Should a Memoir Focus on Just One Theme or Time Period? It Depends on Your Intentions

Memoir authors are typically told they should center their story around one particular theme or time period. In response, they tend to write about subjects like divorce, abuse, health struggles, caregiving, or travel, all of which have been extensively written about already. Other writers ignore the advice and try to pack their whole life into a single narrative, sometimes shoehorning two or three unrelated books into one. As a book editor and writing coach, I’m sometimes asked if I agree with this advice …

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Should You Rewrite Your Novel or Memoir as a Screenplay?

If you’ve been shopping your book to literary agents and have had no luck courting their interest, you may have heard you should rewrite your novel or memoir as a screenplay. Guess what? Screenwriters who’ve had no luck with their scripts are being told the reverse: that they should rewrite their screenplay as a novel. I have a foot in ... Read More

The Flattery of Friends Doth Not a Writer Make

I just finished critiquing a story for an aspiring author who was very surprised at the feedback he received. In contacting me, he said he had written several novels he hadn’t yet tried to publish. He wanted to add some polish to one before sending it out to agents, hence his decision to reach out. I read the first chapter, ... Read More

The Lowdown on Appendixes/ Appendices

Sometimes nonfiction authors get confused about appendices: what they are, how to do them, when they are needed … and how to spell them! An appendix is supplementary material (usually an article, form, or list) that an author adds to the back of the book. It can be anything you want your readers to …

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