Mimi Schwartz “Memoir? Fiction? Where’s the line?” Reading Response

I particularly enjoyed this reading because it helped me with the issue of memoir stories, where do we draw the line? I missed class the day we talked about this, so I found it interesting to discover the line on my own. Schwartz discusses how our memories can sometimes (or often) fail us, so we need to be careful when writing memoir as to what is really true or what is made up. She also points out that we must be especially careful since we cannot know when we don’t truly remember something the way it was, and asking someone else who shared the experience doesn’t really matter since they will have the same memory dilemma. Schwartz cleverly solves this dilemma by saying that perhaps you remember the situation or person in a specific way, and that you should describe it/them the way you remember so that other people can picture them the same way.

          I loved the quote from Pam Houston, “I write fiction to tell the truth” because I believe that there is always some hint of truth behind works of fiction.  However this also blurs the line between memoir and fiction and the writer must decide where to draw the line if they are trying to write memoir.

          I also enjoyed when Schwartz discussed how to use fiction to protect certain people who do not particularly want to be included in the story. Another quote that was helpful was “the story is 90 percent factual; the rest is made up to protect those who didn’t as to be in this book”. I think it is necessary to do this because sometimes you need the characters to be in the story to fully capture it, but the person may not want to be in the story. This way you can create a fictional character that does similar things but protects the person’s identity.

          Overall this reading was very helpful, especially since I missed the class where this topic was discussed.