitions so as not to lose the reader.

Questionable

Be very leery if you are deviating from the straight and narrow to:

• Maintain it never happened. This is the Big Lie—protesting that the event is a figment of the whole world’s imagination and perhaps substituting a more palatable version.
• Avoid a particular important but embarrassing incident. Or skipping over the event completely—like writing about going from one job to another without mentioning that you were fired.
• Clean up your story. Here you sanitize the story to put yourself in a better light. The DUI was all a big misunderstanding which you ended up being penalized for.

So, your memoir is going to be a mix of truth and fiction no matter what. The trick is to keep your emotional honesty.