Stories We Tell Ourselves: How Writers Use Storytelling to Explore Memory and Identity

by Gila Green

As a writer, I've long been drawn to characters who carry fragmented memories and fractured identities—those who question where they come from and what parts of their past they're willing to claim. Perhaps it's because, like many Jews, I've inherited stories that span continents, languages, and generations. These stories are not neatly contained within a singular narrative or tidy conclusions; instead, they reflect the complexity of a people whose history is marked by exile, return, survival, and re-invention. Memory in Jewish culture is not just personal; it's collective. And Jewish storytelling has always been our way of making sense of that inheritance.

Jewish stories, whether passed down through oral tradition, written texts, or contemporary works of fiction and memoir, have a distinct way of bridging the personal and the collective. The act of remembering is never just for the sake of nostalgia; it is for survival, identity, and a shared understanding of the past. In this sense, memory itself becomes an act of storytelling.

Memory as Narrative

Writers understand that memory functions much like narrative: it is selective, colored by feeling, and easily reshaped. When we sit down to write a scene from our character's past—or from our own—we're not just transcribing events. We're choosing what to emphasize, what to omit, and what to question. This act mirrors the way memory itself works. What we remember, and how we remember it, is as much a creation of the present as it is a reflection of the past.

In Jewish literature, memory often serves as both a compass and a burden. In works like Amos Oz's A Tale of Love and Darkness, memory is tied to language, exile, and loss. His recollections of his mother are not merely biographical; they're emotional reconstructions, meditations on how grief and geography shape a person's sense of self. Memory is not a clean record in Oz's work. It is a mosaic, fragmented and subjective. Through his writing, Oz demonstrates how memory functions not as a static archive but as a living, shifting thing—always in conversation with the present.

I've found myself returning to similar themes in my own writing: moments when I'm unsure whether a memory is real or if it has taken on a life of its own. The emotions tied to those memories, however, remain undeniable. That's what gives storytelling its power. It allows us to explore memory not as a series of objective facts, but as living material—open to interpretation, revision, and even contradiction. And in this revision, we craft not just a narrative, but a more complex version of ourselves.

Identity in Flux

In the Jewish tradition, memory isn't just about looking backward; it is about forging a relationship with who we are now and who we are becoming. We just passed through Passover, a time when we come together, not merely to remember the Exodus, but to relive it. "In every generation," the Haggadah tells us, "each person must see themselves as if they personally went out of Egypt." This isn't just a ritual act; it's an invitation to reshape our identity, to integrate the past into our present in an active and conscious way. We don't simply read history at the seder table; we embody it. We step into a collective memory that shapes who we are as a people, but also how we define ourselves as individuals.

This retelling of the Exodus every year isn't just about remembering; it is about reinterpreting, re-feeling, and re-claiming an experience that belongs to everyone, yet is uniquely personal. In this way, Jewish identity is never a fixed state. It is a dynamic process, one that shifts as we pass through different stages of life, as we encounter new challenges, and as we bring new meaning to old stories. It's the story of migration, survival, and continuity. But it's also the story of change, growth, and reinvention.

As writers, we mirror this process of self-shaping every time we craft a character who must wrestle with their origins, reframe a family legacy, or question the truths they've inherited. In my fiction, I often return to characters caught between worlds—linguistic, cultural, or moral. Their identities are in constant flux, shaped by what they remember, what they forget, and what they are finally ready to claim or discard. Much like the Israelites who carried Egypt with them even after they left, my characters are rarely free from their pasts. But they are not imprisoned by it either. They use storytelling as a means of grappling with their pasts and moving forward—no matter how fragmented or incomplete their memories may be.

Cultural and Collective Memory

In Jewish life, memory is not merely an individual exercise; it is a communal responsibility. We remember in groups—whether in synagogues, around holiday tables, during national ceremonies, or in increasingly popular contemporary Jewish writing. From Yizkor prayers to Yom HaShoah sirens, we are invited—and sometimes commanded—to hold memory for those who can no longer speak. This communal remembrance is not a passive act; it is a moral one. To remember is to honor, to give voice to the silenced, and to ensure that those stories are passed on.

Writers take part in this sacred work. In our stories, we preserve voices, revive places that no longer appear on modern maps, and confront silences that span generations. Jewish historical fiction, in particular, often bridges personal identity and collective trauma: the lingering echoes of pogroms, the Holocaust, exile, and return. These narratives ask what it means to belong—to a family, a people, a language—when that belonging has been ruptured.

I've felt this most keenly when writing about characters with blurred borders—those who have inherited fragments of the past: a single photograph, a name that doesn't translate, a half-remembered lullaby. Their sense of self is shaped as much by what is missing as by what remains. And yet, through storytelling, they attempt to piece together meaning. In this way, writing becomes a way of reassembling the broken fragments of history, identity, and memory.

Why It Matters Now

In today's world—where personal truths compete with historical facts, and where artificial intelligence can simulate memory at the click of a button—the writer's role in preserving honest complexity feels more urgent than ever. We live in an age of instant information, but that very speed makes it harder to sit with complexity, uncertainty, and nuance. Stories remain one of the few tools we have to slow down, reflect, and wrestle with ambiguity. In this world, where memory is constantly reshaped by social media and algorithms, we are at risk of losing the deeper, more complicated narratives that define us.

For Jewish writers especially, the intersection of memory, identity, and storytelling offers a fertile, if sometimes painful, terrain. We write not only to remember, but to interpret. Not only to document, but to imagine. And through this process, we continue an age-old tradition: shaping Jewish identity through storytelling, one voice, one story at a time.

The Editorial Lens: Honing Memory and Identity on the Page

Writers exploring memory and identity often face the challenge of untangling emotion from narrative, and fact from interpretation. That's where editing becomes essential, not just as a technical process, but as a second layer of storytelling. The first draft may be messy and sprawling, as memories often are. But the real work comes in the revisions—the moments when we prune away the excess and clarify the core of the story.

When we revise, we ask ourselves the hard questions:

• Does this memory serve the character's arc, or does it weigh it down?
• Is this identity coming through clearly, or is it still buried beneath ambiguity?
• Are we being honest, or are we protecting ourselves from what the story is really trying to say?

As both a writer and an editor, I've learned that the most powerful stories about identity and memory often appear in the second or third draft. They emerge when we're willing to cut what's extraneous, clarify what's obscured, and trust that the reader doesn't need everything explained—just deeply felt. We must also be willing to confront the things we are hesitant to write, as they often hold the deepest truths.

If you're writing your own story—whether fiction or nonfiction—and want to ensure your themes of memory and identity come through with clarity and resonance, editing is where that transformation begins. The process of revision can turn a good story into a great one, as long as we are willing to embrace the uncomfortable work of reimagining, reshaping, and reinterpreting our own memories and identities on the page.