The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine

Book Review

You Don’t Have To Be Famous: How To Write Your Life Story
By Steve Zousmer.
Writer's Digest Books, 2007. 244 pp. $16.99.
Reviewed by Laurie Rosenblatt, M.D. (Laurie_rosenblatt@dfci.harvard.edu).

Writing an autobiography (or an autobiographical essay) can be daunting. But writing your story can lend pattern to the formless chronicle of everyday life, share clinical or personal lessons learned, put painful events into perspective, and even bring back purpose and direction to a life set adrift by illness. In this witty, and tough-minded book, Steve Zousmer begins by telling us what he will not do. He will not act like a teacher in a creative writing workshop. He will not impose drills and exercises or urge us to read the polished prose from famous authors. He will not promise magical solutions.

Zousmer’s You Don’t Have to Be Famous offers varied and interesting approaches to material, concrete writing tips (be specific, use names, change the pace), and talks about how to find and use memories. He takes us step by step through the process and encourages us to think carefully about our audience. He even explores the ethical issues accompanying confession. Finally, he reviews the merits of self-publishing, and gives some brief thoughts and suggestions about the use of audio and video formats. And he does it in just over two hundred readable pages.

Zousmer openly states his preference for, “the authenticity of the true story with its holes and flaws clearly acknowledged, even if the final result is dramatically incomplete and acknowledges that key questions remain unanswered …”

You Don’t Have To Be Famous is savvy and practical on questions like: Where do I get my ideas? What does writing look like? Should I tell family and friends about it?

Zousmer teaches us how to tell stories in print by writing brief episodes from his own life. He shows how to use memory fragments and create interest in our readers through competent writing and making canny choices about what to include and what to leave out. He reminds us that reflection deepens the work and suggests that research and outlines waste time and thwart creativity. He even tells us what a story is not.

Events are not necessarily stories. Activity is not, in itself, a story. Details and data are not stories. A capsule summary is not much of a story. What is really not a story—but often tries to be one—is a sequence of miscellaneous things that are united only by the fact that they happened. (p. 161)

“And forget about covering everything. Just cover what you want,” he tells us not as an invitation to self-indulgence, but as a way to avoid autobiographical scrupulosity.

For those anecdotes that make the cut, Zousmer warns that “The Chronological Model” though an obvious organizational choice might lead to the dreaded “and then I did this…and then I did that…” and suggests other options (The Flashback Model, The Episodic Model, The Theme-Linked Model, The History-Linked Model). He warns against The Stream of Consciousness Model unless you’re the next James Joyce (pp. 54-71). In a similar vein he warns, “Writing experience teaches that excesses that make you smile today often make you wince tomorrow” (pp. 128). In other words, going in markedly idiosyncratic directions is likely to annoy readers with “tiresome gimmicks.”

As an example of how good Zousmer is at the nuts and bolts, here are his thoughts on punctuation in which you’ll note he follows his own advice:

Use a lot of periods, and use them sooner. That is, write short sentences. Short sentences don’t tolerate flab or sloppy thinking. They add punch.
Some writers get Comma Fever and throw them in everywhere. Comma Austerity is better.
A well-used semicolon replaces a conjunction; it’s a nice rhythm changer and adds muscle. Semicolons are most at home in formal writing; your autobiography is moderately informal, so use them sparingly.
…banish the exclamation point from your punctuation repertoire. There is no surer way to mark yourself as amateurish. Never use them. The only thing worse than an exclamation point is three exclamation points…
Work on creating the impact of exclamation without the points. Put the strongest words or ideas at the end of sentences to create the exclaiming effect: ‘I worked hard, and I won’ is more exclamatory then ‘I won after working hard.’ (pp. 31-32)

Go light on adjectives and adverbs, he suggests, and avoid “signposting” (explaining things outright after you’ve already shown them). Zousmer gives us White’s, “When you say something, make sure you have said it. The chances of your having said it are only fair.” He then reflects “If the chances were only fair for the great E. B. White, what are the chances for you or me?”

Writing is hard. And autobiographical writing demands that you define a reality and put an identity on the page. Zousmer accompanies each suggestion with clear examples. Here’s his explanation of “showing vs. telling”:

Here’s telling: “Ginny was elated when she won the tournament. It was very emotional.”
Compare that to showing: “When Ginny won the tournament by sinking that three-foot putt, a roar went up from the crowd, and she hurled her putter into the air and dropped to her knees, covering her eyes because she couldn’t stop sobbing.” (pp. 168)

And here are his five suggestions for a good start:

Engage readers quickly and aggressively. Over time, what holds readers is value and character, but first you need the hook, the promise that causes them to read the next paragraph. … Sweep them up in a good story or compelling situation. Physical action is the traditional solution, but a slam-bang action scene is not required as long as you create some sort of initial momentum and energy …
Demonstrate that you know what you’re doing and where you’re going …
Establish a good conversation with the reader. ... You have to create an immediate relationship that responds to basic questions about who you are and what it will be like to accompany you on this autobiographical journey.
Lay a foundation … In addition to establishing the book’s purpose and personality and making it compelling to readers, you have to start establishing whatever factual groundwork and scene setting will be needed to launch successive chapters or topics … make sure you’re answering journalism’s ‘Five Ws and H’ questions: who, what, when, where, why, and how?
Excite the writer. If you aren’t stimulated by the start, forget about stimulating anyone else. (pp. 135-140)

Zousmer asks us to think about how to begin each story: front door vs. side door. The side door start “reaches the main points indirectly, usually from a human interest angle and often involving storytelling.” He suggests that the story’s beginning is not necessarily the thing that happened first—shuffling the sequence adds interest and energy to the narrative. Start with your best stuff. “If you start with what’s important, it will lead to telling why it was important and what it led to…,” Zousmer reassures us. “Start later, end sooner,” he suggests, “Instead of starting with step one (‘As the school year ended the family decided to take a vacation to San Francisco.’), start at step three (‘None of us will ever forget the sight of clouds rushing in to completely conceal the Golden Gate Bridge.’). (p. 147)

But his focus on craft never causes Zousmer to lose sight of the big picture. He directs us to ask ourselves, “What is your purpose in writing your life story?” “What are you trying to tell your readers or get across to them?” “Why are you addressing them?” And suggests that some motivations for writing a life story might be: “I’m doing this to discover things about my life,” or “I’m doing this to pass on something to the future,” or “I’m doing this to preserve things from the past,” or “I’m doing this to give my mind a stimulating workout.” Any of which might suffice for us or for our patients. Then Zousmer suggests use the answer to the question, “Why am I doing this” (A version of, “Why are you telling me this?”) to confront issues of order, content, and ending:

When the question is what to say next or what topic to cover next, consult the purpose. When you’re not sure if something is relevant, consult the purpose. When you’re not sure how to handle the ending, consult the purpose. (p. 34)

Telling stories about one’s life turns a chronicle of events into a meaningful structure that reveals assumptions and accommodations, reports on lessons learned, and assesses wishes, expectations, and accomplishments. Through stories, we understand who we are. And we tell others who they are to us through stories. Zousmer’s suggestions and reflections on style, memory, story choice, process, editing, and confession are clear, insightful, ethical, and encouraging. “You should do it. Write your life story.” He says to our patients (and to us).

Published: March 27, 2008