Real Stories. Fake Names.

One of Writer Abroad’s favorite bloggers has a big photo of her 10-year-old son on her blog today. It got Writer Abroad thinking. Because Writer Abroad does not put personal photos of friends and family members on Facebook, blogs, or social media sites.

But that doesn’t stop her from writing about these people for magazines and books.

So isn’t she contradicting herself?

Probably. Life is full of contradictions and so is Writer Abroad, but still.

Writer Abroad has written about her family several times for national newspapers and bestselling anthologies. Does this give away their identities in the same way that posting a picture of them on Facebook would?

The 21st century sure makes answering questions like this complicated.

Writer Abroad has been thinking a lot about this lately. Especially since her editor mentioned two things: 1. Get more personal and 2. Consider using pseudonyms—even in the acknowledgements.

So…where is the line between revealing too much and not revealing enough? Between real stories and fake names? Does anyone else struggle with these things? Does anyone else have different policies regarding what they will share in their writing versus what they will share on social media sites?