Post #1 – Women’s Memoirs, Potpourri – Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnett
A memoir begins as a seed. It soon becomes a shoot, then a sapling, then a tree with many expansive branches that arches over an entire garden. How does it know to do this?
Tao [dau], n. way
The Tao, the way or the path, views life as part knowledge, duty, rationality, and part religion, morality, truth. It is not a fixed set of principles. In fact, it often employs riddles and paradoxes to convey its meaning. The Tao offers distinctive insight into many of life’s endeavors, including memoir writing.
We have developed six points that are Tao-inspired. We hope they will guide you along your path toward a successful memoir. Each day we will post another point until you have all six. Here’s the first one:
The complete truth is that truth is never complete. The unchanging truth is that truth is forever changing.
In our memoirs, we want to honor the emotional truth of events as we remember them while honoring the factual truth as well.
At the same time, we acknowledge that we are different people today than we were yesterday or last year, so today’s perception of yesterday’s or last year’s truth changes as well.
Seek the emotional truth of your story. You may remember the story differently than others, but readers understand this is your version of events. Some memoirists tell the story their way and then state what someone else, usually a family member, says happened. Sometimes it is the particular sequence of events, sometimes it is the number of steps that took place, sometimes it is what was said. But just because it is your version, doesn’t mean you should alter what you know to be the ‘truth’ to have a better story or to put you in a better light.
