The other day, I attended another awesome free webinar with Jane Friedman. This time, she had Yara Zgheib as a guest discussing how she had written a memoir (two actually) and struggled to find an agent/editor/publisher for them, because memoir is a hard sell unless you’re famous. So she re-wrote the book(s) as fiction.

This is mind-blowing to me.

It shouldn’t be, but it is. The idea that you “simply” take your memoir and completely re-write it as a fictional narrative in order to 1) publish it, 2) reach a wider audience, is genius. It’s also been done, a lot. Pam Houston, one of my literary idols, has discussed ad nauseam the idea that “real” or “fiction” is all irrelevant, what matters is the art. The idea that you can tell the truth in fiction and lie in non-fiction, isn’t a new one, and you can look at people like James Frey (A Million Little Pieces) who got lambasted when their memoirs turned out to be partially false accountings. To me it simply shows that genres like “auto-fiction” weren’t available to these authors, so they chose memoir over fiction when they ought to have perhaps chosen a bit more wisely.

For Yara, it basically came down to a question of: do I need to be the protagonist of this story, or do I just want the story out there?

That’s interesting.

My memoir originally started as a short story that I called fiction even though it wasn’t. I wrote the entire thing in “she” and it was the only way I could get it out. I’ve since re-written the entire thing as a manuscript-length memoir in first person but it’s still not really done. There are things that need to be cut out because they drag the story down, things that needed to be added (like the all-important reflective voice) that take more energy and a quiet devotion of time to than I’ve had to give. But I do know, I don’t have to be the protagonist.

The story isn’t important to me because it’s mine, but because it’s the story of so many other women I’ve spoken with.

What is important to me, what I tried to ask but phrased poorly, is reaching the people who need this story.

I’m writing my memoir because when I went through my miscarriages, there were hardly any non-fiction accounts of miscarriage, and the ones that did exist were mostly religious in bent which I found less than helpful. I didn’t even bother looking at fiction because I didn’t need fiction, I needed what I could trust to be an honest and open accounting.

Now, all these years later, there are many more helpful non-fiction books about miscarriage. So reaching people in my situation, the ones who need the non-fiction accounting, isn’t as important. Now it’s more of a bonus.

So, the question now becomes: when I have the space (when my office is complete) and I have the time (afternoons will be mine for writing), do I want to commit my time to a re-write adding in the reflective voice or to a re-write making the book fiction?

And I just don’t know yet. But it’s some excellent food for thought.

Thank you for being here. I appreciate you. Hope you’re having a lovely weekend 🥰

Also, if you want to watch the Jane Friedman recording, or any of her others, you can find it here: