Left Unsaid: Musings from a Writing Group

We started as strangers in a ten-week memoir writing class. Our projects and backgrounds were different. As the class wrapped up, we decided to continue meeting as a writing group to share our work and see what would come of it. Now seven years later, we reflect on the friendship and support our group has provided. We have all learned lessons from the words we’ve written and from those left off the page.

Susan Schirl Smith considers how our trust and support in each other allows us to share present day stories that are not part of our memoirs and how the events of daily life impact our writing:

“Writing is a solitary process; memoir in particular often explores the most difficult aspects of our lives. We are faced with a challenge, find a way to overcome it, and explore the lessons learned. I have often wondered why I decided to write about the worst period of my life—my childhood and the loss of my brother—as my first book, Desperado.

The stories in our writing group have illuminated parts of our lives, the quiet, secret part that most people we have known for decades are simply unaware of. Those things left unsaid. But in the process of recreating the past through these manuscripts, we are living the stories we might someday write about. For as much as we explore the illusions of a writer’s life, we still must live in our everyday world. It can be incredibly difficult to explore the dark times of the past while managing the challenges of the present.”

Bev Boisseau Stohl has this to say about writing the truth about our stories vs. holding back, and the complications inherent in writing about a well-known person:

“Some writing group conversations led us to reveal personal details that might not otherwise have been shared, or even considered for our manuscripts. Following a writing workshop, I confided in Susan that I had my son at seventeen. After consulting with friends from varied backgrounds, I decided to write about my secret. Memoir is, after all, about our truth. Seeing how others deal with their struggles helps readers feel less alone with their own. Writing this section took months of introspection, but it helped me see how teen parenting set me on a trajectory toward working at MIT, and to writing my book Chomsky and Me: A Memoir, about my twenty-four years managing the office of linguist and activist Noam Chomsky. Telling the truth was scary, but cathartic.

I also faced the challenge of writing about a well-known person, as I asked myself what can be revealed? Can the story remain interesting if I omit crucial details? I contacted an MIT lawyer to ask about liability, and the concept of sharing personal but not private information. He assured me that as long as I was writing without malicious intent, I was ok. The result was an honest book written with Chomsky’s blessing, without idolization or fear, and with more depth, poignancy, and unabashed humor.”

Laura Beretsky discusses the use of writing consultants and editors, and their impact on her manuscript:

“My first draft of Seizing Control was almost one hundred thousand words. My medical memoir details my journey with epilepsy, which taught me that it takes more courage to live with a perceptible health condition than it does to undergo life-threatening brain surgeries.

About halfway through the arduous six-year writing process, I hired a structural editor, who helped me pinpoint my book’s key themes. This early version included many scenes about my family—poignant challenges and anecdotes I’d determined noteworthy. Following my editor’s guidance, I decided most of those scenes weren’t directly related to my story’s main themes, and I cut them. My manuscript was more focused and thirty-five thousand words shorter.

I hired another editor, who read the revised manuscript, and gave me nine pages of feedback. I added several new pages, but not the deleted family scenes. Although a family member was mad that Seizing Control didn’t include more details about familial relationships, I don’t regret my choices. I have those scenes in a ‘take outs’ folder dedicated to the deleted (not dead) dear darlings. I may repurpose them for future stories or a book with a more closely aligned theme. They’re stories left untold for now.”

What’s particularly interesting to Marcie Kaplan about leaving something unsaid is the effect of its absence on the manuscript:

“In getting my memoir across the finish line, I sometimes have the feeling that writing and deciding what to leave out are equally important. When I started the writing-editing process, I kept the engaging parts and deleted the rest, with the result that the draft was more curated but not more focused. ‘Not engaging’ was just the first of many criteria for what to leave out.

After more writing-editing, I took a memoir class and learned that a memoir tells one story. Light bulb moment. Over the next (long) period of writing-editing, I figured out what my story was and deleted everything I’d written that was irrelevant to it, and everything leading up to the ending that now appeared digressive. Now the draft was more focused.

There’ve been other kinds of deletions since then. For instance, I’ve deleted sentences that spell out what’s happening when I think the reader can read between the lines and experience the scene more viscerally than she would have experienced it as seen through my eyes. And I’ve deleted a scene so that the scenes before and after it are freshly next to each other, revealing an angle on the story not previously revealed (including to me).”

Jean Duffy shares how she listened to other voices, and ultimately connected to the heart of her story:

“My motivation to write a book centered on a life-changing connection with an inspirational older women’s soccer team from halfway around the world.

My writing group encouraged me to add more about myself so the reader would be invested in me as the narrator. I could see the logic, but what about my life could possibly be interesting? I dug deep and wrote about my lack of self-confidence as a youngster who was the new girl in class every year, and later as a young woman in a male-dominated work environment. ‘Brava!’ the group cheered.

A prospective publisher painted a different vision. ‘Would you be willing to cut those sections about Jean? Leave just enough Jean to tell the story. And add more about the other soccer team.’ Without hesitation, I slashed those sections to accommodate the life stories of my South African friends.

Soccer Grannies, the story of strong, resilient women who are empowered by scoring goals together, is the one I wanted to tell.”

Maggie Lowe explores the use of oral histories and research, and pondered the deeper meaning of the book she has written:

“When I began this memoir, I thought it would be a hybrid social history/memoir that would trace the way the modern evangelical religious movement swept up my family in the 1970s, in parallel to the rise of the New Right in American culture and politics. Soon, though, it became a full-fledged memoir.

At the outset, I followed the prevailing advice to write first and figure out what to leave in or out when it came time to publish. This all sounded well and good but once I began crafting query letters, I was surprised by my trepidation. I wondered if I wanted or needed to publish it at all.

In the family oral histories, interviews, readings, and my own writing, I realized my deepest intention was to heal generations of religious confusion—and indeed, that has happened. At this point, I’m not sure if I’ll leave the whole manuscript or parts of it unpublished, but at present I’m willing to sit with those questions. As I do so, I know my writing group will be with me every step of the way.”

The writing journey is a solitary one, as we discover lessons in the process of sharing our stories. Yet, this writing group has given this solitary process community.

Susan captures what this community has meant to us: “Through these years of our writing group, we’ve shared the loss of family members and friends. Supported each other through the pandemic and our own health crises. Listened as we navigated parenting of children young and adult, and the care of our four-legged family members. Stories that are heart-felt, often heart-wrenching but are not part of the books we have written. These tales of family, grief and loss, life and love are the stories of the now. Interwoven with our words of the past they have created a tapestry of our six members, our stories forever intertwined.”

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Susan Schirl Smith is a writer, photographer, and holistic nurse. Susan’s memoir, presently in revisions, is Desperado.

Bev Boisseau Stohl is the author of Chomsky and Me: A Memoir. Bev writes about the quirkiness and poignancy of working with a world leader.

Laura Beretsky is an author, advocate, and activist. Laura’s medical memoir is Seizing Control: Managing Epilepsy and Others’ Reactions to It.

Marcie Kaplan’s memoir in progress is a meditation on nature and trauma.

Jean Duffy is a nonfiction writer, soccer player, and author of Soccer Grannies: The South African Women Who Inspire the World.

Margaret Lowe is a Professor of History at Bridgewater State University. Margaret’s memoir in progress is Women to Whom God has Spoken: A Memoir.