Challenges of a Memorist

Memiorist, Dani Shapiro wrote her first memoir, SLOW MOTION, capturing the details of her life of pain and chaos. She wrote with abandon; what she called a "no prisoners story." Sharing intimate details, she did not consider reactions to her writing in her future as a wife and mother.

All writers who share their personal narratives have choices to make.  Can they write with total honesty if concerned with future family and friends who might read the work?

Later Shapiro would feel concern about her husband's and son's reactions to her past writing.

Shapiro writes, "I'm proud of, and the artist in me would like to think that I would have written it no matter what.  But, the mother in me isn't so sure. I might have stopped myself, for fear of what he (my son) might think some day.  Certainly, it would have been a very different book, bearing the marks of time, maturity, experience."

What do you think about the consequences of writing life truths as a memoirist?  Would you write the details about life experiences that may not cast you in a positive light?  Should you whitewash your stories for future reception?  Do you believe a fiction writer faces the same challenges if family members or friends believe they have been used as characters?