Perhapsing: What To Do When We Don’t Know

In the craft book Tell It Slant, Brenda Miller and Suzanne Paola ponder the question memoirists face again and again: Does nonfiction mean “no fiction”? What do we do when we don’t remember or know all the details? How do we handle the fact we are all inherently unreliable narrators? “Perhapsing” is a term coined by Lisa Knopp to describe one technique a memoirist can employ to signal to the reader that they are now speculating. We will experiment with this strategy (and others) while focusing on how to simultaneously establish and maintain intimacy and trust with the audience.