Some elements of writing a memoir are really just putting words down, one after another, until you have enough. But if you’ve tried that before, or if you’ve been following our content for a while, you know that’s not all there is to it. Long form writing of any kind happens in a series of stages. Depending on your project, your progress through the stages may or may not be very linear, but from our experience the work always feels better and the final product is much stronger when you have clarity about what those stages are, the goals of each stage, and how to move through them in an efficient order so you are not spending precious creative and cognitive energy in the wrong place at the wrong time. While publishing has its own processes, the five stages of memoir are the dreaming stage, development, drafting, revisions, and editing. Each comes with its own challenges and the advice that applies to one stage won’t fit in with another. When you understand how the whole process works from beginning to end, you are much better equipped to produce a powerful book.
Before we get into today’s post, we wanted to ask—do you have a plan for actually finishing your memoir? If not, we know you aren’t making the progress you hoped for. That’s why we developed The Memoir Method Checklist. This free guide (and video training!) will take you through every single step you need from idea to published marketable book. Grab it now at https://pageandpodium.com/checklist
Move from Macro to Micro
When you’re working on a memoir, from the first spark of the idea all the way through completing a full manuscript, the most reliable guiding principle is this: always move from the general to the specific. In the earliest stage, everything is wide‑open. You don’t yet have a defined insight, a clear arc, or even a firm sense of what the book wants to become. That openness is the central challenge to starting out: the possibilities are endless, and nothing is pinned down.
As you progress, you should feel yourself naturally moving into narrower and more focused territory. Development asks you to begin shaping the material, making decisions, and building an outline. Drafting requires even more specificity as you translate ideas into scenes, reflections, and narrative movement. Revision narrows the lens further, helping you refine structure, deepen meaning, and strengthen the throughline. Editing brings you to the most granular level of all: sentence rhythm, clarity, and word choice. The key here is once you’ve made big-picture decisions, you don’t want to move backwards. You want to be able to stand on those core choices so that all of the smaller and smaller choices that follow serve those central goals you formed first.
This macro‑to‑micro progression is a cognitive necessity. Jumping back and forth between big‑picture decisions and tiny line edits is exhausting for the brain and often leads to confusion, second‑guessing, and unnecessary rework. When you move through the stages in order, you give yourself time to think expansively when the work calls for it and time to focus tightly when the manuscript is ready for that level of attention.
The Dreaming Stage
The first stage is exhilarating and often misunderstood. Many writers want to skip ahead to imagining titles, cover designs, or clever symbolic motifs. Those are so fun to think about, and don’t throw out little ideas as they come, but those are details. At this earliest, most expansive point in the process, your real task is to ask who you want to be on the other side of writing this book. The answer can be as modest or as ambitious as you allow it to be.
This is why the dreaming stage belongs at the most general end of the macro‑to‑micro spectrum. It’s not about the specifics of voice, structure, or publishing strategy—those come later. It’s about giving yourself permission to imagine the life you want this book to help you build. When writers skip this stage, they often stall out not because they lack discipline or accountability, but because they haven’t clarified what the book is meant to do for them. That motivation becomes the engine that carries you into the next phase—development—where the dream begins to take shape on the page.
Development Stage
I often encourage writers to think of the development stage as the 10,000‑foot view. It’s more focused than the dreaming stage, but still intentionally high‑level. Development is where you begin turning possibility into structure.
This stage is, at its core, your outlining and planning phase. By the time you leave development, you want an outline that’s detailed enough to guide you through the writing ahead. Think of it as a set of instructions for your future self: a map that tells you what you’re doing next and why. It’s the plan that keeps you oriented as you move into more specific, more cognitively demanding stages.
The biggest mistake writers make here is the same as in the dreaming stage: they rush. They want to get to the “real writing,” so they skim past development or try to complete it in a weekend. Slowing down now saves you months of confusion later. A thoughtful outline gives you clarity, direction, and momentum. It’s worth every minute you spend on it.
The development curriculum inside The Memoir Method™ lays out this often underestimated step‑by‑step with templates, worksheets, and support from coaches and peers who’ve been through it. Whether you work with us or on your own, the point is the same: development deserves time, attention, and care.
Your outline gives you structure, but it also leaves space for inspiration. It keeps you grounded, but it doesn’t trap you. You need both the plan and the freedom to explore. The balance between the two is what makes the writing process not only productive, but genuinely alive.
Drafting Stage
In drafting—my favorite part—you descend into the much more detailed, on‑the‑ground work of writing scenes, reflections, and chapters, armed with your outline any time you need to remember what’s next. Drafting is your first major step into true specificity and where you can make all the complexities of your ideas come to vivid life.
The biggest trap writers fall into is writing a chapter and then immediately trying to “fix” it. It’s an understandable temptation, but it’s also the fastest way to stall out. Once you start tinkering, you can tinker forever. It’s also difficult to leave something imperfect on the page and keep going. But the truth is: you cannot know how to fix any individual chapter until the whole draft exists. Chapters don’t function as isolated units; they work in conversation with one another. Again and again, writers discover that the “problem” they wanted to fix in chapter two resolves itself naturally in chapter eight.
Get the story down so that, later, you can evaluate it with clarity and make informed decisions. Keep moving forward. Keep laying out words and following the path. Keep trusting that revision is coming next.
Drafting is often the longest stage of the entire process. It asks for stamina, patience, and a willingness to tolerate imperfection.
Revision
Revision—Amanda’s favorite stage—is where all those words you laid out during drafting is refined, reinforced, and made into a whole that feels so natural and complete, it will give that illusion that it just came out that way. It’s not polished yet—that comes later—but revision is where you strengthen the structure, clarify the movement, and make sure every part of the manuscript is working in relationship with the whole.
Our number‑one piece of advice for beginning this stage is simple and non‑negotiable: start with a reverse outline. When you finish drafting, the outline you created during development and your actual manuscript probably only matches about 80 percent. Now you need to understand where you made discoveries, where you veered off plan, and how those changes affect the overall shape of the book.
A reverse outline helps you do exactly that. Instead of looking at your original outline, you look only at the manuscript. You move through it section by section, writing down what’s actually on the page. This is also where many writers accidentally slip into editing instead of revising. The reverse outline solves that problem. It reveals where the structure is strong, where something drags, where sections may feel thin, and where the emotional or narrative logic needs reinforcement. It shows you what to change and why.
Revision is the least defined stage because it varies so much from writer to writer and book to book. But the principle remains the same: be intentional. Don’t blend revision with editing. Don’t polish sentences before you know whether the scene, they belong to even stays. Use your reverse outline to guide your decisions and keep yourself up in that macro view.
Editing
Editing is the final descent into precision. This is where you get to shape sentences, refine rhythm, choose the perfect words, and make the prose sing. Whether you love lyrical, expansive lines or sharp, pithy ones, this is the stage where you get to play on that detailed level.
The crucial thing to understand is that once you begin editing at the sentence and word level, any major structural changes become exponentially more expensive—emotionally and time‑wise. During revision, entire sections may be cut, rewritten, or rearranged. If you’ve already polished those sections, you’ve invested energy into work that may not survive. That’s why editing must come last. It’s the reward for doing the harder, messier structural work first.
Our number‑one piece of advice for this stage is simple: do not begin editing until you are certain the shape of the manuscript is final. For most writers, that certainty comes from getting professional eyes on the draft between revision and editing. Some people choose a traditional developmental edit. At Page & Podium, we take a slightly different approach and offer a manuscript review instead—focused specifically on structure, clarity, and narrative cohesion. It’s a faster, more affordable way to confirm that your revisions are solid before you invest in polishing.
Whether you choose a developmental edit, a manuscript review, or another form of professional support, your goal is to finish your revisions completely before you touch the sentences. Editing is more efficient and satisfying when you know the foundation beneath it is strong.
When we list these five stages in order, they sound deceptively simple. In reality, writing a memoir is a long, meaningful adventure—one that often takes a year or more. If you want to move through the process with clarity, support, and a sense of steady progress, we hope you’ll reach out. In The Memoir Method™, our group program, we keep cohorts intentionally small so every writer gets live support, personalized feedback, and a clear next step at every stage.
PS. Searching the internet for writing, publishing, and book marketing advice can be exhausting to say the least! If you’re ready for hands on, one-on-one support for your memoir, check out The Memoir Method. We’d love to welcome you into this nine-month group program specially designed for women writing their first memoirs. And don’t forget, if you’d like to chat with Amanda about the program (or any other services we offer), you can book a free consult any time!
