Including Family & Friends In Your Memoirs
Best Practices & Recommendations
As a memoirist, one of the biggest obstacles in my writing has been other people. Specifically, family, friends—and—especially, men I’ve dated.
When we write, it’s natural to want the freedom to express ourselves as artists. The more years we put into our craft, the more fine-tuned our expression becomes. Unfortunately, with any creative pursuit comes both the natural curiosity and general misunderstandings from the loved ones in our lives. If this hasn’t happened to you, or you have built up a wall of steel, then hats off to you, my friend. Hats off to you.
The topic of family and friends is a big one. For now, let’s have a friendly chat about their inclusion in your stories.
Are there rules?
Do I need permission?
Should I change their names?
What if it’s a touchy topic?
Including Family & Friends In Your Memoirs: Best Practices
The Rules of Writing About Your Loved Ones
There are no rules.
Not really. Why? Because it’s subjective, that’s why.
Everyone has different experiences, different types of relationships, and different ways of looking at family. How can there possibly be set rules? Any guidelines come from a moral compass based on compassion and common sense that comes from within you as a writer. If you’re confused, perhaps ask yourself these things:
If I tell this story, will I risk complicating my relationship with my loved one(s)?
If this story is risky to tell, is the telling of the story more important to me than my relationship with my loved one(s) at this point?
Is there any possible way I can tell this story in a way, creatively, so it will not be hurtful to my loved one(s) should they ever see it?
Is there a way I can find a positive message out of a negative story?
Has my loved one(s) asked me not to write about them?
If I’m ever brought to court for custody reasons or anything else, could anything I write be twisted and turned against me?
Am I telling the story because it is an important story to me or because I just want the views? Are the views more important than my loved one(s)?
Will I be able to defend my decision confidently after the fact for writing this?
Will what I write hurt their reputation if read by others? Could it hurt any other part of their life?
Am I responsible and careful with how I represent others when I write?
I try to be very careful about how I represent my family when I write. I can also tend to be a bit generic when it comes to others in my writing. I waffle back and forth on changing names—it really depends—but I never use a full name.
One thing from the list above that I did run into over the years is having an ex twist my written words in court. It caused me to stop writing for a long time. Far longer than I would have liked. It made me feel violated and it made me feel like my writing was violated. It’s the reason I decided to not tell stories about my children and shy away from essays about my struggles with depression. And…it felt like something had been taken from me. Now I’ve learned that it’s just a matter of sharpening my pencil and developing what my own guidelines look like.
I still haven’t told my family and friends that I’ve returned to my personal writing. I think I am just enjoying the freedom of not being bombarded with questions about when my next story is coming out, what am I writing about next, why don’t I write about this or that, what did I mean by this, am I still mad about something that happened when I was nine…. That kind of thing.
That’s my experience.
If you are wondering if you should seek permission—well. I suppose that depends on your relationships. And it depends on you. I don’t. But that’s me. The only person I ever sought permission from was my ex-husband so that I could start writing about our crazy story, and he was more than happy to give me his blessing.
If you are debating on a touchy subject, see the list above. Good luck, use your common sense, and just have fun with it.
Writers—I’d love to hear your input as well. How do you approach including family & friends in your memoirs? What would your advice be for new memoirists? Sound off in the comments!
xo—Ki
I had a very painful breakup two years ago, though I've never written specifically about it. I've only alluded to the pain it caused me and how I was working my way through it, so I felt no need to ask my ex's permission. When I wrote recently about my daughter having to put her dog down, I did ask her permission, as I was revealing private details of her pain. I think you have to evaluate it on a case-by-case basis, and your list of questions is an excellent way to do that.
I have only one living member of my immediate family, and he and his wife are not online. I have used first initial or a slightly altered name when I've written about exes. I guess I'm fortunate that I haven't had any deeply negative family experiences that would necessitate my worrying about this. OTOH, I have written about former employers and I have changed the names and not mentioned a specific company, but that's to protect myself.