The only story
By: Ryan Hooper
Tags: Memories, Dance, Creative Writing, Memoir, Autobiography

Writing about yourself can be an admirable pursuit. A gathering together of moments to leave as a legacy. An avenue to uncover, with a hope to heal, and push forward against collated traumas.

Alternatively, there are of course plenty who choose, or are encouraged, to take an interest in life writing for less than spiritually pure gains. Think about the stacks of celebrity autobiographies lined up at supermarkets in the lead up to Christmas. Hundreds of vague face shape blobs, whose teeth have been brightened and skin has been smudged smooth, to present a manipulated cover to a personal story, so often ghost written.

The interest regularly lies in what isn’t said, rather than the words printed on the page. These types of books get churned out and are so formulaic that one becomes the other. Peoples lives become the same. Chapter one begins in the present with some gentle reflection on an ‘important incident’, before jumping back to birthday, school days, teen daze, skipping back and forth before the then and now, up to the current point in time, which becomes the end simply by necessity. Repeat for book two etc.

Don’t get me wrong, some autobiographies are wonderful. But what piques my interest is the original stack of post-it notes, the first draft. What got cut, not for brevity or quality, but because of a lack of bravery. I want to dig through the ashes of the lost moments thrown on the fire. To reveal the story I want to read.

This mythical first draft existed once. It exists for us all, hidden somewhere between heart and head. In some cases, it may one day rise like the phoenix from the ashes. But through iteration and the relationship between interviewee, ghost writer, editor, publishing house, and many others, a dilution takes place which shifts not only the tone, but the content, of a story. Often, for those near the beginning of the process, their power of the edit diminishes with every stage.

Take for example, a fledgling journalist interviewing a person of some note for a feature article. They may go into the process with an agenda, an idea of where they would like the finish line to be. A pure hope of revealing hidden meaning in someone else’s lives, for the better. To find the interview leads in very different directions, or never gets going. Leading to a retelling of a story that is different, either better or worse, than initially hoped.

Let’s be an optimistic journalist and be delighted with our story. So proud of the thematic thread, the attention to rhythm, flow, cadence, skilled use of assonance and metaphor, all working harmoniously to drive a story with an enticing hook, moments of uncertainty, then relief, a story that reveals skeletons and fleshes out emotions and moments of revelation for the self and the reader – but, the interviewee doesn’t like the angle you’re gone with. They have final say, your enlightened treatment of their life gets hacked to pieces.

So you sob, silently, gather together your editing chops and make good an already great story. Poor little ego squished by a mightier, or at least more powerful, one.

Perhaps given time and critical acclaim, our fledgling, still optimistic journalist has collected enough credit in the bank for interesting people to flock to them to write their interesting, and real, stories, and they make their way into print in a manner which both writer and subject are proud of.

I imagine the hit rate of this is rare. Compromise is the common denominator. That’s why there are so few stories, with only seven plots to wrap a life around.

As much as we would like to think otherwise, our story fits somewhere in a neat genre. We all hope to be original – this is often where memory really kicks in and twists and tweaks – when telling our own story. We become our own writer, interviewee, editor, publisher. Through this process we dance with several versions of ourselves. The id does battle with the ego. We’re brave, we’re scared. We slash and burn, remodel and skim over.