(Family) Secrets Secrets Are No Fun…

Posted by David Duhr in Strategies      18 comments

Jul
23

TL;DR version: Writing about family without stepping on feelings can be difficult. But when authenticity is at stake, which is more important: Loyalty to the narrative or loyalty to your loved ones? This week I want to discuss if/when writers have the right to take private matters public, and if so, whether or not we should pull our punches. Then at the end of the post I offer you a chance to choose my own adventure for me. Because, help!

When writing about your family and/or friends, how do you strike a balance between writing honestly and sparing the feelings of your subjects? Is it possible to be both authentic and considerate? Is it a simple matter of knowing when to pull your punches versus when to swing full force?

Every week we get at least one email or call from a writer wondering how to write about family without inflicting severe emotional damage and/or sowing discord. This week, the query comes from… me! Because I’m up against it myself. And I wrote a sort of choose your own adventure, and I’m curious to see which option you folks would go with. Or have gone with, since I know a lot of you have already worked through this topic.

In other words: Help!

… Unless You Share with Everyone

In last week’s post about our 2017 writing goals, I mentioned that I’ve abandoned the novel I was working on and have moved to a nonfiction project. That project is half reportage, half memoir. My family plays a prominent role in the memoir half, and here’s where I’m running into some trouble.

I’ll be revealing secrets both personal — stuff about me that few people know, including no one in my family — and familial, things known and kept only by my immediate family.

Many of these things contribute to the painting of an unflattering portrait. But they are matters I need to write about if I want this project to be honest and authentic. Loyal to the narrative.

But there’s the other side of the loyalty coin: the familial loyalty. Do I have a right to share with the general public secrets my family clings tightly to? When is it OK to take private matters public?

Your turn: In what situations do you feel it’s your right as a writer to take something public that will negatively impact others? When is it not your right?

Writing AboutAround  Your Family

For many writers this is touchy stuff. In December 2014, Justine wrote this post titled “Writing About Your Family.” In the comments section, a reader left some remarks and questions about a family project he or she was working on. Justine responded. Two and a half years later, that writer asked me to remove the comments so that nobody in his or her family would find them.

Certain members of my family will be mortified by some of the things I’m writing about in this book. They’ll consider it a betrayal. A public airing of dirty laundry. But without those things, my book won’t be authentic. And it will suffer because of that.

So whose suffering do I work to prevent: My book’s or my family’s?

Your turn: Have you been in a similar situation? Are you willing to share it with us in the comments below?

Choose My Own Adventure for Me

Here are a few options I’ve come up with for how to approach this:

1) Scrap the whole thing and spare everyone’s feelings.

2) Write the whole thing but don’t publish it or let anyone read it.

3) Without warning, write and publish the authentic version that is sure to cause major dissension.

4) Write and publish a scrubbed version that won’t step on any feelings.

5) Talk to my family between now and attempting publication, explain what I’m doing, discuss the touchy parts, make it clear why I consider them necessary, and:

a) Tell them to fasten their seatbelts, because this thing is happening with or without them.

b) Ask them if they’re OK with what I’m doing, and offer some opportunity for input & compromise.

6) Whatever genius idea you may have that I didn’t think of.

Your turn: What’s your answer and why? Which of these tactics have you tried in the past, and how did it go? Let us know all of this and anything else in the comments below.

And thank you for your input!

WriteByNight co-founder David Duhr is copy editor and fiction editor at the Texas Observer and writes about literature for the Dallas Morning News, Electric Literature, Publishing Perspectives, and others.

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