What Tone Should Memoir Take? In Praise of Humility in Memoir

SOMETIMES I CAN BE SUBTLE. And while no particular incident of that comes to mind right now, I maintain that I can be. Sometimes. I’m sure of it. Though never when teaching memoir writing, and so I know for certain that I was not a bit subtle in a recent class when I simply declared a total moratorium on the self-congratulatory after someone asked, “What tone should memoir take?” Let me explain.

Let’s say you’ve embarked on a piece that you think will interest women. The topic: how you’ve never been romantically swindled. No man has ever taken advantage of you in any way. It’s a claim you like to make, are comfortable making, and think others should know about.

Well, that’s not enough to make it a piece. So, in this case, what tone should memoir take?

First off, self-congratulatory is very bad. Think about it. Who would really choose to listen to another monologue from the “And then I saids,” those bores who quote their own supposed retorts to a battered series of people they dominate every day? The “And then I saids” should have to wear buttons, so I can bolt for the canapés as they make their way toward me in a cocktail party. We learn nothing in these encounters, after all, so why listen?

Can you edit that piece on never being had by a cad and make it interesting to others? Maybe. Consider teaching your teenage niece to be gigolo-proof. Now that could be good.

Wanting to have some role in raising a sibling’s child is the very business of aunts, and as you retool the topic, the voice will change. Your original version would have been smarmy, and if self-congratulatory is bad, smarmy is dead-skunk-dreadful. Being the only one who’s right is the tough sell it should be. And as you search through that smarmy vomit draft, you must start feeling your way toward a voice of authority that is more meritocracy than fascist state. That, coupled with your status as an aunt, will make us want to read you, listen to you, or perhaps even buy your book.

My father, a fine sportswriter, used to say that you should try to write everything like a letter home, a suggestion that’s both graceful and correct. In a letter home you rarely tell those people who raised you how very great you are, or right you are, or unique. You tend to write about the ideas you are trying on, or the things you’ve tried and failed; how scared you are, or how lonely. You are the small dog when you write a letter home, telling how you’ve changed or what you’ve witnessed, and while you might wish they were here, they’re not, so get your facts right and put the bold, brash bragging aside, because these guys knew you when, and they can still kick your emotional ass if you get out of line.

So can readers, though they do so by not buying your books, not listening all the way through to your piece on the radio, and never again clicking on your blog.