Fiction vs. Memoir

Laurie Anderson, multi-media American artist

I came to know the work of Laurie Anderson at the Hirschhorn Museum in DC. One piece in this major show titled Weather, is The Story about the Story written in bright white words on a massive black wall. The starkness and simplicity of it made me stop browsing and read it all. She said she often told the story of the months, as a child in a hospital, she struggled to recover from severe burns. Over the years, telling it made her uneasy. She said, “Something was missing… Then, one day, when I was in the middle of telling… suddenly I was back in the hospital, just exactly the way it had been.” The details—the sounds of other children screaming as they lay dying, the smells of medicine and burnt skin, and the empty beds in the morning — came back to her. She said, “actually I only told the part about myself and had forgotten the rest of it.”

Anderson’s tale reminds me that my storytelling early story telling. Each rendition strips away context and depth of circumstances, focusing on what happened to me and its impact, all directed at an audience to stimulate chuckles or impart learning.

Here’s the conflict — the advice to new writers is to write what you know. If I do that, my self-centeredness will stifle creativity and strip away life around my story. Did you ever read a memoir or autobiography that constantly slapped you with the author’s opinions, interpretations, accomplishments, and the word ‘I’? It’s a rare and talented author that moves beyond self-centeredness. I struggle. I’m not one of them—yet.

There is freedom in writing fiction. It begins with bits vivid in my consciousness, not the whole of what happened. An aging photo, letter, or memento may kindle a fire. I’ll never recover the whole, as Anderson was lucky enough to do. I don’t trust my recall. It often conflicts with what others who were present remember. And, as Anderson states, the details, the broader story, wash away over the years.

‘What I know is only the beginning of a writing journey. Fiction is more honest and complete. I shape characters and plot to ensure a story is never about me. My stories are deeper and more significant than my experience, and hopefully more entertaining and meaningful to the reader.