Memoirs are based on reality—your reality as you remember it. Don’t make up (lie) about important things, partly because somebody will know or find out and then people wonder if they can trust anything else you wrote. Not to mention, as in the case of The Salt Path by Raynor Winn (pen name), you could be toying with people’s empathy and emotions, and we generally don’t like being fooled.

If for some reason you want to completely or partially hide a truth that’s important to the story—because it is a very bad reflection on you or too embarrassing/traumatizing or you don’t want to get in trouble with—write something general to explain, don’t flat out lie or make up something. By the way, including what you think is a negative look on you can just make you seem human like everyone else, and more relatable. We all make mistakes and sometimes behave badly. Unless you seriously hurt someone or committed crimes, but even then, people are curious about these stories and they can be about redemption and healing.

The Salt Path memoir has a great storyline of running off to escape life stresses and indulge in nature to find physical and spiritual healing, so for the most part it is probably true and inspiring, so much so that a movie has been made of the book. Sadly, the surrounding “facts” taint the story, and for some it taints the author and the whole book. Beware. Know that you can always fictionalize your story and say it is “based on a true story,” which works for commercially available books which are then labeled as fiction. Don’t try to sell this to your family as “truth,” though.

AP article about The Salt Path book controversy