Why I Decided to Write a Memoir—And How I Did It
The decision matrix a writer navigates when crafting a story is complex. Deciding on genre, point of view, and which characters and events to include are choices that create doubt and anxiety.
(How to Write a Memoir That’s Personal and Deeply Researched.)
My writing journey began in my late 40s when I was sent for a breast biopsy. I could not have predicted that that singular event would lead to a late-in-life writing career, one focused primarily on memoir. Much like the story I felt compelled to write, the path that led to choosing memoir was one fraught with impediments and detours.
My twin sister and I were adopted during the closed adoption era. Rigid state laws prevented us from knowing anything at all about our family background or medical history. But the threat of breast cancer spurred us into action. Suddenly, we were compelled to know what medical conditions ran in our bloodlines. This meant gaining access to sealed adoption records then locating and establishing contact with birth relatives. A daunting task.
Armed with only two pieces of information: the name of our adoption agency and redacted birth certificates, my twin sister and I forged ahead. Crossing the finish line consumed five years and involved a search agency, PI, confidential intermediary, judge, social worker, and a genealogist. And each time I related to someone where we were in the saga—an experience replete with headaches, hurdles, rejection, reunion, setbacks, and uncanny synchronicities—the reply was always the same. “Incredible. You should write a book.”
Should I? Could I? And how?
Even though I had always loved to write, my previous career in computer education had ill-prepared me to chronicle a highly personal account. Determined to learn how best to compose my adoption search and reunion story—and discern if it merited publication—I researched creative writing programs. Curriculum offerings posed the first major decision points in putting my story on the page.
What would serve the story best: a work of fiction, biographical novel, or memoir? And since my material was highly sensitive, could writing under a pseudonym protect me and the people I’d need to characterize?
In thinking about genre, I got caught up in a dilemma: Should I write the truth as I saw it unfold or some variation that protected the characters, real people whom I cared about and did not wish to harm? I was sensitive to my birth mother’s painful journey as an unwed mother, the searing loss she endured by surrendering twin daughters, and her efforts to maintain that secret for a lifetime. How would she feel about me writing about her, us, our chaotic movie script-like search and reunion journey? I felt the same hesitation regarding my adoptive parents’ situation, their displeasure with me bringing the other mother into our lives, and the subsequent rift we still struggle to resolve.
In my first draft, I chose to develop my story as a novel. I assumed that fictionalizing the plot and characters would ease my concerns and give me the greatest creative leeway. I changed peoples’ names and identifying information, embellished and expanded my characters’ worlds, but kept much of the original plot points because they were already crammed with incredible conflict. I was entertained by the process of creating fiction, but even though I received positive feedback from colleagues and instructors, something was amiss in the manuscript for me. In giving the story creative distance, I realized two things: What I had created wasn’t my story anymore, and that sharing my story exactly as it had unfolded had become essential to me.
As I considered the shift to memoir, another goal came screaming to the forefront. I wanted—no, needed—my work to benefit a specific audience: the adoption triad, a group made up of adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents. The struggles, missteps, successes, and failures I had endured were lessons I wanted “my people,” the triad, to consider in their own relationships and adoption searches. To achieve that end put me right back where I had begun: putting the privacy of people I cared about in jeopardy by directly and honestly sharing my story.
I argued with myself. The inner child me feared the backlash of angering both of my mothers. When I deliberated about asking them for permission to write the true story instead of a fictionalized account, the inner adult me was indignant. “This is your story to tell!”
Writing memoir is not for the faint of heart. A memoirist must meet certain challenges: Write the truth to the best of their ability, but not in a vengeful manner; and honor the privacy of those involved, but only to the extent that it also meets the needs of the story. In the end, the family members I chose to include in the final draft were given advance copies to review. To accommodate their wishes, some names and details were adjusted. By so doing, I skirted legal risks, and in my case, the relationships I wanted to nurture fortunately remained undamaged.
Memoir has the potential to hurt, but it also has the power to heal. For the writer, the greatest reward in revealing a personal journey is sharing our reaction to the events and how those transformed us, changing the trajectory of our lives. And if our creative work inspires, informs, and educates not only the audience we intended to reach, but those beyond, then we have met the challenges inherent in crafting memoir.
Check out Julie Ryan McGue’s Twice the Family here:
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