You have worked long and hard to write your memoir. Memoir editing would be fine but you are ready to turn the computer off and receive the accolades you feel you deserve! You want to be finished.
Wouldn’t it be great to have “I’ve gotten my story out and that’s that with my memoir” be the same as “the story is ready to affect the reader”?
At some level, you are ready to move on, but, wait! is your memoir ready for its audience? Is what you have a penultimate draft rather than a ready-to-be-published manuscript? It may even be a very good draft but it’s probably not the finished manuscript you are hoping it is.
This is the time to engage memoir editing.
Every writer ought to engage an editor before moving a manuscript on to the public. When you think your writing is completed, you probably still need memoir editing. An editor will help you to identify any shortcomings in your memoir and help you make the decisions you must make to develop the story, its theme and its promise, to its maximum potential for all to appreciate. Memoir editing will help you assess the pacing and shaping of your story and help you tighten both.
In conclusion
The information in the posts below will help you with these tasks. After you’ve read the posts, come over to our memoir editing services pages and check out how The Memoir Network can help you to generate the best manuscript you are capable of.
More memoir-writing resources at The Memoir Network.
Recently, we sent our list of free resources. “Free” is great—in fact, we call it “superior”—but “free” can take you only so far. For more memoir-writing resources, explore the following.
Your fee-based options to learn memoir writing:
Our store:
~ The Memoir Store contains dozens of titles on the art and craft of memoir writing. Stock your ereader and / or bookshelves with quality memoir-writing titles.
Your books have given me a foundation in writing. They’ve taught me what to expect and how to go about writing.
Our programs & packages offer more memoir-writing reosurces:
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Writing a Memoir Is a Big Project. It Calls For the Project Manager Function.
Succeeding in writing a book of memoirs in an expeditious and meaningful fashion is important. If you dwell in your memoir project manager function for even a short while before you jump into your worker mode and write, write, write, you may be very pleased with how more smoothly and quickly you create.
I am not talking about outlining a story here. No, I am talking about setting writing schedules that don’t interfere with commitments, clearing unnecessary commitments so that they don’t nag at you, getting cooperation from other people in your household, and making sure you have the research capacity to pull off writing your memoir.
Writers love to dream and to do the writing. What they don’t like is planning their writing life. So… the planning is overruled and then the writing life is full of interruptions and rough going.
A Memoir Project Manager Helps You Set Goals for Your Memoir
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Be a Better Memoir Writer with Deliberate Practice
We all wear many hats as we go through our days. In my case, I am a writer, a memoirist, a teacher, a memoir coach, a memoir editor, a co-author, a book publisher, and finally, a small business person. I wear those hats with pride and, I hope, some accomplishment.
Beyond these, I wear other hats as all of you do also. One is that of an athlete of sorts: there has been swimming, jogging, and weight lifting. In this post, want to focus on how I worked on my physical conditioning through deliberate practice and then apply that to memoir writing.
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So You Wonder How Memoir Editing Works
You ask how memoir editing works. This is an important and reasonable question.
In this post, I will take you through a typical process. (The process explained here is one an inexperienced writer would take. An experienced writer can expect to shorten the process.)
How Memoir Editing Works
When I begin the memoir editing process with clients, I tell them that proper editing generally requires three “read-throughs.” Unless the manuscript is already at a high level of organization and polish, no editor can give a manuscript all the attention it deserves in one reading.
That’s simply how memoir editing works when done properly
Reading a manuscript without doing any specific editing and forming only a general impression has always seemed a good idea in theory, but I have not found a way to do so that is economical for the client. I have therefore evolved this concept of read-throughs as a memoir editing technique. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
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What Is Developmental Editing and Why You Need It for Your Self-Published Memoir
What is developmental editing and do you need it? If the big New York publishing houses NEVER publish a manuscript without extensive editing, why would you as a self-publisher?
A professional memoir editor can quickly and effectively help you tweak your lifestory so that you get to say more clearly and dynamically what you have been trying to say. You can’t write your best memoir without developmental editing—it’s game-changing.
Editors come in many stripes: some are copy editors, others are content editors while still another kind is a developmental editor.
In this post, I want to focus on developmental editing and how it will help you write a memoir you can be proud to send into the world.
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Help to Write My Memoir: Here’s What a Top Editor Does for You
What a Top Editor Does For You
People often ask, “What sort of book editing input does a client receive from her/his Memoir Network editor?”
The answer, of course, varies according to the client. No two receive the same response. We always individualize.
You persist in asking, “Yes, yes, but what sort of manuscript input can I expect from a memoir editor that I begin to work with?”
“Ok, I get it—you want a sample communication.”
Here is one that went out to a new client who had sent us a manuscript and wanted us to read it through and make overall recommendations. This is an actual letter so, to protect the client, we have taken out all references that might point to the client and identify him or her or his or her story. We’ll show you the same respect.
What a top editor does for you is push you
Dear Editing Client,
I have read through about half the text you sent. So many good things to say about the memoir manuscript: [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]
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How to Cut Memoir Text
To ensure that your memoir is a tight one, it will probably be necessary to cut some of your text.
Having finished my childhood memoir, French Boy / A 1950s Franco-American Childhood, of course, I have been thinking of all the things that I did not put into the memoir. Some of these omissions, I would say, were interesting and might have contributed to my story’s theme and plot line. However, the memoir had reached 350 pages, and I knew it was imperative to limit any further lengthening of the story.
Many writers have said—and I paraphrase—”a work of art is never finished. It is merely abandoned.”
Keeping this observation in mind, I understood, as every writer must, that I needed to choose the point of abandonment carefully. Cut back too early, and you don’t make your point—establish the importance of your theme—in your memoir. Abandon too late, and you risk having too much in your memoir and turning your reader off.
Cut memoir text
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Before Sending Your Manuscript To An Editor / Part 2: Use of Time
Note from the Editor: This second installment of Before Sending a Manuscript to an Editor series offers basic editing tips around time use of time. For Part 1: Self-Editing Techniques Click here. For Part 3: Time Sequencing and Flashbacks Click here
Clean Up Your Use of Time
This second post on self-editing revolves around the use of time. In the next post, I will write about time sequencing and flashbacks.
1. The historical present looks like the past, but it isn’t.
What tense are you going to use to narrate your story?
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Better Self-Editing: 3 Easy Techniques
In today’s post, we look deeply into 3 techniques for better self-editing—obviously there are many more but these three are a start for a short post.
I have been a memoir editor since 1990. In that time, I have worked with hundreds and perhaps thousands of memoir manuscripts.
A few manuscripts have come to me requiring only slight tweaking. The texts are clear, coherent and concise. They are nearly ready for publication. Their authors have created an interesting and well-crafted piece of writing. They have clearly mastered better self-editing.
Too many other manuscripts, however, have come to me at a stage that reflects tired or exasperated writers. They seem to be saying I’m-ready-to-have-this-writing-over-with!
The challenge of self-editing
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