What if i don’t remember the things i want to write about?

No stress.

I had a project with four writers – count ‘em! – who wanted to describe an episode that was formative for all of them … but that happened forty years ago. Each had parts of the story they couldn’t remember, which is understandable. The problem was that all of them could remember the episodes. And they didn’t always agree. That left huge holes in the story.

I spoke to them individually and together. We brought in other people who had been there. We looked through old archives and photographs.

Slowly, we straightened out the contradictions and filled in the gaps. Not every detail, it’s true. Some things we agreed to fudge, and some we decided we could live without.

And that’s when a writer earns his or her corn. They have the skill to tell the story in a way that covers the gaps so that the reader doesn’t even notice them.

Of course, if you can’t remember anything, that could be more of a problem…