Writing Between Genres: When To Make Your True Story “Fictional”

Mar 21

Recently the desire to lie has wiggled itself into some of my nonfiction writing projects and forced me into a space where I’m writing between genres, the realms of the fictional and the fact-based. This experience begs the question - when do we make our true stories fictional?

In a recent revision workshop at The Attic Institute, I shared my short childhood-memoir piece for critique and the class unanimously agreed that my mother was not present enough in the piece. They wanted to see her in scenes, interacting with me, the protagonist - as a youth. I went home. I poked at the memory. None of them sufficed, so I lied.

I didn’t say it right away when I brought in my new draft, but two scenes had unfolded during revision - entirely made up, fabricated out of the “not” of my mother and me. I wondered when, or if, I would have to make my true story fictional in order to keep these scenes. As someone who thrives on structure, I knew I had a few options. I knew I could make evident that my scenes were made up within the memoir by saying so and maintain the overall memoir structure. I could make it a short story, change even myself - the protagonist. Or I could stay in the middle, something like autobiographical fiction. The experience opened up a series of trajectories and a whole lot of questions about genre and truth.

Fiction is not a muscle I’ve flexed nearly as much as nonfiction, so the idea of switching felt daunting, even for just one story. However, realizing I could write more confidently in the certainty of my non-memories, I ultimately found excitement at the prospect of making my true story fictional.

Experimenting with our work isn’t something to stress over, but something to celebrate. Writing between genres can only strengthen our skills as storytellers. The truth is slippery, and yes, genres are constructs. It all comes down to the ways in which we as writers find the best way to convey our truths.

Here are four moments that may harken the creative need to make your true story fictional.

You want to protect identities: often writing about people we know can feel like opening a Russian doll. What started as one scene with your friend has necessitated the need to talk about a deeper experience you shared which they may want to keep secret. It’s okay. When asking permission fails us, we can try writing between the genres.
The truth is more truth-y in the nether-realm: which is to say, lying just feels better. In this must-read, in-depth interview between four authors, writer Matthew Cheney says about infusing the fantastic and magical into their memoir, “I hope that the impossible conveys an emotional reality, one that couldn’t be crystallized by memoir alone.” Sometimes the truth exists where we least expect it.
You need to separate yourself from the story: maybe the subject matter is too emotionally taxing to navigate and you need to create a degree of separation between yourself and the subject matter. Changing the form of our stories can give us the distance we need to see the story more clearly and/or honestly. Some writers experiment with point-of-view in their memoir writing to do just that. See In the Dream House as one example.
It sounds more fun: it’s easy to forget the actual experience of putting pen to paper is something we enjoyed at one point in our lives; why did we start writing in the first place? Of course, writing is art, and the pursuit is special because it holds both pleasure and a series of other less pleasant emotions simultaneously. But if there’s a story we feel needs to be shared - and it could be more fun if we just made stuff up? Digging into the truth can be hard and it isn’t for everyone all the time.

An exercise: Ask yourself what didn’t happen in your true story, and see what truths are revealed in the process. Journal about what this experience revealed for you.