WHO IS THE NARRATOR OF YOUR MEMOIR? It’s a question I write in the margin of every manuscript I edit, a question I ask in all of the memoir coaching I do, and a question I propose in every online memoir class I teach. Who is writing this book? And always the writer, client or student is perplexed. And always he or she replies with the same answer.
“I am writing my memoir.”
Yes, of course. But which one of you is writing it? Who, of the many people you have been in your life to date, is controlling the narrative? Whose perspective are we seeing?
Perspective versus point of view. What’s the difference?
Look at the photo above. What are we seeing? Quick hint: I snapped it on my phone one recent day while walking in midtown Manhattan when, looking up, I was delighted to see an iconic view from a new angle. In purely writing terms, from my point of view, this was a new perspective. Study that last phrase for a minute: From my point of view, it was a new perspective.
What is the Difference Between Point of View and Perspective?
In that little boxed quote above is the key to knowing the difference between point of view and perspective.
When trying to decide who is the narrator of your memoir, you must first remember that point of view refers to the who of the tale, which sounds really easy until you remember your eighth-grade English class and how you wrestled with all the options there are for a narrator. Namely:
- First person
- Second person
- Third person (Some people break this down further to third person limited and third person omniscient, but let’s keep it simple, shall we?)
In memoir, we mostly write from the first person — the I — though the others have their place.
Writing on Tough Topics
Let’s take on the hardest assignment I know. Consider writing in the age of #MeToo. How would you first show and then close the gap between how you see yourself during and after a sexual assault, who you were as you healed and who you are now? If you looked at the person you once were, perhaps it would aid you to refer to that person as “he” or “she,” thereby letting the writer of the tale have a look at the person under assault, and then watch as the damage sinks in, as bottom is hit, as the realization of the need for help takes hold, help is gotten and the help begins the process of lifelong healing.
Perhaps you’d write yourself in first person pre-attack, in third person as you separate from that healthy child you once were and in first person again as you heal. You might even write in second person – the “you” voice that gives distance but, like a shadow, still clings to the writer – for the attack, as you portray the dissociative aspects resulting from the abuse.
Complex? Yes. Effective? Absolutely. Am I reading material like this right now? I am. And it’s teaching me about perspective and point of view.
In fact, I recently spent an hour online with the National Association of Memoir Writers, discussing writing memoir in the Age of #MeToo. The teleconference was appropriately called Breaking Silences. My role was to speak about what I’ve noticed among writers on the topic of abuse. If you want to listen in, you may, but not before I ask you to consider that, unequivocally, everything I know about writing about abuse has been taught to me by my brave students. I’ve discussed writing about abuse before, but it is my recent experience with survivors of abuse that has advanced my thinking, and thus my teaching, about how and why to tell your story. I thank all of you.
Who is the Narrator of Your Memoir?
But let’s get back to our assignment. Who is writing your tale? Remember your choices: First person is the I, second person is the you, and third person is the he or she. Simply put, where you want to stand to view the story dictates the point of view of the tale.
While writing one of my books, I wrote the entire first draft in third person, only to rewrite it in first person, only to rewrite that in third and ultimately again in first, the voice in which it was ultimately published. Doing that taught me an enormous amount about the power of point of view, and while some writing days ended in tears and pounding on the keyboard (oh yes, I do that too — you’re not alone here) the education was worth its weight in rubies.
What is Perspective in Writing?
How do you define perspective in writing? I think of this as the answer to the question “What did you know when?” What you knew at the time the scene took place is a fascinating thing to ask yourself. Were you eight, and are you recreating the wonder or mystery of that age in the piece? Or are you sixty and looking back at being eight and reporting, far more coolly and with greater life knowledge, what you experienced at eight?
For me, perspective is what you know, which is all about when you knew what you did.
So look again at that photo.
I was born and raised in New York City. I’ve been to the top of the Empire State Building on grade school trips, on dates in my twenties, and with my own child. Yet recently, walking across town, that iconic building and I played a game of peek-a-boo on 38th Street as I made my way west, and it positively delighted me.
Very much in my first-person self, I laughed out loud, got out my phone and started snapping portraits of that great structure. And very much from the perspective of someone who has seen that building for all of her life, but at various times in her life, I knew that at that moment, on a clear day and at a certain hour, this was a gift — a new point of view. Several people passed me as I shot a bunch of angles, and some looked up. One squinted, perhaps not seeing what I saw, then looked back at me, clearly dismissing me as a tourist, and then cut me a wide swath on the sidewalk. I laughed even harder.
Point of view and perspective: Who is writing the tale, at what stage of knowledge are you writing it?
Go on. Be brave. Tell me below in the comments who is the narrator of your memoir and let’s see which one of your many selves you’ve put behind the keyboard.
Want more memoir instruction? Got it right here. Come join one of my many online memoir classes, where we are all invested in your success, always provide confidentiality and will get you where you need to go. Starting from scratch? Start with Memoirama, my entry-level class that will get you writing after one, 90-minute session. Can’t get to a class? I’ve got you covered. My book, The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text on Writing & Life, is an irreverent little paper back as well as an audio book recorded by me and available from Audible.
Mary Scott says
My memoir is first person.
In Act 1, devastated by grief, I flashback to falling in love. If I understand correctly, during the flashbacks the perspective/voice changes to that of a young woman head over heels in love?
If so, this is conveyed via word choices, sentence structure, dialog?
marion says
Dear Mary,
Thank you for this.
It can be very difficult to speak about our work.
Memoir is all about transcendence. We need to see you change. To do this, the idea is to show us the cumulative effect of your knowledge, scene by scene.
So yes, you will grow and that it what we need to see on the page.
Please come back soon.
Heidi says
My memoir is first person.
I stand at the base of the stairs as my 17 yr old daughter descends. Always so strikingly gorgeous and brilliant, she confidently hits me with angry barbs and ugly threats as she moves toward me.
I’ve just found out the horrendous thing she’s done. I’ve threatened to expose her. And him.
Just inches from my face, she and I each refuse to back down. I won’t let her see, but inside, I am shaken. The ground beneath me has just shifted. She now knows how to manipulate, how to posture for advantage, how to cut to the quick using only words and a smile. She is no longer my child. She is a woman who will stop at nothing to win. She is me.
marion says
Wow.
Got it.
Write it.
I’m hooked.
Linda Lee - Lady Quixote says
Wow, Heidi. I am hooked, too!
This sounds so much like a showdown I had with my daughter when she was 13. It was a terrible, life shattering thing to go through, for both of us. But today, 29 years later, my awesome daughter is a therapist intern, more than halfway through a psychology program at Whitworth University. And her daughter, my awesome granddaughter, graduated from Harvard a few weeks ago, with an MA in social anthropology. So be encouraged, especially if your daughter is still young. You never know what will happen in the next chapter.
We are never too broken to heal.
Shannon says
My memoir is first person when told in the present, but here is where I’m struggling.
In order to explain the suspects of my mother’s murder, and also who she was (more than just to me, although that will be included as well) I need to toggle to third person. I want to convey who she was as a person not just to me, since I only knew her for a short period of time, and the suspects, some of them even shorter a period of time. I have no more than a couple interactions with them.
I’ve toyed around with writing those scenes from my mother’s perspective based on conversations and letters she had with older family and friends, but not sure?
marion says
Shannon:
It sounds like you actually have this under control, writing in the first person and toggling to the third as we look at her, appreciating who she was.
Be bold. Be confident and write it.
There are no wrong first drafts.
Best,
Marion
Dana Schwartz says
My memoir is told in first person, past tense (after attempting in present). It begins with my father knocking on my door in the dark. The moment he opens it I know my mother is dead. I travel back to my childhood and recount her illness, moving forward until her decline and death, and moving forward as I grieve and then quickly become pregnant. My world shifts yet again and I spend the next decade struggling with my dual identities as motherless and mother.
You helped me so much with structure in your online class, including pointing out a fabulous first line which I am using in my prologue.
Dan says
NYC has so many perspectives and angles. My narrator is tri-voice. A 19 year old at war, a toddler forming his consciousness and this adult at my advanced age, speaking from the now. It’s complicated.
marion says
Dear Dan,
Writing is complicated, which is why I tell people to make time, make community and to make space inter heads and hearts for what they are about to learn.
Thank you for sharing your method in your memoir.
And write well.
Best,
Marion
Sarah Schatz says
HI Marion,
Thank you for all the great blog posts and for including the part about writing about abuse in this one. It’s difficult and tricky. There are things that I’m still not sure I’m ready to write about. So this may be a long process but one I am in for the long haul, as this project won’t stop tapping me on my shoulder.
I have decided though that I will (for now) be writing from the perspective of my many selves depending on where I am in life. I am the small and helpless child. I am the confused and dissociated 12-year-old girl. I am the woman desperately seeking answers, who has hit bottom, who continues to blame herself, who begins to see I have been abused without realizing it. I am the one who begins to glimpse some aspect of hope, only to crash back into aloneness and emptiness. I am the one who finds herself on a safety and treatment plan…I am the one who experiences first hand what it truly means to love and be loved, so powerful that it knocks me off my feet.
I have found that writing in the present from the perspective of who I am in the moment is the most powerful way for me to portray my story. I plan to only include my perspective from these specific moments and as I move through therapy where my perspective shifts each time I see the horses. I change gradually throughout the book and want to show this as best I can.
Sarah
marion says
Dear Sarah,
Many thanks for this.
Imagine the writers who are reading this and who now feel encouraged, emboldened and informed by what you have shared here.
I am deeply grateful.
Let me know how it goes, please.
Best,
Marion
Sarah says
Thank you for your kind words :) I have also been sitting with your suggestions and how I may want to go into third person during some moments when I am very detached from myself, therefore it is almost like I’m an outsider looking in on what is happening. I want to convey a deep sense of detachment and disconnectedness and I think that speaking in third person during some of these scenes may add to this feeling. And then later as I process the events I could speak in first person as I become more aware of my body and emotions.
I guess I will play with both and see how it goes!
marion says
Dear Sarah,
Play.
Absolutely.
Best,
Marion
Linda Lee - Lady Quixote says
Sarah, this is awesome!
Sarah says
Thank you, Linda Lee!
Heather says
Hi Marion,
I’ve had your Manhattan experience in my back yard, especially as the seasons change – it’s refreshing and fun!
I’ve definitely wrestled with this topic.
I think I’ve always assumed I would need to write a memoir in the 1st person, an older and wiser version of me. It made the most sense to me.
But just the other day I was admitting to myself that a lot of my personal writing reads more like accounts – “I did this, and felt that…” Telling instead of showing, and lacking depth.
In the midst of figuring out how to flesh out my stories, I’m wondering if playing with different viewpoints would help me access some of the details and emotions that are missing. I will give it a try.
marion says
Dear Heather,
Try moving around in your own story.
You’ll be amazed at what you learn.
Let us know how it goes.
Best,
Marion
Valerie Anne Burns says
Dear Marion,
I’m writing in first person. You pose interesting points. At first, I wrote as the adult I am, looking back at the one memory I have of my mother in the casket. I re-wrote the essay from my little girl self at the age of three, which I believe is more powerful and in-the-moment. When I go into my own diagnosis and journey with breast cancer later in the book, it’s very much in-the-moment.
My prologue is a turning point memory as an island girl of seventeen. It recalls crossing over the gulf stream and I believe I stepped into the moment of my seventeen year old self as I describe the deep and colorful event that was an awakening. However, It may be a combo of seventeen and present age perspective .
Thank you for your wise and very helpful newsletters.
Warm regards,
Valerie
marion says
Dear Valerie,
You are most welcome.
Write well.
Best,
Marion
Elisa Peterson says
Hi Marion,
I’m writing an essay called GARDENING OR WIFE SWAPPING? I grew up in the 50’s and am writing from the point of view of an 9 year old girl who knows nothing about sex or infidelity. She arrives home from school to find “John the gardener” in her parent’s bedroom “fixing the window”. This loss of innocence has stuck in my mind. I want to show how children know things that they have no language for and how unbalanced their worlds can become simply by these instinctual warning bells.
The amazing discovery has been that, as a 75 year-old woman, I now understand why my mother broke the rules and I hope she had a good time.
marion says
Well, that’s a fine title, as well as a fine understanding you come to.
Write well.
Carole Stedronsky says
hi Marion,
Multiple point-of-view is central to my memoir about having DID, dissociative identity disorder, as a result of being abused and trafficked as a child. On a healing journey with an expert trauma therapist, child parts share their stories as we struggle to accept our own history and help traumatized inner children realize they are safe and have a good life now.
I spent ten years writing a memoir in the form of free-verse letters to our therapist (which seemed a natural way to write from different voices). Now I am making the leap to writing a memoir in prose.
— Carole
marion says
Dear Carole,
Go get ’em.
Write the hell out of it.
Best,
Marion