A RECENT CLASS was one of the toughest online memoir classes I’ve ever taught. Utterly challenging, the evening was filled with pieces that while wonderful, were also emotionally wrenching. Many students were writing memoir about family abuse. Some were sexual abuse memoirs; others told tales of emotional abuse. This is not surprising, given the #MeToo movement. Sometimes there are nights like that, and after every one of them I have been suffused with a rare, nameless emotion. Probably some other language has a word for it. English does not.

What would you call the emotional response to the wonder, responsibility, honor, astonishment, and no small amount of anxiety that results when someone brings in a piece about family abuse? On this night there were several such pieces, and since I never give assignments or prompts, exercises, or suggestions of topics, there is no real preparation for editing such pieces. We just dove in and did the work.

What to do when the topic is abuse

Maybe you’re living with something right now that’s too difficult to write in real time. So take notes; during a long writing life, you will find another time, and, more to the point, another angle from which to view anything.

This is true even when the events you choose to portray become as serious as family damage. Even the most polite, best-intentioned families can do very clever damage. And that makes good copy, as does the tragic damage done when people collide, though writing gets trickier faster for victims of abuse who choose to tell their tales.

Over the years, my class has heard of every kind of abuse. And every time an abuse memoir is read, but before we critique it, I remind the students to stick to what’s on the page; not to judge the actions, offer therapeutic help, or their tales of woe; not to ask what happened next, if it’s not on the page. It’s a necessary prescription if we’re to do the work.

Choosing your point of view

First I look for what works with the piece. Pieces about abuse will be cluttered in whorled images, voices, and meaning, but there will be a uniquely illuminating sentence in paragraph eight, or a reverberating image in paragraph twelve, and we’ll start there, since drawing the writer’s attention to what works is the very best way to get more of the same.

Perhaps what works is the point of view of the child who experienced the abuse. What happens if you transpose your tale to another age? Can you tell it, as did one former student, as her eight-year-old self? She had us watch as her father found her crammed into a corner of the attic, and she recounted what she told herself, how she demanded of herself not merely that she survive but thrive, how she clung to the images of school and freedom and friends, so that years later, as a well adult, she was sitting in our class, teaching us about the topic of abuse.

Transporting yourself back to a younger you, remember to use the vocabulary of your eight-year-old self, and nothing from popular culture after that time—no movie references, or books, no cognitive awareness of a teenager. Remaining in the worldview of the eight-year-old, you might finally tackle something tricky you pine to explore.

Reflecting on the topic

I’ll continue to think long and hard about Wednesday night, and in writing this, what came to mind is that what I was witnessing in the pieces that night was nothing less than the human pilot light – that remarkable force that keeps lit under the most crushing of circumstances. Nothing compares to it.

Need more help? Come see me in one of my online classes. The entry-level class, Memoirama, is a one-night, 90-minute class that is taught twice a month, every month but July and August. Follow that with Memoirama 2, and get yourself all set to enroll in the next session The Master Class. Can’t wait to hear about your work in one – or all – of these online memoir classes.