Do I Change Names?

This columnist is on holiday for all of August.  Please enjoy the rerun of a few posts and send your questions to jennifer@jenniferlauck.com.  I'll be back on Sept. 3rd

 Dear Jennifer:

Most of the shocking and negative incidents and events in my memoir involve family members with whom I still have relationships. I think they will probably be angry and offended by my bringing the truth out publicly. Maybe they will deny it. Maybe they will disown me. 

Some members of my writers' colony have asked whether I intend to change the names of the characters. That may be a legal issue to deal with down the road, but I'm just not sure what I will do. They will still know who they are. It is not my intention to hurt and embarrass people, however, that may be a natural result of the consequences of their actions. I feel compelled to tell my story and wonder whether you have an opinion based on hindsight, or Tara's inspiration.  ~ Faith

Dear Faith:
This is a Jennifer question, all the way.  Jennifer teaches writing and has direct experience with this complex question.  So here we go.
First, let me tell you about the blueberry bushes on the east side of the house.  Did you know you have to have at least two of these bushes to produce berries?  It has something to do with cross-pollination and bees.

There they are.  Two lush blueberry bushes and as I write these words, three jays and a robin are in a little battle over the berries.  They flap their wings and squawk their fruity agendas.  The robin wants a berry for her little babes in the nest and the jays just want to eat.  They are hungry.  
We aren’t that much different than the birds.  Living creatures are living creatures.  We all want our blueberries and are willing to battle to serve our agendas. 
The same goes with interpretations of the so-called truth.  Each of us has a different version and many are willing to battle to the death.  
A couple of questions to consider:  How mean are the people in your family and how far do you think they’ll go to discredit you?
Louis Pastur said, “chance favors only the prepared mind.”  Since you cannot prepare for the outcome, you can prepare for all possible outcomes by taking a good hard look at past events.  Be honest with yourself—don’t sugar coat your experience, question your feelings or make justifications for those who did you wrong.  If brutality was part of your experience, remember it, and ask if these people have changed (and very likely they have not).  Okay.  Once you have this perspective, take proper precautions to cover your own a@#.  Yes, this is cliché to write but I’m sorry.  The only butt you can cover, in the end, is your own and if your people are butt-kicking mean then cover yours quick and don’t get kicked.  Your personal interests need to come first.
Changing names doesn’t change the game. I changed names, advised by lawyers at my publishing house and when my book hit big, out came the butt-kicking mean people from my past.  Why was I surprised?  These people put glass in my food, left me to starve, stole my father’s money, beat teeth out of my head and all those incidents are what I can remember. When Blackbird released and hit big, these butt-kicking mean people showed up to grab the attention, make my story about themselves and in the process, harassed me and worked to discredit me as well.   In fact, they behaved in ways that were most consistent to the ways they behaved in my experience.  The fault wasn’t in their behavior but my own lack of preparedness. 
How do you deal with the butt-kicking mean people in your story?  Do you not tell the truth because you are scared? 
No.
You tell the truth but you also let the reader know three things: 
1) You changed names and identifying features to protect them from the general public.
2) Your writing is your version of the truth and that you recognize the butt-kicking mean people have a side of the story too and maybe even could provide convincing evidence that could prove you wrong.  Okay.  That’s out there.  3) You are doing your best to tell your truth, the one that created your perceptions and developed your sense of truth about the way things happened, and that’s where you are keeping your attention in your story telling. 
Readers know memory and the truth are as slippery as a gardener snake after a good rain.  Those who read memoir also know memoir is not about having all the facts straight or getting every version down on the page.  Writing and sharing your life is about experience.  What happened to you and what did you do with what happened to you? 
If you work hard to be authentic, dig into what the heck happened and what it all added up to (if anything), that is all the reader can ask.  And you have done the good work of being transparent upfront by saying, "hey, these people might come after me, I am scared about that but, this is how I remember it."
Your question has one little caveat that I’d like to address: It is not my intention to hurt and embarrass people, however, that may be a natural result of the consequences of their actions. 
Memoir cannot carry any hint of a self-righteous vibe.  The book will not be a good read if you are helping “karma” along by writing the story of what happened and who wronged who.  Memoir isn’t about settling a score and the minute you have that kind of agenda in your writing, the reader will spot it and you’ll be discredited as an unreliable narrator. 
Memoir is a crazy genre.  Some say memoir is easy to write, easier than fiction or poetry, but I say nonsense.  Memoir, as Mary Karr says, is rigorous.  If you are keeping your eye on the truth, your truth and your part of the story—it cannot help but churn you up.  You’ll feel a lot of really unpleasant things you don’t want to feel and blame is a ready switchblade we are eager to pull—stabbing at the ones who did us wrong.  No, no, no.  That’s not the way to play it.
Yes, be pissed, be sad, be vengeful, but get all that out in your therapist office, on a long hard run or in a rage release workshop. Don’t put your rage on the page. 
N. O.
The page is the place for you to come to the highest possible place.  It’ll take time to climb high but set the goal towards that destination.  Set the intention, right now, to get the highest truth that serves you and all others.  Write to bring yourself peace and to bring peace to all around you and your work will move in that direction.  Rise high, see the wide view and put the whole story into perspective.  Memoir writing is about you.  Who are you?  What happened to you? How did you cope?  How did you deny? When did you wake up?  What’s keeping you from waking up now? 
These are the questions we all need to have answered at this difficult time in human evolution.  We need each other to dig out of this mess we are in.  Your wisdom, not your blame, is what we need. Leave karma and natural consequences to forces larger than yourself. 
This is how we are different than the birds.  While they will always fight to have their primal needs met, we won’t.  Human beings, with our ability to reflect, evolve and change our minds, can change.  We can.  Memoir, in my very humble opinion, is a way to move towards that change.  Change yourself and you change the world.
Keep the faith, Faith!  You'll do fine, Jennifer