If you’re considering writing your memoir, you may be worried how other people—family members, the public, folks from your past—will react. That’s a reasonable worry! On the other hand, someone in your life may be encouraging you to just “go for it.” “Write your truth,” they might say. “Don’t hold back. The world needs your story.” Of course, they’re not the one taking the risk. As many memoir writers will tell you, your concerns are well-founded. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t write your memoir. It just means you should be aware of the liabilities you could face if you publish your memoir.
Publishing a memoir is a mixed bag. While publishing your story lets you take charge of your own narrative, it can carry legal risk. When you write about real people, you expose yourself to possible claims of defamation or invasion of privacy, even when everything you’ve written is true. You also put yourself at emotional risk because, once your story is public, so is your reputation. And then there are the relational risks. Those closest to you may feel exposed or even betrayed by their treatment in your memoir, whether or not that was your intention.
But these aren’t reasons you shouldn’t write a memoir. They’re reasons for you to consider, once your memoir is written, whether you should publish it.
How Writing and Publishing Are Different
It can be helpful to separate the decision to write your memoir from the decision to publish it. And you don’t have to make those decisions at the same time. You can complete your manuscript, sit with it, and eventually decide it was never meant for anyone else’s eyes. That’s not failure. That’s one legitimate ending to the process.
Almost everything that’s risky about memoir—the potential legal exposure, the public judgment, the strain on relationships—only comes into effect once your book is published. Almost none of it gets stirred up by the writing of your story.
The Benefits of Writing a Memoir—Published or Not
- Understanding: When you put your experience into writing, you may uncover a deeper understanding of what actually happened and what it ultimately meant.
- Ownership: You regain authority over your own story when you take the time to write it out fully.
- Process without exposure: The writing process itself will invite you to be completely honest about how the events and outcome unfolded. And that honest writing carries none of the risk that comes with publication.
- A record for yourself: As the archeologist of your own past, your memories become true artifacts of your life when you have them in writing.
- Completion: We don’t always get the closure we long for. But telling your own version of your story, even if it’s only for your eyes, can bring you a sense of completion, whether anyone else ever provides that elusive “closure” you may wish for.
The Risks of Publishing a Memoir
- Legal risk: Claims of defamation or invasion of privacy are possible, even when everything you’ve written is true.
- Loss of privacy: Details of your life become permanently public and searchable.
- Loss of control over your own narrative: Once you publish your story, you aren’t able to manage how it’s read, quoted, or discussed.
- Damage to relationships: People who recognize themselves in your book may respond in ways you can’t predict. They may become hurt or angry—while some may just quietly pull away.
- Risk to family members: The people in your story—whether or not they agreed to be included—can be exposed in ways that they didn’t anticipate.
- Public judgment: Readers, reviewers, and strangers online get to form and share opinions about who you are.
If you’re weighing how to handle the real people in your story—names, composites, how recognizable is too recognizable—I’ve written more on that here.
What Tara Westover Learned About Publishing a Memoir
Tara Westover, author of Educated, reached out to nearly everyone named in her book before it published. She wanted to make sure they were at peace with how they were portrayed. (With the exception of those family members from whom she was already estranged.) Despite her best efforts, though, her parents publicly disputed her account. In fact, Westover’s mother later published a competing version of the family story.
That’s not to say Westover (or you) shouldn’t have published her memoir. It’s just one example of how combustible a published memoir can be. Even a writer who tried to tread carefully couldn’t fully control the responses she received.
Like Kimberly Dawn Rempel, You Can Write Your Memoir and Keep It Private
Not everyone who writes a memoir ends up publishing it. Writer Kimberly Dawn Rempel spent years wrestling with a memoir she ultimately chose to keep private. She felt so much of her story was tangled up with the lives of people who hadn’t chosen to be written about that she decided against publishing it—even under a pseudonym. Still, she said that finishing the book was, for her, one of the most important things she’d ever done for herself.
After You Write Your Memoir (But Before You Publish)
Memoirist Cate Macabe wrote an article titled “Writing the Memoir: Consider the Consequences.” In it, she frames the decision around three questions. Editor and publisher Brooke Warner, in How Not to Get Sued for Your Memoir, adds a fourth. Consider these questions for yourself.
- Are you ready to open the door on your own secrets, and let others truly know you?
- Is telling this story worth what it might cost your relationships with the people in it?
- Have you thought through the legal risk—defamation, invasion of privacy—not just the emotional one?
- What do you stand to lose by publishing, and are you ready to face that?
Sometimes, we write a memoir because we want to be seen, understood, validated. We want to be acknowledged for what we’ve survived. Yes. Yes. But unfortunately, publication doesn’t guarantee either acknowledgment or validation. What we may get instead are the slings and arrows of criticism. Misreading of our intent. Silence from people we hoped would understand us.
So, no, publishing our book can’t promise us acceptance or closure or peace. But writing it? That very well might.
Should you write your memoir? That could be a powerful choice. The decision to publish can come later. If you’re ready to write your story, I can help. Visit my contact page, and let’s connect. You might also be interested in my books: Plotting Your Novel with the Plot Clock and Jamie Helps Mel Write a Novel.