Articles You Wouldn’t Take Home to Mother: How to Write About Embarrassing Topics
All too often our assignments–or our artistic sensibilities–require us to expose our foibles, rehash humiliating anecdotes about our friends and family, or reveal intimate details about our sex lives. How can
we deal with the dilemma of writing for an audience of thousands on topics we wouldn’t mention to our own mothers? How does a writer write about, say, his search for the perfect toupee, knowing that his friends and family will soon be privy to his hair-raising secret?
Lie Like a Rug
I subscribe to this technique, myself. When my mother-in-law recently asked me what articles I was working on, no way was I about to tell her that I had just finished an article for Redbook called “The Better Orgasm Diet”; instead, I told her I just finished a piece on “nutrition.”
Greg Blanchette is another writer who uses this approach. Blanchette undertook an ambitious sailing voyage around the world in a small, open boat, and wrote a series about it for a sailing magazine. “My parents, of course, wanted copies of the articles,” says Blanchette. “What makes a good article in a sailing mag is thrills, danger, narrow escapes–of which there were plenty. But that’s not what a parent wants to read. So I assured them that the hairy parts were played up for dramatic effect–they weren’t.”
Protect the Innocent
You’re reading an article about people with a shoe sniffing fetish, and you notice that one of the names is marked with an asterisk. Your gaze drops to the bottom of the page, where it notes, “This name has been changed.” Is your enjoyment of the article any less now that you know that the fetishist’s name has been changed? Of course not.
Before you try this tactic, check with your editor. Redbook was once interested in a slightly raunchy idea of mine, but their new policy was to print sources’ real names. The result: Although I got plenty of anonymous anecdotes, I couldn’t get a single person who wanted to talk about their bedroom romps on the record.
Fake Your Name
By day, Jane Simons* writes service pieces for family magazines. By night, she becomes Tanya West, a risqué writer who pens erotica for a living.
Pen names are yet another tool for the wallflower writer. “My erotica writing might prove both embarrassing to my family and detrimental to my other writing projects, especially for the family magazines,” says Simons. “Using a pen name allows me to write erotica, which pays fairly well, without compromising the rest of my assignments. It’s not that I’m ashamed of what I write; it’s just that I’ve seen other writers lose the bulk of their more legitimate writing assignments when it was discovered that they wrote erotica.”
The one drawback to using a pen name is that Simons can’t take credit for her erotica on her writing resume, “so it appears, at the moment, that I have no fiction writing credits.” However, adds Simons, ” I’ve received some strange ‘fan’ mail, and I’m just as happy that those people can’t easily find me.”
* This name has been changed. (See, I follow my own advice.)
How about you — have you ever written on a topic you didn’t want your mother (or spouse, or kids, or friends) to know about? What did you do to avoid embarrassment? Let us know in the Comments below!
This article first appeared in Writer’s Digest.
What a great article! Thanks for sharing your insights and tips with the rest of us.
Thanks, Gwynneth!
The last section reminds me of Kristin Lamb’s advice. She says to not use pen names, because they make creating platforms harder and they don’t work for privacy anymore because of the Internet.
I’m not sure if I agree with her or not…
Those are good points! I’d say it depends on your situation and what your writing goal is.
I have just finished my first book, Eldercare Is Making Me Fat, about the, um, challenges my husband and I face as the children of a 96- and 91-year-old mothers. A couple of the chapters? “I’m the Mother, You’re the Child” and “I’m Glad I Was Wearing Underpants.” On Amazon, I’m billing the stories as “irreverent and truthful but touching.” That said, I’m hoping my own mother’s short term memory is bad enough that she’ll never realize what happened and that I’m still fast enough to dodge when my mother-in-law comes after me in her power chair.
Wow, sounds like a neat book…I hope you get away with it!
Thanks, Linda! I found your blog via a PubIt post to Facebook. Great topic and very timely for me, obviously. I’m following you on Twitter now and looking forward to seeing what else you tackle here. Cheers.
Thanks, Charlotte…I look forward to seeing you around the blog!
I had a short story published in an erotica anthology last year. I used a pen name, although one that will be easily recognizable to family members. My mum knows it was published and asked me to send her a copy, which I’m still too embarrassed to do. My husband’s first novel had a graphic sex scene in and I think I’m far more embarrassed that she read (and enjoyed it) than she or my husband are.
Too funny, Fiona. I think I’d be the same way — more embarrassed than my relatives!
I’m so on the fence about this one…
The topics on my blog haven’t reached the point that I’ve released any incriminating evidence, so to speak, but I’m ready to stir a little more emotion and connect with my audience more.
I believe it’ll take transparency to do so, even at the expense of being a little embarrassed… hmmm.
Of course, I’ll protect the innocent, and fortunately I don’t have any strange fetishes (which wouldn’t work on my blog anyhow).
You’ve got me thinking, Linda.
Glad I got you thinking, Chad! Don’t forget there’s a continuum of how much you may want to share to connect with your audience — it’s not all or nothing. For example, I share about my medical conditions here, but there are some things I DON’T share.
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