Should you write about yourself?

I always used to tell writers NOT to write about themselves. For years and years.

This was in the interests of cultivating good fiction authors. And before memoir stormed the charts. I still believe you shouldn't.... but that's for FICTION (or a novel).

Because if you write about yourself in fiction, you really only have one story to tell. It is also a totally misunderstood maxim of writing that you must ‘write what you know.’

Many writers misinterpret this to mean – write about yourself.

This is not true. What you know is diverse. You may know how to make a bomb from HTH, or how to carefully conceal a crime. You may know how to annoy your sibling, make a rocket from jam jars or hack into the FBI mainframe. You certainly know all about jealousy, anger, rage, revenge, fear, loss and triumph. You know a lot more than just your own life story.

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We simply don’t make for very good fiction. Not unless you are a ruthless trained killer (Jason Bourne) a damaged sex addict (Hank Moodey), a telepathic waitress dating a vampire (Sookie Stackhouse), selected to take part in a public fight to the death (Katniss Everdeen), a screwed-up billionaire with a prediliction for spanking (Christian Grey) or a sassy foul-mouthed bounty hunter (Stephanie Plum).

But now writing about yourself is a very realistic thing to do if you want to be published. In fact memoir and non-fiction are some of the easier books to get published.

But if you are writing a memoir or non-fiction OF COURSE you write about  yourself.

Memoir has long been a fast-selling genre and its trajectory is still rising. It is compelling to read about other people’s lives in intimate, graphic, no-holds-barred detail. The more graphic the better. One of my favourite writers Joanne Fedler describes writing a memoir as "the verbal equivalent of streaking".

But memoir has to have a story.

If you are writing about yourself there has to actually be a story. You don’t necessarily have to have been reared by wolves, held as a sex slave in a basement for a decade, married to Mick Jagger or found God in a coma. Of course agony sells. But you could have simply left your husband and gone on a spiritual journey (Eat, Pray, Love), found joy in a year of pain (My Year of Magical Thinking) or just been a very pushy parent (Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother).  

It is not that these people did anything particularly extraordinary at all.... but they wrote about it in an extraordinary way. In fact what they did was to find A BIG IDEA within their life story.

Okay now you got me started. My writers know how critical it is to find this core idea... but I will save that for another newsletter. Or join a course where I will find it with you.

YOU MAY WANT TO READ:

How to write your story for a magazine

The 4 Universal Rules of Writing to be Published

Why is genre so important

Sending off your book: How many publishers should you approach

Find your Non Fiction Genre here