It’s good to be reminded of the ethics of storytelling involving other people. I’m talking specifically about family or friends who could be embarrassed or hurt by something I write.

I’ve always felt ownership over the stories from my life, but who really owns a story, and what right do I have to tell it?

Nobody’s life is lived in a vacuum. There are lines one can cross when telling tales that involve others. What can you say without asking someone for their permission or participation? It’s probably a risk that journalists deal with all the time, but being an amateur writer, I’ve tried to find the ethical boundaries on my own, and to think hard about tactics and work-arounds to keep a story on-point without risking someone else’s privacy and peace of mind. It can be a real balancing act.

Here are some filters I use to guide my personal story writing, when dealing with sensitive topics:

• Will telling the story do more harm than good? There’s a line between telling an impactful story with a point, and telling a dramatic story to get attention. Just because there were various abuses and mental illness in my family background, that doesn’t entitle me to tell similar-themed stories of other people I know. Other people own their own stories, and unless I get their permission or participation, their story is not one I should be telling. For example, one family member straight-out asked me not to write about an incident that had personally affected me. It had affected them much more than me, and they wanted to avoid embarrassment. It was a fair request, so I’ve never written about it.
  
  
• Did the event happen to me personally? This simple filter can help to keep me steered towards relevance while avoiding causing pain to others, just by respecting boundaries of privacy. I despise gossip and would never want to be seen as a spreader of hearsay just for the sake of spinning a colourful tale.
  
  
• Is the person who might be hurt by your storytelling still alive? If the subject of your story has died, this may seem to cancel-out the factors listed above, but it really may not. What about other relatives who are still alive, who may take exception to your rendition of the dead subject?
  
  
• Is your portrayal of a person or event reasonably balanced? I’ve found that an all-negative portrait of someone is never accurate in any case, so balancing negative perceptions with some positive ones helps to build a more-well-rounded portrait, and may balance the scales a bit. Still, be careful.
  
  
• When dealing with sensitive topics, can you get permission or participation from the the main subjects, or their rights-holders? Try to do this. It’s ethical, respectful, and can save you from getting into all kinds of legal hot water. In my case, I asked my sister if it was okay for me to relay some painful stories from our shared past. They involved me directly, but the underlying pain she’d gone through and was still going through was primarily her stories to tell. Between us, we worked out a timeline of events and the people involved. I let her approve my final edit and told her that if she ever changed her mind, the story could easily be pulled off my site. There has to be responsibility and trust, and I’m grateful that she trusted me to render some extremely difficult moments. It was very brave on her part.
  
  
• Existence is subjective, and everyone thinks they’re the hero of their own story. I may feel like the world revolves around me, but that’s just my ego and one-sided perception. Be fair-minded and balanced.

It helps to remind myself that I’m just a microscopic mote in a world which has meanings and motivations that are so much bigger than me and my little life. Underneath each series of events can be found deeper patterns that often relate us to each other. Those shared patterns are the things really worth writing about.