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LK & Friends provides professional editorial work for memoir, survivor stories, and personal histories.
Below are practical tips to help you strengthen your writing — especially if you’re drafting on your own before sending it for editing.
Righting the Writing Tip #1 — Most memoir drafts start too early.
Don’t begin with childhood unless the story begins there. Start where something changes. Background can be added later — if it strengthens the story.
Righting the Writing #2 — Explaining weakens narrative.
Righting the Writing #2 — Explaining weakens narrative.
If you tell the reader how to feel, you lose authority. Show what happened. Let the reader draw the conclusion.
Righting the Writing #3 — Cut 20%.
Righting the Writing #3 — Cut 20%.
Most first drafts are overloaded. Repetition, over-justifying, over-explaining. Tightening the manuscript almost always strengthens it.
If you want a professional structural edit applying these standards to your manuscript, visit the Memoir & Manuscript Editing page.
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