Where do you draw the line?
Draft 1:
Scott sits on a well-worn tapestry-covered couch with a steaming glass of bitter black chai–a black tea served in a small handleless glass that is common in Turkey and Syria. He is engaged in conversation with Katja and Mirco, self-described nomadic cyclists from Slovenia, who are sitting on the floor leaning against overstuffed pillows with brightly coloured woven covers. Wendy and Peter, the American cyclists that rode with us from Antakya Turkey to Aleppo Syria, are sitting on plastic patio chairs playing backgammon. Even though we are inside, the air is cold and dust-filled, a reminder of the winter-is-coming winds and red dust that covered the landscape yesterday.
Our hotel host, a tall Jordanian in his mid-20s, walks into the room. We had seen pictures of him from the year before, taken by blogger acquaintances of ours. In the photos, he proudly sported long black hair that made him look almost Italian. Except now his hair is cut short.
I ask him “what happened to your hair”?
“Let me tell you a story,” he begins. He goes on to tell us how shortly after our acquaintances wrote about him on their blog, he was visited by the police. They took him into custody and questioned him for sharing inappropriate information with tourists. Beaten. Four days later they let him go, but not before cutting his hair, explaining to him that good hotel hosts don’t have long hair.
How important is the truth in the details of memoir, when a story itself is true? Over the years, I’ve told this story many times. Initially, I would tell it only verbally, not committing it to writing. The story has an important lesson—when you blog about other people you need to be aware of unintended consequences. You cannot assume that the freedoms you have in your home country apply to the people that you meet on your journey. In telling the story, my worry was always in protecting the hotel host. When I began to write the story down, I would leave out details. I would not talk about which country I was in when it happened. At least once, I changed identifying characteristics like the city and the name of the host. I would be vague, but the story had less impact.
Today, I can tell the story with more detail because of the fall of the Assad regime in Syria. I still do not mention the name of the hotel host. I do share that it was in Aleppo Syria. The area of Aleppo we were in was ravaged by the civil war. With internet searching, I was able to confirm that the hotel in question closed in 2012. I feel that enough time and events have passed that it is unlikely that telling this story today would cause harm to the hotel host. Still, I do not name him or the hotel. There is no need, so I intentionally leave those details out. This is not a lie of omission; rather, it is leaving out identifying details with intent.
Now, let’s look at the other parts of the story.
I used a photograph to recreate the scene. I changed who was sitting where so that I could better describe the backstory of people. It allowed me to share that information without adding unnecessary complexity or additional words.
I have read many an author’s note in memoir where the author indicates that things had been changed to improve the story (e.g., Educated by Tara Westover[1], Wild by Cheryl Strayed[2]). The changes, such as moving timelines and composite characters go against what Moore[3] summarizes as Clark’s rules about truth in memoir. Further, in various books on writing memoir, authors like Hart[4], Karr[5], Kephart[6], and Miller and Paola[7], all speak to the importance of honesty in memoir.
When lies get caught, it harms not only the author but the entire memoir genre. To be fair to all the other authors of authentic memoir, it behooves me to write an honest memoir.
How can I fix the scene to ensure it is more truthful?
I checked the recollections with Katja. She highlighted that she has no recollection of the story, but also that they arrived later, so that it might have occurred before they arrived.
She is correct. This happened on the first or second night we were there. They arrived several days later. The photograph was taken after this occurred.
I remember clearly that we were standing in a circle around the outer edges of the room talking, introducing ourselves. It was the first or second evening. It was then that I asked about the hair—it was an identifying characteristic that our blogger acquaintances had mentioned. It was then that he told the story.
The words “let me tell you a story” are ingrained in my memory. Was that exactly what he said? I cannot be certain, but it is what I remember him saying. One of Clark’s rules about truth in memoir[8] is that dialogue cannot be invented. This is a journalistic stance on memoir, and is something I grapple with, as I’m not a journalist and I’m not writing journalistic nonfiction. The standard I am striving for is what works best for my readers. Is the dialogue likely to have happened? Am I representing the speakers honestly? I agree with what Glenn[9] says “as long as I’m true to the significance of the event or the exchange, as long as the writing expresses the core of what went on without distorting it, I am comfortable recreating dialogue.” (p. 91)
I use dialogue sparingly, and when I do it is either from my notes or my memories. When I recreate conversations between me and my husband, I have him review it to ensure it feels and sounds like something he might have said at the time. I feel this adds important context to the story and is as close to truth as it can be. It is not a lie in that a conversation did happen.
One of the writing tips mentioned by Miller and Paola[10] is to cue the reader with phrases like “Perhaps” or “I imagine”; however, that doesn’t work when I tell the story in present tense. I currently feel that jumping in as narrator with something outside of the story itself would break the narrative flow. That might change in later drafts.
Another tip mentioned by Moore[11] is to use different syntax to indicate created conversations. For me, dialogue that represents what is likely to have been said is good enough for direct quotes. I am writing for the reader, and I feel other syntactical choices would distract from the story unnecessarily.
I will write an author’s note that explains my choices. Truth is a contract between the author and the reader. Outright lying or fabricating facts breaks the contract. In my case, using the occasional bits of dialogue that are true to the characters and are representative of the conversations that did happen are not problematic.
Now, I need to rewrite the scene to be more truthful. I need to have us standing around the room. I need to remove Katja and Mirko from the scene now that I have confirmed that they were not present at the time.
Draft 2:
In the evening several of the guests of the hotel gather in the second-floor lounge, in a circle, standing or sitting on the floor leaning against overstuffed pillows with brightly coloured woven covers. We take turns introducing ourselves. In addition to touring cyclists, there are also a few backpackers who arrived earlier in the day. Even though we are inside, the air is cold and dust-filled, a reminder of the winter-is-coming winds and red dust that covered the landscape yesterday.
Our hotel host, a tall Jordanian in his mid-20s, walks into the room. We had seen pictures of him from the year before, taken by blogger acquaintances of ours. In the photos, he proudly sported long black hair that made him look almost Italian. Except now his hair is cut short.
I ask him “what happened to your hair”?
“Let me tell you a story,” he begins. He goes on to tell us how shortly after our acquaintances wrote about him on their blog, he was visited by the police. They took him into custody and questioned him for sharing inappropriate information with tourists. Beaten. Four days later they let him go, but not before cutting his hair, explaining to him that good hotel hosts don’t have long hair.
When writing memoir, where do you draw the line? Can dialogue be made up if it helps propel the story forward, and the essence of it is true?
When you read memoir, does dialogue make you trust the author less?
[1] Tara Westover, Educated (Harper Collins Publishers, 2018).
[2] Cheryl Strayed, “Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail,” (2013).
[3] Dinty W. Moore, “How Truthful Are Memoirs?” Brevity Blog (2022).
[4] Jack Hart, Storycraft, Second Edition: The Complete Guide to Writing Narrative Nonfiction (University of Chicago Press, 2021).
[5] Mary Karr, “The Art of Memoir,” (2016).
[6] Beth Kephart, “Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir,” (2013).
[7] Brendan Miller, and Suzanne Paola, “Tell it Slant: Refining, and Publishing Creative Nonfiction,” (2019).
[8] Moore, “How Truthful Are Memoirs?”
[9] Lorri Neilsen Glenn, and Kim Pittaway, “When Memories Meet Words: A Conversation About Writing Memoir,” Fiddlehead Summer 2025, no. 304 (2025).
[10] Miller, and Paola, “Tell it Slant: Refining, and Publishing Creative Nonfiction.”
[11] Moore, “How Truthful Are Memoirs?”
