The art of memoir, the challenge of memory
On a Facebook discussion the other day, the question came up: How far should memoir writers go in reconstructing scenes and dialogue?
The answer might seem obvious, but I suspect it confounds most writers who don't want to just pretend that we all have infallible memories. Some writers have gone beyond reconstructed dialogue, arguing that invention (based on memory, of course) is legitimate — because truth, in a sense, is in the eye of the beholder anyway.
I draw a harder line than most. I favor the rough edges of memory over neat and pretty reconstructions. (More interesting, usually.) Invention? As I wrote in the Facebook discussion, that's why we have novels.
Readers, I think, are smart. They know that most writers don't have notes or documents to back up dialogue from long ago. So what's the problem? In a word: Credibility. As a writer, I want readers to grant me some license to tell my story. But if I present lengthy dialogue as fact, I risk losing their trust — and their interest. Bad deal for me.
What are your thoughts?
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Personally, I think it is more the difference between substance over appearances. I prefer substance.
In my case, I recognized much of the careful research and that mattered a lot to me as the reader. Many of the issues raised are too important to be trivialized with lies and half-truth.
Ultimately, who did you really write the book for?