Creative non fiction question.

You can if the people you cite give you permission to use them. Otherwise, I believe you cannot. Especially if the things you cite about someone are unflattering, harm them in any way or can be construed as libel in court. There are other threads here where lawyers have weighed in on this issue. I will see if I can locate a couple and link you up.

Good luck, I hope it goes well, whatever you decide (to go forward non-fiction or fictionalizing your story).

Christine

This book apparently covers legal issues that arise in writing memoir:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0933377509/?tag=absolutewritedm-20

Sounds like that's what you need.

Very dangerous territory, especially if anything you write about someone can in any way be considered inflammatory. This is something I think you need to check out with an IR attorney before proceeding.

Write what you want. If it's good enough, the lawyers will deal with it. If it's not? Then you've censored yourself to no benefit.

Williebee said:

Write what you want. If it's good enough, the lawyers will deal with it. If it's not? Then you've censored yourself to no benefit.

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I agree. If it's good enough, the publisher's lawyers will tell you, and then you and the editor can figure out how to fix it.

It can't hurt to have a basic idea of what's legal and what's not, though, which is where books like the one I posted a link to come in.

Williebee said:

Write what you want. If it's good enough, the lawyers will deal with it. If it's not? Then you've censored yourself to no benefit.

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I would not suggest you follow this advice. To begin with, you might wind up spending a lot of time writing something that can't be published, having nothing to do with the quality of your work. First of all, this is not something lawyers -- other than ones you hire -- deal with. This isn't like a simple (?) line edit, this is serious stuff and it's the responsibility of the writer. Neither agents or editors will touch such a work without first having the proper permissions and/or written waivers.

Whatever you decide I wish you luck.

Wayne what about writing a fiction piece about your conversation with God and mirror the events on your own life's story. That way you can change names and events without having the legal hassel and still have your story told.

Why would you want to use their real names?

Wayne K said:

There's a man in prison for a murder someone else committed. People were fired from their jobs because of a union election that I helped rig. I thought that if I came clean it might help. That was how this whole thing started.

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Not sure how putting their real names in a book are going to do much of anything, other than bring you undo legal worries.

There are other ways to make pennance.

Wayne K said:

I've had the night to think about this and it's bothering me. I can't write my own life story because a bunch of people don't want the truth about them to come out? I thought that was why we write, to tell the truth.
Sure it opens the door for lying and deception, but it goes against the reason we do this to begin with. Truth. Censorship through litigation is still censorship.

Screw them, I don't care if they eat up all the money with legal expenses, I'll write a book about that. I'm the kind of guy who burns down the house because there's a burglar in it.
Am I going to find a like-minded publisher though?

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Thats spot on Wayne, i think you and i and singing from the same song sheet, i'm not going to stop telling the truth, they'd have a job on trying to get money out of me.
As the great man once said,
"When you aint got nothin, you got nothin to loose"

scope said:

I would not suggest you follow this advice. To begin with, you might wind up spending a lot of time writing something that can't be published

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Can't be published without making some changes, that is, as advised by lawyers. In other words, you write it, and then based on the lawyers' advice, you rewrite parts of it. Not a big deal. You're going to have to make changes based on the editor's advice too--it's just part of publishing. It's just that the lawyer's advice is going to be along the lines of "maybe you should combine these two characters into one and make him a different age, so that he's not so obviously your ex-husband Dwayne T. Psycho."

If you censor yourself from the get-go and don't write things for fear of legal repercussions, then the end result is... you don't write the book! It makes no sense to do that, especially since it's very difficult for a layperson to figure out exactly what it's okay to write. (There are some obvious rules, but what I mean is it's hard for a layperson to figure out everything they need to know in order not to risk a lawsuit with their book--that's what the lawyers are for: telling you once you're done with the book what it is that you need to change.)

scope said:

First of all, this is not something lawyers -- other than ones you hire -- deal with. This isn't like a simple (?) line edit, this is serious stuff and it's the responsibility of the writer. Neither agents or editors will touch such a work without first having the proper permissions and/or written waivers.

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That makes no sense. There's no law against an agent or editor reading an unpublished manuscript that defames/libels someone. Writers of memoir and autobiography typically do not get lawyered up and spend thousands of dollars having their book vetted before they even submit it to an agent--that approach would simply not make economic sense (for anyone except lawyers, that is). What makes sense is to (1) take care of obvious legal issues up front (i.e., change characters' names/ages/major identifying details); (2) submit to agents; (3) take care of any slightly less obvious legal problems that the agent happens to spot; and then (4) IF it gets bought, the publisher's lawyers will look at it because the PUBLISHER is just as liable as the author is, if it turns out the book defames/libels someone. (Your contract may require you to pay back the publisher if your book gets them legally screwed, but if you get sued, so do they, and the hassle of litigation is something they want to avoid, so obviously they have their lawyers look at the MS before it's published.)

That's how reputable publishers behave, anyway.

Wayne K said:

There's a man in prison for a murder someone else committed. People were fired from their jobs because of a union election that I helped rig. I thought that if I came clean it might help. That was how this whole thing started.

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Write it, and then show it to a lawyer (or submit it to an agent etc. and have the publisher's lawyer look at it). Truth is an absolute defense to libel. It's not a defense to invasion of privacy, so you may have to tweak some details here and there, but write it first and worry later.

Wayne K said:

There's a man in prison for a murder someone else committed.

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Um...if there really is someone in prison right this minute for a crime he didn't commit, and you have unheard evidence that could exonerate him, surely there's a more direct method than writing your autobiography that could help...?

As far as the fictionalizing is concerned, I say write it the way you want to. Once you've gotten it off your chest, then you can step back from the work and will be in a better state of mind to decide whether you want / need / how much to change things around for the possibility of publication. You can do that in later drafts. But, having written what you needed to write, you might find you don't "need" to publish after all.

--Q

Wayne K said:

There's a man in prison for a murder someone else committed. People were fired from their jobs because of a union election that I helped rig. I thought that if I came clean it might help. That was how this whole thing started.

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In that sort of case, I'd think getting sued may be a minor problem compared to the risk to your personal safety (you're talking about criminals and their associates, and lawsuits may not be the only retribution they consider). This book looks like it's gonna have several powderkegs in it.

On the other hand, you come across as enough of a tough, principled dude that you may be willing to face that risk as well.

You might want to, first thing, write down all the pertinent details in these cases, make copies of your documentation, and put that writing in a safe place (or several copies in several safe places, printed out as well as on CD-R/thumb drive), and only then write and market/publish(/POD?) your memoir/autobio. That way, worst case, the info's "there" somewhere. I get the impression it's that important to you.

Question...what's the typical word count goal for a memoir?

James81 said:

Question...what's the typical word count goal for a memoir?

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My memoir is in three parts, 60s, 70s, and 80s. The 60s, which is published, is 88,000 words. The 70s im over half way through (51,000 words) will be around 100,000 maybe more. Not sure about the 80s one yet.