277. The Importance of Vulnerability in Memoir with Christopher Morris

Author Christopher Morris discusses his memoir We Are All Made of Scars, and the benefits and challenges of writing memoir.
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Check out Chris's website:
https://weareallmadeofscars.com/

Grab a copy of We Are All Made of Scars on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/We-Are-All-Made-Scars/dp/B0BRYZTDLM 
 
Follow Chris on social media:
https://www.instagram.com/morrischris/
https://twitter.com/morrischris

Transcript

Jennia: Hello, I'm Jennia D'Lima. Welcome to Writing and Editing, the podcast that takes a whole person approach to everything related to both writing and editing. Author Christopher Morris is joining us today, and he has written an incredibly moving memoir called We Are All Made of Scars. He honestly and openly examines heavier topics like generational trauma and addiction, which leads us right into today's episode. This is, "The Importance of Vulnerability and Memoir."

Jennia: So pleased to have you here! Thank you.

Christopher Morris: Yeah, thanks so much, Jennia! I'm glad to be here.

Jennia: Yeah. Well, can you start by telling us a little bit about what the memoir writing process looked like for you?

Christopher Morris: Yeah, the process was interesting. Just a little overview, the book is about my teen years growing up with alcoholism—with my mom's alcoholism, and kind of that from 13 to 18 or whatever. Obviously, that was a story that stuck with me for years and years and years, and there's—at some points, I was a high school English teacher, and I realized—I was teaching students about the narrative arc. And I realized my story had kind of a narrative arc with my mom's drinking and my own getting into trouble and not going to school and doing drugs, the parallels. And I was like, "Oh, my gosh, there's a good narrative arc there." So I spent years on top of my day job just breaking that down in terms of story and trying to find the time to write it. And after a few years, it was, thankfully, all done.

Jennia: That's so interesting, though. And I can see how that would really get through to you, because sometimes I think we almost have to look at another topic or be in another field of study to really have the light shining on something that we might have been completely missing until then. It's just it offers you that different perspective of looking at it.

Christopher Morris: Yeah. And you probably have on this too, the people I talked to, I—so many people have an interesting story or stories—

Jennia: Mhm.

Christopher Morris: —and it takes so long to find that kind of frame. Like, "Okay, how am I going to tell this story in a way that is compelling and makes sense and is, you know, engaging?"

Jennia: Right? Yeah, exactly. So how did you find your own framework, then, and figure out—because there's definitely a theme in your memoir. So how did you come to that realization of, this is what the theme is, and this is what I'm working around?

Christopher Morris: Well, it's so interesting you say that, Jennia, because when I started to write the book, it was really going to be about my mom's drinking. Like, how bad it was, right? And then as I was writing the book, I said, "Oh, wow, you know, so much of this book is really my honest—an honest look at my own behavior," the way I was kind of reacting to my mom's drinking, and it became more about my journey. So that was really interesting. And then charting out—I'm sure, like many people do, I had an outline of everything that happened, and I wrote it all. And then in the editing process (laughs), to your point, I said, "Okay, what is the story here?" It's really my journey in relation to my mom's drinking, as well as me finding myself and freedom and things like that. I'm sure people that have memoir experience can relate, but I found myself, I'm like, "Okay, I can't fit in every interesting story from being a teen." And that was the thing, when I noticed when I was editing it, I'm like, "Okay, this story with this girlfriend, it's interesting, but I already have two stories that say the same thing. That's fine, cut that out. Okay, this thing that happened with my friends, cut that out. I already have a similar story." So that's the hard thing, I think, with writing memoirs, just finding those stories and details that really support your main arc, main message, because, gosh, the temptation to fit every interesting, funny thing that happened to you is pretty—

Jennia: Exactly.

Christopher Morris: —It's pretty easy.

Jennia: Yeah. Just as an editor of memoir that's something that happens quite frequently. I mean, we might be cutting entire chapters just because, again, they're personally relevant and interesting to you. The people depicted in them might find enjoyment from it, but the random reader may question its relevance and why it's been included.

Christopher Morris: Yeah, there's so many times similar—you just reminded me, there was two chapters I know it was so hard. I know there's that saying, like, "Kill your babies" or something, but—

Jennia: (laughs) "Kill your darlings." It's not quite as harsh as that (both laugh).

Christopher Morris: I know I'm thinking of parental stuff, clearly. But I remember cutting whole chapters of just one where I'm out in the woods with these friends and I get into trouble with this girlfriend and her boyfriend, and I was like, "You know, this is interesting, but it's also going to save me 5,000 words or something." You know, when I wrote my first draft, it was over 100,000 words. And I was like, "Okay, for a memoir this is asking a lot of the readers." So I also knew, "Okay, I need to really trim this down and get to the central kind of events."

Jennia: So be honest but sparse and stick to your theme.

Christopher Morris: So good.

Jennia: Yes. You talked a little bit about writing openly, and that is something that I noticed you did because you didn't seem shy about also embarrassing yourself. It wasn't just about laying out the behavior of other people and why it might have led to certain actions or you feeling provoked in some way. Because even at the time as you're speaking as a teenager, for instance, you look back a few times, and it's just that feeling of, "Why in the world did I do this? What is wrong with me that I would ever think this was even remotely what I should have been doing in this situation?" Was that hard to do?

Christopher Morris: It was so hard. And that's one of the biggest kind of nice feedbacks that I've gotten over the last year and a half, or year that it's come out, is people like, "Wow, you were so vulnerable. You're so open." And I think people want that level of, you know, just openness. It is freeing to, like, for myself to know, like,  I don't have secrets. Like, people I work with now read the book and know that I was in the psych ward when I was, you know, 13, or that I wet the bed, and how I lost my virginity. You know, all these things that maybe you don't share all the time.

Jennia: Right, yeah. That's not usually the kind of small talk we have on an elevator with a random stranger (laughs).

Christopher Morris: No, but two things. One, when I was thinking about writing it, all the research I did around memoir was talking about, "You have to just be as open as possible." Like, people aren't going to connect—They're going to know if you're holding something back. So I just knew—

Jennia: Oh yeah!

Christopher Morris: —Yeah, to your point, like, I had to be open and honest and just put it all out there. And also, you know, when you're writing the book, it was helpful for me just to think, like, "Okay, there's no one saying that I have to publish this thing." So my first draft, I was, like, "You know, if anything—if this is too embarrassing, too much, I'm just going to give it my daughters and be like, 'Hey, don't show anybody. But this is the secret history of our family,' " you know?

Jennia: Right. It's like someone willing their diary to you that they've had hidden for 30 years.

Christopher Morris: Yeah, exactly. But by the time I got more than halfway through, I was like, "Okay, this is actually coming together, and it's gonna work as a story in and of itself, and it's gonna feel good to get it out there." And it was. I mean, it was super scary. I'll never forget, before publishing, I shared the book cover on social media with everyone I knew. And, "Hey, it's finally here. The book that I've been talking about for years in the making, We Are All Made of Scars. " Which already the title is like, "Wow, okay, this isn't gonna be—"

Jennia: It is a good title, yeah. (Christopher laughs)

Christopher Morris: It's going to be pretty revealing. And to see so many people, both in my work life and personal life comment, like, "I can't wait to read it!" People that I really respect, especially in my work life, just I had that moment of, like, "Oh my gosh, what am I doing?" But thankfully, once it was published, again, the feedback was so great in terms of the way people connected to it and the way people connect to that authenticity and vulnerability—

Jennia: Mhm.

Christopher Morris: —I think people do crave that, and I think in our own lives, we don't share these types of things.

Jennia: Yeah, exactly. That might be one reason why vulnerability, especially when we're writing with nonfiction, is so important. Because we want to be able to see that others have gone through something that we're going through, but maybe we've never voiced it before, or we have felt too ashamed to share that with someone. And then that shame drives you further and further away from ever sharing it simply because you don't believe that anyone else could possibly have shared the same experience that you have.

Christopher Morris: Absolutely. Yeah. It's so interesting. And that's probably why I called the book, We Are All Made of Scars, because it's one of those things later on in life I think in my early thirties, I finally realized, "Oh my gosh, all those people that I look to for being normal when I was going through all this stuff in the book, they also had their own issues." You know, no one had a perfect childhood. That was one of the big revelations I had as a grown up is like, "Oh, all these people that I thought were perfect, happy, shiny, suburban people, my neighbors, they also had their own stuff." And I think that definitely made it easier for me to share my story. Just knowing, "Okay, I'm not alone. People are going to resonate."

Jennia: Exactly. Have you noticed any personal changes in yourself, maybe just even in how you look back at some of these things? Because you mentioned, like, just now, knowing, for instance, that not everyone had a perfect childhood, but did really having to go through and really analyze what happened to you in your life change your perspective a little bit at all?

Christopher Morris: That's such a good question. Yeah, the process of, and I encourage everyone, even if you don't want to publish it, I think just—it was so revelatory for me to map out my childhood and my life, you know, in kind of a timeline, in a way that maybe you wouldn't normally. Like, as I was writing my book, I did, you know, spent some time as I was writing the book, talking to surviving family members like my grandma and my uncle, and just saying, like, "Hey, you remember that time that this happened with my mom? What was the deal?" Or, "Remember this?" And I got so much information from my family to fill in these gaps in my life that changed my perspective.

Jennia: Mm.

Christopher Morris: Like, for example, my mom's drinking was pretty severe. And not to get on a whole side note about alcoholism, but, you know, usually if you come from an alcoholic family, you're either going to become an alcoholic, or a para alcoholic, or somebody that has the after effects of growing up in that chaos. But I didn't realize how severe my mom's dad's alcoholism was.

Jennia: Mhm.

Christopher Morris: So my uncle filled in all these gaps, and that was so helpful, just in my own understanding and forgiveness of my mom. Just to say, "Wow, she grew up in this equally, if not worse, family situation." And that was such a big move for me. I'd already kind of forgiven my mom, but it made me look at my mom in a different way in terms of her drinking. Like, "Oh, wow. She survived this hellish experience with her own dad, and she didn't have the tools or resources to deal with it, so she turned to alcoholism." And then there, you know—So there's that, but there's also so many stories and events that happened where just hearing, you know, all this stuff that I just didn't know, and it changed my understanding. You know, all those things where as an adult, you were either confused by or hurt by. Just to be able to fill in those blanks was so... so helpful.

Jennia: Yeah, talking about family, I would think that would be possibly difficult too, to really want to be fully open and really share everything that happened and even how you felt at the time because there is that risk that they will be upset or disagree. So how did you approach that?

Christopher Morris: Yeah, that one was interesting. And it took a while to kind of crack for me. What finally helped me was realizing, "Okay, this is my story and not my dad's, not my mom's, not my little brother's." And that helped me. So I was very careful because I noticed I start to write, like—I would put myself in my mom's shoes in certain events and start to write, you know, that side of things. And I realized, "Okay, this—I can't guess. I can't pretend to guess." It's a first-person narrative story. So sometimes I'd be like, "Oh, I wonder this." So I would make sure I always frame the whole story and events as my perspective, my stories. I'm not pretending to guess what anyone else is thinking or doing throughout the whole book.

Jennia: Was there any material that you ended up removing because of the response you received from maybe a close friend or a family member?

Christopher Morris: Only a couple things. My dad—And it was actually really helpful. There's a couple scenes where some stuff happened with my dad and my mom early on when I was really young, and I just carried this own perception of what happened—

Jennia: Mhm.

Christopher Morris: —and, for example, there's a scene early on where my parents just got divorced and—I was at my grandma's, my dad just got carried away in handcuffs by the police. And as a child, my mom told me, like, "Oh, that was because your dad didn't pay child support." So I was like, "Okay, wow. My mom called the cops on my dad, like, what the heck?"

Jennia: Right.

Christopher Morris: And I thought that was a good example of just that dynamic, and my mom—you know, her ruthlessness, and manipulation, and stuff like that. So my dad, though, when he read the manuscript, he's like, "Hey, P.S., the time with the handcuffs, that wasn't because of child support. You know, child support comes out of your paycheck." And I was like, "Oh, my gosh, yeah. I'm divorced. I know that. Duh." He's like, "Of course, I would have—I paid child support. We're fine. That was because I didn't pay this parking ticket, and it was really embarrassing. They threatened me. I thought I had another week, blah, blah, blah." So I was like, "Oh, okay!" So I took that part out of the book, and I was able to kind of get to that concept with my mom a different way. But that was just a good example of, one, my dad clarifying something. And it also helped me because I've been carrying this memory around of my dad getting arrested for 30 years. And I was like, "Oh my gosh. Thanks, dad. We've never had this conversation before. Thanks for clearing that up."

Jennia: That's really amazing, though, too, being able to even just have that level of clarity added in for your own life.

Christopher Morris: Yeah, yeah.

Jennia: And if you hadn't written this memoir would you ever have even learned that?

Christopher Morris: No. Same—Like I was saying before, there were so many events growing up that family members, yeah, keyed in this, like, context for me, that—

Jennia: Mhm.

Christopher Morris: —yeah, if you were—if I wasn't writing a memoir I just [would] have lived my whole life not knowing.

Jennia: Wow. I wanted to talk a little bit about how you think this level of vulnerability impacts the reader, because I think we've really addressed how it helps the author. I mean, look at everything you've already shared and what you discovered, not just about yourself, but even other people in your life.

Christopher Morris: Yeah, that one—it's come up in conversations so much with readers the last year. People have come to me with—I remember I got this random Instagram message from one saying, "Hey, I appreciate the vulnerability and, you know, your perspective. You know, when I was a teen, I always thought stoners were just these, you know, bad kids. But now your book kind of gave me this understanding of, like, 'Oh, maybe a stoner is someone trying to escape some really bad situation like I was.' "

Jennia: Yeah.

Christopher Morris: I was like, "Oh, that's interesting." I didn't even—that wasn't even intent, because I think my intent really was to write the story and have it connect to your point about the readers.

Jennia: Mhm.

Christopher Morris: Just having that level of vulnerability, and, you know, I lay out what it's really like to live with a parent that's drinking, binge drinking, a lot, and having to deal with that struggle. Because that's just not a story you hear too often. So I think from what I've heard, it's hard—you know, I can't speak for people reading the book. I'm obviously a little close to the story,

Jennia: Right (both laugh).

Christopher Morris: But so many readers—

Jennia: Not a surprise (laughs).

Christopher Morris: —Yeah, so many readers have said, especially ones that have been in similar situations, that they were able to connect. You know, I love getting pictures from their, you know, "Oh my gosh, this happened to me. It made me cry." And, you know, being able to connect with certain events—

Jennia: Yeah.

Christopher Morris: —And things like that, you know, even trauma sometimes.

Jennia: Right! And I think too, it can help us make sense of things that have happened in a way that we might not have otherwise. Because you offer explanations and even just on a not so much of a deep level, but, like, the person talking about, they didn't realize that stoners weren't this or that. But I think it goes beyond so much more than that too. And even again, talking about the conversations you've had with your family where without this extra information, we might never have made that leap on our own, and we would have just continued on our entire life with this narrow and incorrect mindset of what's occurred.

Christopher Morris: Yeah, that's so true. And it was so interesting. My brother and I, because we don't live super close, I think when I published the book, one of the most meaningful things he said is—he said, "Wow, Chris, I had no idea... You know, I was there. But also..." he was younger, so he missed out on all this stuff. He's like, "I never would have known what you went through. So it was pretty meaningful for both my dad and my brother to see this window into what happened.

Jennia: I can see why. Yeah, I think that almost might be very similar to, again, the concepts people have about, say, the stoners, again. We do that to everyone in our life where we go in with this understanding that we have formed from whatever information we had at the time or even our age and our circumstances at the time. And it's through that limited filter that we then view the other people. So again, if we don't have some sort of circumstance like a memoir being shared, we miss that opportunity so often.

Christopher Morris: So true. So true.

Jennia: Switching a little bit, how did you prepare to share your story publicly? Was there anything that you braced yourself against, such as the reaction you might get from people?

Christopher Morris: Great question. A couple things. One of the things is I thought it was really important for the editing process... because I was kind of nervous. Just said, "Okay, people that know me have read it and they're going to give me good feedback, probably because they don't want to hurt my feelings, or ruin our friendship, or whatever."

Jennia: (laughs) Right.

Christopher Morris: So I did find a group of beta readers, or people to read the book that didn't know me because I thought that was important

Jennia: Mhm.

Christopher Morris: —for the book and my story to stand on its own. Like, "You're just going to read this from front to back, not knowing who this Chris Morris kid is and still enjoy it for what it is." So I found a group of people on Reddit—there's a beta readers subreddit—and gave them some questions and gave them the manuscript. And that feedback was helpful to shape the book. The beta readers were so helpful to fill in those details where—

Jennia: Ahh.

Christopher Morris: —just to kind of paint the picture for those that don't know me (laughs).

Jennia: Right.

Christopher Morris: That was so great. But yeah, so the beta readers was helpful and then also, yeah, just the usual kind of run up to publish it. If I could go back to [a] thing I did not do is spend time getting, you know, blurbs and things like that. Like, in my next book, I think I'm going to spend way more time getting the blurbs and reviews before publishing. Because I did it all afterwards. And now I've got all these great reviews, but I'm, like, "Ah, this would have been so great to have six months before my book went out in the world." So if you're listening, that's my big advice is—I think I was so excited about getting my book out, I was, like, "Whatever, I just want it out. Done." And now it's like, oh, it pays to maybe sit on it for six months and get people excited about it.

Jennia: I think that's something, though, that a lot of authors, again, especially if they're going to be self-publishing, and maybe they don't have that team of people who are in the know about how publishing works. You just don't really think about it so much. It's more focused on writing the book and then getting the book out. Not all the 10 million other little things that go along with it.

Christopher Morris: There's so much. And this book, for me, I mean, it was with me for, like, three to five years in different forms. So by the time I was done and edited it, I was, like, "All right, I just want it out." You know, it's just kind of, like, I want to move on with my life, literally (laughs).

Jennia: I've actually heard that's how you know you're really ready to release the book into the world, is when you're sick of looking at it (laughs).

Christopher Morris: So, yeah, so, I mean, I love it. It's great. But it is funny. You do reach a point, because you do realize, I'm sure you talk about this all the time, but you can tinker with a book your whole life. And I think you do have to just say, "Okay, I've hit this point. I've—"

Jennia: Yes.

Christopher Morris: —"It's good enough. It's great enough. I think it's ready."

Jennia: I'm a huge fan of the good enough train of thinking.

Christopher Morris: Yeah. Because even now, like, when I did the audiobook, it's so funny, I was—I read it myself, and—

Jennia: Mhm.

Christopher Morris: —probably halfway through the book, I was like, "Oh, this sentence is kind of weird. I should probably tweak that." Or, you know, "Oh, this..." So I ended up doing some editing as I was doing the audiobook, again, after publication. So if anyone's listening, they read my book the first day versus six months later, I would probably be the only one that noticed it. But there were those things.

Jennia: Well, do you think it's ever possible to be too vulnerable?

Christopher Morris: What a great question. It depends. I was very careful. You know, I didn't want to—with my own story. That's—I could really only speak to that. I think it would have been too vulnerable if I would have shared stuff, you know, secrets that maybe my mom shared with me, or my brother, or, you know, other family members. It's like, that's not my place, that's not my story. If I'm going to do harm to somebody with this information being out there, you know? And I think that really the only person that is harmed by my book would, I guess, [be] potentially me. I mean, but and I don't think it did. But I think that was a train of thought, is, "I don't want anyone to be hurt by this."

Jennia: Yeah, that's a great distinction—

Christopher Morris: Yeah.

Jennia: —that's just very solid advice.

Christopher Morris: Right. And even—I was worried about, you know, again, my mom has passed away now, twelve years. But I didn't want to do her wrong either, because even though she was an alcoholic and there's all this bad stuff that happened... I'm very careful in the epilogue, the end of the book, to say, "All this stuff happened that you just read about. But I'm not mad at my mom. I'm mad at the disease of alcoholism." Like, that's the true villain here—

Jennia: Right.

Christopher Morris: —not my mom as a person. That's an important distinction.

Jennia: Yeah. Do you think that some authors or writers aren't quite ready for this kind of openness? And not just for writing for themselves, but for writing for a larger audience, knowing their family and friends will read it? And if so, how can they identify that maybe they aren't quite there yet?

Christopher Morris: What a great question. And an important question, I think, for me, you know... I'm in my forties now, and this stuff happened when I was a teenager. If you would have said when I was 30, like, "Hey, Chris, you have this opportunity. Macmillan is going to give you a million dollars (Jennia laughs) to publish your memoir." I'd probably say, "There's no way." Like, I don't want anyone to know I, at the time, even dropped out of high school. So I think for me, I needed to get to a place in my own recovery, in my own journey with, like—I've been to therapy, I've done EMDR, I've been going to Al-Anon—which is a group for friends and family of alcoholics—for the last 13 years. So I needed to get to a place where I was just really comfortable sharing this. I think the big barometer for me, sorry, was when I first started going to Al-Anon meetings and sharing my story about my mom. Like, my voice would crack and I would cry. And, you know, cut to, I just spoke in a meeting a couple weeks ago, and I was laughing, dropping jokes, sharing the story, as if—it's almost like I could see my childhood now and the events that happened as like a movie that happened, as opposed to—

Jennia: Ahh, interesting.

Christopher Morris: —Yeah, as opposed to, like, the stuff that happened, because I think I've worked through it enough where—you know, all that stuff has shifted, where—

Jennia: Mhm.

Christopher Morris: —I feel sadness for young Chris, but I don't feel sadness—like, I'm not carrying it with me in a way where, I don't know, it hurts. So I think to those listening, if the idea of even publishing it gives you, like, a knot in your stomach, like, a deep one, like, okay, maybe—

Jennia: Right.

Christopher Morris: —maybe let it sit for a while. Like, you'll know. Your body does keep a score—

Jennia: Oh, exactly!

Christopher Morris: —It tells you.

Jennia: I completely agree. You know, just listening and being aware of those changes in our body and what they're telling us, instead of, "Maybe I should just push by this." (laughs)

Christopher Morris: Yeah, 100 percent. There was someone when I spoke at this Al-Anon meeting recently, someone afterwards said, you know, "Hey, I hope I get to a place in my recovery dealing with my own alcohol trauma where I can speak about my story with clarity and humor, like you did." And I was, like, "Wow, that is the biggest compliment." Because it did take years of, you know, just work to get to a place where, yeah, I can write a book, or I could speak somewhere and tell the story, and it doesn't cripple me into a fetal position (Jennia laughs). Like, "Oh my gosh, why?" And I think that's a big distinction. It's super important.

Jennia: Completely agree. Well, thank you again so much. And do you have any parting advice? Anything we didn't cover that you'd like to touch on?

Christopher Morris: I think—I'll just hammer home—I think it is important, you know, if you're thinking about a memoir for those listening, if you have an idea, something in your life even if you don't publish it. Like I said, I think if I had never published the book, but I had written it all out, it was so helpful and cathartic and therapeutic for me to put those pieces of my life together in a new frame and context that, you know, I'm so glad I did it. And it makes me—like, there's other parts of my life now where I say, "Oh, I wish I could go back with the magnifying glass at that thing." And I have thought about that. So, anyway, my advice is, yeah, there's something to be said for trying to lift under those rocks in your life and say, "Okay, what really happened there?" It could be really healing.

Jennia: That's excellent advice. Thank you.

Jennia: Thank you for listening, and please make sure to check out the show notes for more information. I look forward to you joining me next week as author Veronica Klash will be here to tell us about writing flash fiction! And if you enjoyed today's episode, I'd greatly appreciate it if you took the time to leave a rating or review wherever you happen to download or listen. Thanks again!