\n<\/p>\n
You need to know this. It can make or break your story.<\/p>\n
I see talented writers lose readers over it all the time\u2014and often, they have no idea they\u2019re doing it.<\/p>\n
I was editing a memoir recently and found myself obsessing over something the author wasn\u2019t<\/em> writing about.<\/p>\n Money.<\/p>\n She had written beautifully and vulnerably about incredibly difficult things. Trauma. Relationships. Healing. Starting over.<\/p>\n But there was one glaring omission: She had money.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not that she had private-jet, champagne-for-every-breakfast money. But she did have enough financial freedom that she could take time away from work when she needed to. She could travel to gorgeous locations, get world-class support, live in stunning surroundings, pay for the best therapists, and give herself time and space to heal.<\/p>\n None of this bothered me. What irked me was that the book never acknowledged it.<\/strong> And I\u2019m finding this surprisingly common.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you don\u2019t address the elephant on the page,\u201d I find myself writing in the margins a lot lately, \u201cyou risk slowing your reader\u2019s momentum\u2014or maybe losing them altogether.\u201d<\/p>\n As readers, we\u2019re little investigators. We\u2019re constantly collecting clues, trying to understand the world of a book. Where does this person live? How do they support themselves? Who pays for this? How are they able to take six months off? Who funded their restaurant, their startup, their PhD program? How can they afford all this therapy? How are they traveling yet again?<\/p>\n We may not consciously formulate the questions. But some part of our brain is keeping track. And when the math doesn\u2019t math, we notice.<\/p>\n This is essentially what I told my client. You don\u2019t owe readers your bank statements. You don\u2019t have to list your net worth, explain your inheritance, defend your investments, apologize for your house, or provide an audit of every financial advantage you\u2019ve ever had.<\/p>\n Please don\u2019t.<\/em><\/p>\n But sometimes one or two sentences can create enormous trust. Something as simple as:<\/p>\n Thank God I\u2019d gotten lucky with a few investments during those hardcore working years\u2014that I could afford to take some time off. I knew how fortunate I was. So many women don\u2019t get that luxury.<\/em><\/p>\n Done. Mystery solved. The reader can move on.<\/p>\n Because here\u2019s the deal: If there\u2019s something obvious in your life that you\u2019re working hard not to tell me, I can feel the hole where the information should be.<\/strong><\/p>\n And that hole can become more distracting than the truth.<\/p>\n We talk constantly in memoir about setting.<\/p>\n Where are you? What does the room look like? What can you hear, smell, taste, touch?<\/p>\n But financial circumstances are part of setting, too.<\/p>\n Money\u2014or the lack of it\u2014affects virtually everything: where we live, how we work, how we heal, how long we can grieve, whether we can leave a marriage, hire childcare, take a sabbatical, afford treatment, or get on a plane when a loved one needs us.<\/p>\n Far from judgment, that\u2019s context.<\/p>\n If your memoir is filled with five-star hotels, live-in nannies, spontaneous travel, expensive treatments, or long stretches without an obvious paycheck, readers are going to wonder how you\u2019re paying for it. Just as they\u2019d wonder how you were surviving if the electricity kept getting shut off.<\/p>\n Both are relevant. Poverty affects the plot. Wealth does, too.<\/p>\n There\u2019s another reason I\u2019m a fan of addressing the obvious yourself: Somebody else will likely address it for you. And then you lose control of the narrative.<\/p>\n We live in the age of internet sleuths. Readers Google. So do journalists, TV producers, and podcasters. People look up houses and companies and divorces and lawsuits and family histories and everything else imaginable.<\/p>\n Especially once a memoir gets attention.<\/p>\n If your book presents you as struggling financially while public information suggests something very different, that discrepancy can become the story\u2014which we\u2019ve seen play out in a very high-profile way this year around Belle Burden\u2019s juggernaut memoir, Strangers<\/em>. After the book became a sensation, The New Yorker<\/em> dug into court documents and raised questions about financial details the memoir had left out, including the extent of Burden\u2019s inherited wealth. Suddenly, instead of everyone talking about the heartbreak and betrayal at the center of her story, a whole new conversation erupted around what she had, or hadn\u2019t<\/em>, disclosed.<\/p>\n Whether you think the criticism was fair or wildly overblown isn\u2019t the point. From a memoirist\u2019s perspective, the lesson is worth paying attention to: If readers discover important context somewhere other than your book, the omission itself can become more interesting than the story you wanted them to focus on.<\/strong><\/p>\n And maybe there\u2019s a perfectly reasonable explanation! You can have money and still be terrified about money. You can inherit wealth and feel tremendous shame about it. You can own valuable property and have very little cash. You can look rich and be drowning in debt. You can have access to family money you refuse to touch or can\u2019t access yet.<\/p>\n Money is complicated, whether you have a lot of it or a little.<\/p>\n Great! Put the complication on the page.<\/strong> That\u2019s interesting. That\u2019s memoir.<\/p>\n Often, a writer will say to me: \u201cBut I hate talking about money.\u201d<\/p>\n I understand the pushback. Money can carry shame in every direction. We\u2019re ashamed when we don\u2019t have it. We\u2019re ashamed when we do. We\u2019re ashamed if we inherited it. We\u2019re ashamed if we lost it. We\u2019re even ashamed if we\u2019ve earned every penny of it.<\/p>\n We\u2019re ashamed if we want more. We\u2019re ashamed when other people have less.<\/p>\n But discomfort isn\u2019t necessarily a reason to leave something out of a memoir. Sometimes it\u2019s evidence that you\u2019ve found something worth examining.<\/p>\n You can even write about the discomfort itself:<\/p>\n I\u2019ve never known how to talk about money.<\/em><\/p>\n Well, hello. Now you\u2019ve got me.<\/p>\n Why can\u2019t you talk about money? What did your family teach you about wealth? Were you told it was gauche to discuss? Do you feel guilty for having more than your friends? Did money make you safer? Lonelier? Freer? More frightened of losing what you had?<\/p>\n Did money protect you from certain consequences while making absolutely no difference when tragedy arrived?<\/p>\n That\u2019s where the real story may be.<\/strong><\/p>\n Years ago, a writer friend said something to me that I\u2019ve never forgotten.<\/p>\n She told me that certain advantages can create distance between an author and a reader before the author has said a word.<\/p>\n Beauty can.<\/p>\n Fame can.<\/p>\n Talent can.<\/p>\n Money definitely can.<\/p>\n I was startled by this at the time because we rarely experience ourselves the way strangers experience us. We know our insecurities. Our childhood wounds. The bills we worried about. The rejection letter that gutted us. The parts of our bodies we\u2019ve hated since seventh grade.<\/p>\n The reader doesn\u2019t know any of that yet. They only see what\u2019s on the page.<\/p>\n And if what they see looks impossibly glossy, they may unconsciously think:<\/p>\n Easy for you to say.<\/em><\/p>\n Now they can\u2019t relate to you. They may even dislike you without knowing why.<\/p>\n That\u2019s where vulnerability holds real power.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t Apologize for Your Abundance. Make It Mean Something.<\/strong><\/p>\n This is one of my favorite ways to handle money in memoir.<\/p>\n If you had resources that helped you survive something terrible, perhaps that\u2019s part of the story.<\/p>\n If you could afford excellent therapy, leave your grind of a day job, move overseas, hire a shark of an attorney, or retreat somewhere beautiful while you put yourself back together, here\u2019s an idea:<\/p>\n What if, instead of hiding that fact because you\u2019re afraid readers will judge you, you acknowledge it\u2014and let it deepen your purpose?<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cI kept thinking about the women who couldn\u2019t do what I had done. Who couldn\u2019t take three months off. Who couldn\u2019t afford this therapist. Who couldn\u2019t leave. I began to understand that telling this story might be one way of sharing some of what my resources had allowed me to learn.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Now you\u2019ve got my buy-in. Because we\u2019re going somewhere interesting. Your abundance stops being something you need to defend and becomes something you can use in service of others. Maybe even a big part of why you\u2019re writing at all.<\/p>\n This is advice I give authors all the time, and it applies to far more than money.<\/p>\n If there\u2019s something readers are inevitably going to notice, don\u2019t make them drag it out of you.<\/strong> I\u2019m talking about anything materially relevant that the reader can see\u2014or will eventually discover.<\/p>\n Race.<\/p>\n Beauty.<\/p>\n Age.<\/p>\n Fame.<\/p>\n Family connections.<\/p>\n Education.<\/p>\n Religion.<\/p>\n Addiction.<\/p>\n Privilege.<\/p>\n Debt.<\/p>\n A famous last name.<\/p>\n A powerful spouse.<\/p>\n A trust fund.<\/p>\n Whatever materially affects the story.<\/p>\n You don\u2019t have to explain everything. Or reveal things that aren\u2019t yours to reveal. It\u2019s not your job to surrender your privacy to write an honest book.<\/p>\n But ask yourself:<\/p>\n What is my reader going to wonder? Where could I slow their roll?<\/strong><\/p>\n And then:<\/p>\n Have I given them enough information that they don\u2019t have to keep wondering?<\/strong><\/p>\n Sometimes the answer requires a chapter. Or a paragraph. And sometimes? Two sentences will do.<\/p>\n But those two sentences can be the difference between a reader thinking, She\u2019s hiding something from me<\/em> and thinking:<\/p>\n Okay. I trust her. Keep going.<\/em><\/p>\n Your reader doesn\u2019t need your bank statement. She just needs the truth. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n Write on! PS. Want more insights and writerly ramblings? I\u2019ve put my most cherished know-how and stories in Beautiful Writers: A Journey of Big Dreams & Messy Manuscripts\u2014with Tricks of the Trade from Bestselling Authors<\/em><\/a>. It\u2019s my soulmate book. If you\u2019ve ever received value from my work, I\u2019d be over the moon if you\u2019d purchase a copy, listen to the audiobook, share a review\u2014you know the drill. It\u2019s all so appreciated. You\u2019ll never know how much it means to me, until perhaps you publish your book! \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\nYou Don\u2019t Have to Explain Shit<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Money Is Part of the Setting<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Don\u2019t Make Readers Find Out Somewhere Else<\/strong><\/h3>\n
The Thing You\u2019re Most Uncomfortable Discussing May Be the Thing We Need<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Beauty, Wealth, Talent\u2014and the Relatability Problem<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Control the Narrative by Telling the Truth<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Linda xo<\/p>\n