Saritams8 said:
Hannah's suggestion of turning it into fiction struck a chord with me. I've been playing with the idea of writing my Gram's story, a very interesting one, but the biggest concern was truth and her feelings. She's been dead for 15 years and I'd love to tell her story. I think I'll end up doing it in fiction just so as not to step on any toes and give myself a bit more room.
Perhaps it’s because of my journalism background that I’m so defensive of truth and facts. I only read non-fiction and did not read James Frey’s book,
A Million Little Pieces because it was fictionalized. I would have jumped on it if it had been ALL true. And here’s why. In fiction, anyone came make their lives as dramatic as they can. With non-fiction, you’re bound by truth, or in the case of memoir, your memory, which can be shotty for some, but not too far off.
Others may have a different opinion on the matter.
I just wanted to add something else.
For instance, there may be a scene in your grandmother’s story where she’s sitting in the park on a warm sunny day. Joggers are strolling by, children riding their bicycles, and butterflies roaming between the trees, and bushes.
Let’s just say, even if you were sitting right beside her and you interpreted her enjoying the giggles from the children riding by, but she would interpret it as, everything going on around her and she could only see the enchanted wings of the butterflies.
There you would have two interpretations of the same scenario, but the fact that she isolated everything out, and could only see the butterflies tell a lot about her personality, to me. That's what makes a memoir what it is, her memories.