Truth of My Memoir

1) What is your story about? Are the details you selected true to that focus?
a. My story focuses on my past, maturing faster than my friends due to bad influences and the consequences of those actions, good and bad. I have to revise my memoir a bit to better display my focus, but the details I have so far are true to that focus, nothing is made up, except for some minor details that my horrible memory has lost.
2) Are there any "facts" which you are uncertain of which you have set forward as true?
a. I am uncertain of exactly what color certain things were, or the times; smaller things like that, but nothing major.
3) Have you made changes in setting, time, or sequence which are unacknowledged?
a. I acknowledged all that I do not remember by adding phrases such as “I believe it was…” or “I think it was…”
4) Have you fabricated dialog which you cannot remember (without acknowledging that you do not remember exact words)?
a. I do not have much dialogue in my memoir, but the dialogue that I put in is not very fabricated at all.
5) Have you written your experience - or does your story cast you in terms of a "type" (like Frey)?
a. I have written my experience, which may cast me as a type, but it is all true.
6) Are there relevant details which you deliberately left out? Why did you leave them out? Anything you are trying to avoid?
a. N/A
7) Do you suspect any resort to psychological defense - representations which may help you to deny or evade feelings/beliefs/ representations/ actions you may not be proud of?
a. N/A
8) Can you detect any hedges, evasions, revisions which represent the self as more sophisticated, experienced, thoughtful, etc than the self at the time of the writing?
a. N/A
9) What is suggested by what you selected to represent, and what you chose to leave out? Have you selected details to make your story more dramatic, more persuasive, or more "profound" than it merits? Does it need to be balanced by the addition of other selections in order to make it "true"?
a. N/A
10) Does the tone of your essay reveal anything about your relationship to your material? Why do you think you chose the tone you take in your essay (humorous, ironic, serious, self-righteous, respectful, lyrical . . . .)
a. I still need to work on the tone a bit, since I changed my focus
11) Have you demonized or idealized any of the people in your story? If so, what was your motive? Why do you think you wrote to that particular need?
a. The only person who seems to be demonized in my memoir is my cousin, but no, I represented her quite accurately.
12) If there are some pieces of the truth that you intend to hold back, can you tell this story "truthfully" despite those missing pieces? What might you need to add to make sure you do not misrepresent what your story is about?
a. N/A