WRITING THE LIFE WITHIN
By Francine Brevetti
Part Four — Doing Research
In this next lesson, we are going to discuss material about your life that does not reside in your brain but in other sources.
With the increased interest in spirituality and self-discovery, I see around me, I hear of more and more courses in journaling and writing for self-discovery. I applaud this movement.
Writing a memoir/autobiography is not the same kind of exercise, however. Not a minute-by-minute or day-by-day account, your nonfiction book is an interpretation of the past, a selection of incidents and trends that were significant to the course of a life.
However, students in my workshops have come to me who have collected volumes of journals and diaries in these pursuits. The question is how and when to use these precious documents in writing one’s biography?
One of my students spent the six weeks of our course time and more organizing her meticulously recorded life history. A binder for every year! In class she would write the exercises I assigned but she deferred starting her autobiography until she had all the documents organized according to her preference.
While I encouraged this student to complete organizing her documents, I now would have advised differently. I now think an autobiographer/memoirist does not need to wade through all that material in attempt to get everything “right”. The point is to interpret and reexperience the past, not document every detail of your life.
I am concerned a writer might get off track and become emotionally overwhelmed by dredging up distant events and possibly past trauma as well, and thereby produce an unwieldy and unreadable manuscript. Not to mention delay the completion of her or his manuscript.
Now I suggest you return to your journals and diaries only to verify the dates, names, incidents, and places you want to keep in your final version. I’m still thinking about this and encourage feedback from you.
Your parents’ journals
However, if you come across diaries of your deceased parents or ancestors, I encourage you to cherish them and read them methodically. You will learn not only about them but yourself. If you are going to write the story of your parents’ or family’s lives and you have found these documents, be sure to photocopy them, preserve the originals in acid-free plastic sleeves and work only from the copies. You may wish to scan them into your computer.
Fact checking
For journalists, fact-checking is the foundation of the craft. I approach my clients’ manuscripts with the same diligence as if I were writing to publish under my name. I assume anyone who is reading here is equally motivated.
For many of you, your task may be to assemble your certificates of birth, baptism, marriage, divorce and — in the case of other people you’re writing about — death. The records of your school attendance, armed forces service, employers, deeds, and your passports may also be relevant.
If you have started companies, been awarded patents or made any kind of breakthrough in your field, naturally you will want to refer to your accomplishments. Verify the names of the awarding organizations and dates correctly.
What did it feel like to be so honored? Who was with you when you accepted and where was this event?
Not that you will necessarily use all or any of this material in your autobiography. But having it there as you write imparts the confidence that you know what you are writing about and you will be accurate. Then you make choices about what to use.
Letters
Among the memorabilia that will be most powerful in writing your story or that of any relative is the correspondence you have retained, hard copies or electronic. Whenever I mentioned this to my students, they despaired of all the correspondence that they have discarded over the years in the interests of neatness and good organization. (Take that, Marie Kondo!) Do not hate yourself. But still, I encourage you to look around and seek those cards and letters you may have stored away someplace.
You may wonder of what good is a letter or birthday card you received from someone 20 years ago. Precisely this: it can spark memories of your relationship with that person and incidents to which the correspondence alludes.
If you want to go this far, you can ask your friends and intimates if they retain any correspondence from you. If they do and they’re willing to share it, you can borrow it to photocopy and return the originals to them. Then you will read yourself writing in the first person and recounting tales of your past. So cool.
I was one of the lucky ones. When my mother Tecla died, I discovered two valises crammed with all the correspondence she ever received from me, clippings I had sent her of my work, childish drawings and projects from elementary school and every birthday and Mother’s Day card I had ever sent her. It was an enormous gift.
Memorabilia
When I use this word, memorabilia, I include not only correspondence but also photographs, scrapbooks, trophies, matchbooks, etc. and any collectibles that are pertinent to your project.
Photographs
You know yourself how many boxes and albums of photographs, unsorted or organized, you have kept over the years. Don’t drive yourself crazy by trying to organize this material if you don’t feel compelled. Writing one’s life story is a big enough project and you could spend your life getting it right. I suggest you sift through them and focus on those parts of your collection that you already know will contain samples you want to include in your manuscript. Don’t forget the photos on your telephone or computer.
And as I suggested in collecting correspondence, you can ask others in the family to share their photos with you. They are more likely to have kept photographs than correspondence. You need only those photos that relate to your subject.
If you want to reproduce these photographs in your manuscript, have them copied professionally — unless you can scan them with adequate resolution.
In some cases, photos may need to be restored. There are professionals who do this. Restoring these images for their owners would be an elegant way to show your gratitude when you return them.
You want to write a caption under every photo and piece of art that you are using in your final document. The caption should contain names of the individuals, their position in the shot from left to right and as much as you can remember of the date, place, and a description of the event.
Scrapbooks
Here is another motherlode of memories.
Tecla also left behind two volumes of her scrapbooks and copious photographs. This is the kind of material I beg do-it-yourselfers to collect and preserve when they start writing on their own.
My mother’s two scrapbooks told me more about her youth than she ever did when she was alive. The newspaper clippings, programs of plays she appeared in, the invitations, references to social events, club attendance and agendas painted the picture of her life that was more colorful and active than I had realized.
As a child and teenager, I had kept my own scrapbook. In the interest of lightening the load as I moved to other cities and countries, the scrapbook was assigned to the landfill. As is said in I Corinthians, 13:11, I had put away childish things. Alas.
Collectibles
In the book, The Fabulous Fior, we reproduced several old menus and programs from festivities of decades past. Not just the content but the very style, look and typography of these materials give the reader a glimpse into the era’s history. This is a charming and nostalgic technique that many scrapbookers adopt. You might consider it also.
Claudia Kraehe of San Francisco, in honoring her family’s history, has chosen to photograph commemorative trophies awarded to her ancestors and include them in her autobiography.
Published Media
Treasure the published articles, books and videos you may have retained that relate to you or your family. Newspaper and magazine clippings should also be photocopied and stored in acid-free clear plastic folders. Newsprint deteriorates rapidly, becoming yellow and fragile. Work only with the photocopy or the versions you scanned.
Interviewing others
How often I’ve heard people say: “I wish I had asked my mother that when she was still alive.” Or: “my dad used to tell these wonderful stories, but I never wrote them down.”
This is the saddest realization after a loved one dies.
Happily, however, I am seeing an increased incidence of people interviewing their parents and relatives either on tape or video. These are the wise and lucky ones. Perhaps when your intimates see you recording your life story, you will inspire them to do the same for themselves and their families.
Now here’s homework: make a list of all the living people who are available to you to interview who have something to contribute to your life story — — whether they are relatives or friends or just people who knew you when.
Tecla, Marilyn, and Susie
When I started writing a book about Fior d’Italia (The Fabulous Fior: Over 100 Years in an Italian Kitchen), I interviewed my mother, Tecla Brevetti, on tape for an hour or so because her father, Alberto Puccetti, had been a waiter and part-owner of the restaurant in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Throughout my childhood, she had recounted many of her father’s anecdotes with pleasure and I wanted to get it all on tape. She was thrilled to comply.
The original site in 1886
I was able to use much of that material in the book. However, I interviewed her for the record only about her father and the Fior d’Italia. After she died, I thought of all the memories she had shared that I had not recorded and the questions that I had not asked her that did not relate to that material — questions about her childhood and her parents for instance. So, after kicking myself, I decided simply to be content with what I had achieved.
I urge my clients and students to list all the people still living who could share with them insights and recollections about themselves and their families. Do not despair over the people who have either died or cannot be contacted. You may still be surprised by how many people can be approached. You may ask your relatives about the deceased too. Even the grocer or the tailor who did business on your family’s block may have reminiscences that will delight you.
I contacted two women who had been my classmates and friends in elementary and high school. My dear friends Marilyn Bacigalupi Adkins and Susie Freeman Bauermann graciously complied. I spent an hour or more with each of them and a digital tape recorder.
I was amazed. They recalled me in my youth and my family in completely different lights than I had. They also remembered incidents of which I had no recall. It was a moving and loving experience for each of us.
Prepare your interview.
Prepare yourself by writing down your questions beforehand. You don’t have to keep rigidly to this list, but it will free you to look at and interact with your subject.
Prepare your friend or relative for the period in your life you want to talk about. Because you are asking this individual to share their memories about you and your family, they may have some reservations. So always ask them as a favor, stressing how this will help you in your endeavor and that they will enjoy it also. People like to feel they are helping.
Do avoid using the word “interview” when you ask him or her to spend some time with you reminiscing. That word can freeze people, making them think it’s a formal and structured interrogation. Instead it should sound low-key and friendly. You might even say, “It’ll be fun.” Or “this is something we can share.”
You will talk to them alone. Avoid interviewing two people at the same time, no matter how close they are. People always censor themselves consciously or not when someone else is around. Or they disagree about what happened. Yikes.
Choose a quiet and isolated place. I do not recommend interviewing anybody in a restaurant or in public. Such an environment inhibits freely flowing conversation especially about sensitive subjects; and certainly the ambient noise — the clacking utensils, people walking by etc. — will be picked up on the recording device. Do not eat or drink while talking to your beloved source. You’ll lose focus; while the slurping and clinking\\ will be immortalized on your audio recording.
Of course, if your only opportunity to confer with them is over coffee or a meal, just be aware of the limitations of this environment.
Your composure during such an interview is critical. Start out in a slow, relaxed way, asking questions that require little thought or emotional impact. A gentle humor is important to relax both of you. This is nothing more than a conversation but a recorded one.
If you’re using a recording device, and your subject appears nervous about being recorded, just reassure him/her that you are recording to ensure accuracy. “I don’t want to misquote you,” you may say.
Relieve tension by starting out assuring your subject again of how much fun you’ll have doing this together. Acknowledge the time he or she is spending with you.
Naturally, you listen intently. There is a temptation if your recording device is operating to let your focus drift off because you know it’s all being recorded. Snap yourself back ASAP. You may have missed the opportunity to ask a follow-up question to material that you were sleeping through.
Your subject must see you listening closely and compassionately as you ask questions about your life and sometimes theirs.
Occasionally, your interview subject may relate an incident or an insight and then later wish to retract it. Naturally, you comply out of politeness. But you can also gently ask them how important it is to suppress that material. Whom do they think they will be offending? Will it really reflect badly on them? Questions like these can relax them and may change their minds.
You might, if you are determined to get the answer you seek, come back to this subject in another way later in the interview.
No matter what technique you use to take notes, be alert to the ending of your interview. Ask them if there’s anything else they want to add. When your subject sees you put down the pen or turn off the recorder, they relax and start telling you material you would never have imagined. Pick up the pen again or turn on the device and capture this.
Why am I giving you this advice? Because when we start investigating our lives and find it necessary to refer to others, they may not be as ready to confide sensitive material. You may both be revisiting painful events. So, we must tread lightly with the dear people who are helping us.
On the other hand, do not be afraid to ask any question you want. I leave it up to you to gauge how tactfully you approach your subject. As a journalist I have learned from sad experience that I once hesitated to ask certain questions because I was sure the subject would not answer them. Only later I found out that some other reporter working for another publication interviewed the same subject who addressed the very question I would have asked had I been more daring.
And still in another situation, I also felt I had fully prepared an interview subject about the material I wanted more information on, and she agreed. But when we got close to a sensitive area, she balked, shouting that she had not agreed to that line of questioning. I could not entice her to continue no matter how I softened my request. Obviously, I had hit a nerve and I had no recourse except to end the interview, thanking her for her time.
The message is: don’t assume who will answer what. People can give the most surprising answers and are willing to expose information you would never have guessed had you been less cheeky. If, as I have done, you unintentionally offend someone, welcome to writing history!
I believe that every life, irrespective of its events and setting, holds something of unique value, which it should be possible to communicate if only one can first see one’s experiences honestly and then set them down without too much dressing up.
— Iris Origo, Images and Shadows
