How Much Can We Write About Our Families (as non-fiction writers)?

Should we tell all truths in personal essays or creative nonfiction?

As a creative writing teacher, students sometimes ask about how to write a personal essay without bashing or trashing the real-life characters (family, friends, employers, ex partners) therein.

I never have an easy answer to this to tell-or-not-to-tell dilemma.

However, I draw upon my experiences in healthcare communications to urge students to ask themselves some hard questions.

These are the same questions that I used to ask patients at the healthcare organizations where I was privileged to interview patients or their families

I used to work with particularly vulnerable and disenfranchised patients, so there was a clear and fragile power deferential between me and my healthcare system and those who were willing to tell their story.

Equally, a similar power imbalance may exist between you, the clever-clogs writer, and the family or friend or neighbor you want to write about.

Here’s what I used to ask healthcare patients:

“Five or 10 years from now, will you be proud of this story being out in the world? Being visible to employers? Your children’s teachers?”

When they ask, here’s what I ask nonfiction writing students:

(a) In the deepest part of your soul, how much does it matter to you to tell your own story and its temporal and emotional truths?

(b) Why are you really telling this story? Like, really?

(c) Are you willing to risk and accept the potential fallout—all the way up to family estrangement—if or when your piece or book gets published?

Of course, there’s also the issue of libel which, by the way, can also apply to fiction writing.

As a Writer, Here’s How I Handle the Nonfiction Truth Issue

In his creative nonfiction “police” essay, Lee Gutkind, the founder of Creative Nonfiction, posits that truth in nonfiction writing is “a question of doing the right thing, being fair, following the golden rule.”

So in deciding between what to tell and what to withhold, Gutkind’s “golden rule” guideline is the best I know. In some ways, it’s the writer’s counterpart of the do-no-harm Hippocratic Oath taken by medical providers.

In my own non-fiction work, I try very hard to do one of these:

(a) Distinguish between the issue of incorrect or misremembered facts (No, Daddy had a blue car in 1987) and the possibility that the uninvited family fact-checker has their own story or agenda.

(b) Only tell or voice what I’m qualified or morally sanctioned to tell or voice. In other words, I can tell you how my father looked when driving that blue car in 1987, but unless he told me, I cannot say whether he felt proud or ashamed of said blue car. I cannot co-opt his story or experience—either as a father or as a car owner.

As writers, we want to engage our readers—both those who agree and who disagree with our point of view. Most of the time, so long as they’re coming from qualified readers, writers welcome suggestions on how the narrative can be clearer and better.

But before we write that first-person narrative story or personal essay, we need to ask ourselves: “Is this my heartfelt truth, as I remember it? And: Can I tell this truth without damaging someone else?”

Interested in this writing topic? You may also enjoy: Writing Truth in Personal Essays, Creative Nonfiction and Memoirs

AND How Soon (and with whom) Should You Share Your Writing Drafts?