Forget your personal tragedy
Asked by Linda Ovitt on May 8, 2020
I found this statement by Ernest Hemingway in a letter he wrote to F.Scott Fitzgerald, giving his honest opinion about his last book Tender is the Night.
Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start, and you especially have to hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt use it—don't cheat with it. Be as faithful to it as a scientist—but don't think anything is of any importance because it happens to you or anyone belonging to you.
What did Ernest mean when he said, "Forget your personal tragedy and when you get the damned hurt use it-don't cheat with it."?
It seems like it might apply to the type of Memoir I'm writing. Perhaps writing from a victim mindset vs victorious mindset?
Thank You, Linda
Jerry's Answer
No idea what Hemingway meant, Linda. But I do know that a memoir--while hung on the framework of anecdotes from one's own life--must be written with the reader's benefit paramount. The theme should be that you're a different person now, but no matter what you went through, the reader is going to compare it with their own situation. So the takeaway value has to be, "If she can win over that, I can handle my troubles too."
Do a word search within the Guild for "memoir," and I think you'll find lots of valuable training. All the best with it.