You are the storyteller and “hero” of your life story

How you rise to the challenges of the unknown, the chaos of the world, defines your character. If you were the main character of a book, would you think yourself a “hero?”

Each time you tell others your life story aloud—or when you write it down in a journal or memoir—you are the de facto hero. Think about it. You are a natural born storyteller!

But it helps to maintain a balance when portraying yourself.

You’re the main character who undergoes the story’s conflicts, big moments and climactic change—but you don’t want to come across as an arrogant know-it-all, too perfect to be real or likeable.

Time-honored storytelling techniques will help you prevent this blunder. How? Because the hero of a story has a flaw that prevents solving a problem or living a better life.

Greater self-awareness helps the hero admit and overcome their flaw.

It’s okay to be a flawed hero

Often heroes of stories are blind to their own faults. Let’s say you begin your personal story by describing a terrible mistake you made years ago. You might end the recount with something to the effect of, “Only now do I understand how my actions hurt the people I love.”

Like most of us, you have learned something valuable about life, perhaps in a way that involved great loss or pain. People identify with you when you present yourself as an imperfect individual looking back on what made you become the person you are today.

When you reveal your warts—if only to yourself in a journal—the reader (you?) will identify and empathize with your insecurities, doubts, fears, and even your worst moments of shame and regret. Strange as it seems, people will like you better for it. You will like yourself better for it, too.

Famous writers, such as Ernest Hemingway (it is said), have likened the process to opening a vein and bleeding on the page. If you shy away from observing yourself honestly, you won’t bleed—and your reader won’t care.

I speak from decades of experience

I’m writing this as a response to questions and requests for help from the writers and non-writers I’ve worked with during my stints in two separate PR companies. I’ve also worked with people one-on-one, as a ghostwriter or editor, and within several different writers’ critique groups. I’ve written more than a hundred bios and helped several people write and publish their memoirs.

Many people would like to someday publish a memoir, or leave it to friends and family as a legacy. If this describes you, one of the first considerations you must face is how much of the truth to reveal. You may wonder whether you could be sued, or at the very least, alienate the people you most care about.

Before you begin to speak or write, consider the impact your story will have on the people who matter the most to you—and for that matter, the impact it will have on the people you dislike.

People may question or dispute your version of reality.

Your memory can be untrustworthy

No two people remember an incident from the past in the same way, since each of us experiences life through a slippery set of “filters” created by our individual minds. Not only that, but the passage of time makes memory even more suspect.

In the psychological phenomenon known as “false memory,” a recollection seems real in your mind, but you may have distorted or even completely fabricated it, without being aware you have done so.

This phenomenon can have devastating consequences. An example is when false eyewitness identification causes the conviction of an innocent person in our court system.

So how can you know when you’re relating a false memory? How can you prevent yourself from doing it?

Discuss with others what you intend to say or write about them. You can have people read what you’ve written before you publish it (if you intend to). Some will be flattered, while others may raise objections. It’s good to know ahead of time.

In my years as a public relations ghostwriter, we regularly asked clients to review and approve what we wrote about them. Quite often, the results of this approval process made the resulting text richer, truer and far better than the original.

People know themselves. It’s very likely they will be happy to help you accurately report what they did—or said—in a certain situation.

While your story should be factual, you have leeway in how you convey those facts. A memoir, bio, or autobiography is creative nonfiction, which means it reads like fiction, employing the same storytelling techniques that fiction writers use. These techniques include elements such as dialog, conflict, scenes, flashbacks and plot.

Dialogue, especially, is challenging and difficult to remember.

It’s hard to remember exactly what someone said

Carmen Maria Machado, a short story author, essayist, and critic, wrote in the disclaimer to her 2019 memoir, “In the Dream House,” that “Dialogue is not intended to represent a word-for-word transcription, but it accurately reflects the author’s memory and fairly reconstructs the meaning and substance of what was said.”

Similarly, in the disclaimer for “Unsinkable: A Memoir,” published in 2013, actress Debbie Reynolds writes that conversations in the book “…are not written to represent word-for-word transcripts.”

It’s good to say that you don’t remember the exact words someone spoke.

When you decide to write about real life, you are in a sense stepping into the shoes of a journalist. Journalists strive to be factual and ethical about what they write. The Society of Professional Journalists has a code of ethics, governed by strict principles, two of which are ideal to live by.

Live by a writer’s code of ethics

1. Be honest and accurate. Boldly tell your story, but be honest and accurate with the facts. Even if you are writing only for yourself, never distort the facts or a story’s true context. It’s just as harmful to lie to yourself as others, perhaps even more so.

Your best defense against a possible defamation suit is to tell the truth.

For example, if your cousin was convicted of murder, he cannot sue you for defamation if you talk or write about it. But if you say or write something such as, “In my opinion, my cousin murdered so-and-so,” when in fact your cousin was never convicted of such a crime, you will be exposing yourself to a defamation suit.

Defamation, which includes both libel (written) and slander (spoken), is the ruining of another person’s reputation.

2. Avoid invasion of privacy. While you tell the truth, reserve anonymity for people who may face danger, retribution or other harm from what you say or write about them.

Be sensitive when discussing juveniles, victims of sex crimes, or those with a disability. Withhold any names or identifying details that might harm someone or put them at risk. Publicizing facts about a person’s medical health, sexual conduct, or financial troubles could be considered an invasion of privacy.

Even if you speak or write nothing but the truth about a person, if you have made a public disclosure of their private facts without their permission, that person could bring an invasion of privacy suit against you.

As an example, suppose one of your close friends revealed to you, in confidence, that she spent a year of her young life as a prostitute before she finally stopped the behavior and got her life squared away. If this information is integral to the story you want to tell, consider changing identifying details, such as the person’s name, gender, age, and background.

Change the location of where incidents took place. Change the time period. Simply describe the person as “my friend” and avoid revealing whether that person was male or female, old or young, Black or white, Christian or Jewish…you get the picture.

Are you fabricating the truth by doing this? Yes, but there is a way around the dilemma: a disclaimer.

What’s a disclaimer?

A story disclaimer is a straightforward statement on a book’s copyright page, usually only a paragraph in length, that explains the author’s purpose and approach to the truth of the material and the privacy of others. A disclaimer strives to protect both the author and publisher from liability.

Dave Eggers, in “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius: A Memoir Based on a True Story” (2008), wrote in his disclaimer that he as the author “…could not remember the exact words said by certain people, and exact descriptions of certain things, so had to fill in gaps as best he could.”

Mira Bartók, author of the memoir, “The Memory Palace” (2011), writes in her disclaimer: “…I have changed the names of a couple people so as to protect their privacy. I have also reconstructed various conversations and condensed certain moments from my life.”

Trust your memories for the most part, but ask others to corroborate them. A journey through memory is one of self-discovery—and it is to be honored. As you speak or write, let yourself be governed by the principles of honesty, accuracy and sensitivity.

Decide for yourself whether you want to risk alienating your family or friends by revealing negative truths about them. Is telling your own truth important enough that you are willing to sacrifice those relationships?

Be the hero of your life story. You’re the storyteller. It’s your story. If you hold yourself to high standards of accountability, you can speak or write the truth as you see it, and you will have little to fear.

(Do you enjoy video? The following one I created illustrates the ideas I put forth in this article.)