Week 6 Reading Response: "Telling True Stories"

Sorry for writing it late...

Chapter 6 spoke about memoirs and gave examples of writers who have written about their lives or of lives of their family and friends.

I cannot see myself writing a memoir. I think that it would be the hardest thing to do, especially because the most important members of my family would not enjoy it for one bit. They don't like hearing the truth about themselves. My family are every stubborn people and I would not get away with writing something about them. If I decided to let them read it afterward, they would turn it into a fiction story instead of staying a nonfiction story. My sisters would want to sound all perfect and would shape themselves up and create someone they wish they would be.

One article I really find very interesting in "Telling True Stories" is Debra Dickerson's article she wrote for The New Republic, titled "Who Shot Johnny?" What I find so interesting is the fact that she was willing to go into depth about how her nephew got shot and then take it a step further to finding out more about the man who shot him. I think it really takes a lot of courage to do that.

Dickerson mentions something about her not writing for the police but for the readers. "With what he told me, I could get years added to his prison sentence." If I was in that moment where she is sitting down with this man and he is telling her all these other bad things he's done, I would stop being a journalist. Knowing that I have a grudge against that man, I would not stay shut, and this is one reason why I would not dare to write about anything about my family or friends; I would stop being a journalist.