Into the Fire

Memoir:
[ˈmemˌwär]

NOUN

1. a historical account or biography written from personal knowledge or special sources.
   "in 1924 she published a short memoir of her husband"
   synonyms: account · historical account · history · record · chronicle · annal(s) 
2. an autobiography or a written account of one's memory of certain events or people.
   an essay on a learned subject.

The above definitions are the technical renditions of what a memoir is. My question in the title is rhetorical but something to consider as readers begin new novels.

I have a couple of finished unpublished novels. One of them is titled The Fixer and is the story about three adult sisters while focusing primarily on the middle sibling who was dubbed "the fixer" at an early age by her mother.

I grew up with two best friends who I imagined it felt like to have sisters. One of them had an older sister, and the other was an only child. I had a brother who was nine years older than me. At the end of most days we went home to our families and the lives we knew and lived but always looked forward to the next day or time when we could be together again. Although we shared this beautiful closeness, we were in fact friends, not sisters. The point being I had no direct knowledge of what it was like to be or have a sister.

I've always insisted novels hold the essence of truth in their various genres because they depict concepts and circumstances human beings know, love, hate, worry about, imagine, trudge through, exalt, triumph over, fail in, overcome, or are overwhelmed by. 

An author digs deep to find the dynamic that works for those things he or she has never intimately experienced – to write it like you own it. 

It's never easy to write what you don't know, but it's almost a given that it will be required at some point in the story. While it's important to make characters, places, and conflicts authentic, it seems in order to make this happen the author must infuse himself into the story based on his emotional, physical, and spiritual experiences. So each novel reveals a snapshot of the author in some aspect of his life whether it be actual participation or personal observation.

A tiny memoir of who tells the story while experiencing it along with the reader . . . 

Father, all I know is that apart from you I can do nothing. You allow me to write. May I always honor you with my words. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.