When you’re writing your first memoir, it can be difficult to know what to expect. That can cause a lot of fear and anxiety, sometimes even to the point of stalling our progress.. As humans, we are hardwired to seek out safety through certainty. But when you set out to write your first memoir, there is precious little certainty to be found.
- How do you make an outline or write a scene?
- Should I go for a traditional book deal or sign on with a hybrid press?
- Will Aunt Brenda sue me for the way I described her jerky husband?
- How will this process change my perspective on my life?
Wherever you happen to be in this process, it can be helpful to have some sense of what’s coming down the pike. It can feel really scary to step into a process you haven’t experienced before. You don’t know what to expect, so it’s hard to know how to optimize for the outcome you want.
This post will outline the commonalities in experience among the dozens of memoir writers I’ve worked with over the past fifteen years. Some of this will likely be familiar from your own experiences of tackling large or uncertain projects, but I hope other aspects will shed some light on how to get through the uncertainty of the writing process.
Oh, and while we’re here, did you know Page & Podium Press offers Manuscript Reviews? Once you finish your memoir draft and are ready to hand it over to a pro for feedback, we’d love to see what you’ve been working on. We’ll read your full draft and offer feedback on its strengths and weaknesses, plus clear, detailed feedback on where to focus during revisions. Sign up for a consultation at https://pageandpodium.com/contact.
Uncertainty and Memoir Writing
I want to get one thing on record before we dive in. While it’s totally understandable to seek out safety—we are humans, after all—that need for certainty will create a lot of problems when you’re writing your first memoir. Often I see first-time authors spending huge amounts of time, energy, and emotion trying to find clarity before they begin.
The truth is that a new type of project will always require you to begin before you have certainty. I like to use the metaphor of “baby steps.” We tend to think of these as small, safe little steps, but baby steps are actually wobbly and a little out of control. Babies have to try to take steps before they are certain of their footing—in fact, we make them do so—because walking requires practice. There is no certainty of footing unless those feet have already been on the ground for a while.
I point this out because I often see people looking for a type of certainty they’re not likely to find—certainly not before they begin and sometimes not ever.
That’s okay.
When we write books, especially personal books like memoirs, a big part of what we’re doing is building our capacity for discomfort.
Each of us has a limit to the amount of discomfort we’re willing to put up with. Some people can tune out a confrontation happening around them, while others feel an intense urge to leave the room. Some hold steady through the adrenaline of bungee jumping—for them, the discomfort is worth the rush—while others would never consider it.
When you choose to write a book, you are choosing the discomfort of not knowing. You don’t know how the process works any more than a baby understands walking. You can’t be certain of whether or how you’ll publish the book in the end. And, I promise, you truly have no idea how transformative this process can be for your healing, both on your own and within relationships.
The great news is that the very best books come out of an ability to expand that capacity for discomfort. The most celebrated authors are those who learn to sit in the gray area and feel around for what seems both unusual and true. If we can allow the process to be uncomfortable, often the uncertainties will reveal themselves in their own time. The prize waits for those who feel the itch of wanting certainty but resist the urge to scratch.
This is one of the strongest arguments for getting real support on your memoir. It is really difficult to hold the uncertainty of emotional discomfort along with the uncertainty of not knowing how the process works. Book coaches offer a container for you to explore the things you haven’t fully grappled with. And of course, we can help you translate your realizations to the page in a way that draws others in.
With that said, let’s move into the eight things you can expect to experience as you write your memoir.
1. Develop Your Voice
When we talk about voice, many people assume authors need to sound a particular way in order to be taken seriously.
This is not true.
In fact, inexperienced writers are much more likely to pile on million-dollar words, poetic symbolism, “literary” sentence structures, and other “artsy” approaches. Trying to adopt a voice like that can actually be a clear sign that you’re a new writer.
More importantly for memoir, a generic “literary” voice robs your reader of the chance to actually know you.
Instead, aim for your own natural voice. What do you sound like when you tell a friend a story over coffee or wine? When you write an email to a friend, what types of words do you choose? What types of sentences? The last time you texted something that required an explanation, what did you say?
While you might choose to skip the emojis and text abbreviations, the way you naturally communicate is a far better option than a generic “literary” voice.
Voice is simply a reflection of how you communicate to your reader.
As a side note, this is one of my biggest concerns about AI. If “voice” were a single, stable thing we could all aspire to, AI would be a great shortcut. But it’s not. Reading is enjoyable because we get to experience a variety of natural voices. They might not seem so different on the surface, but all of those unique, subconscious choices add up to the personality of our writing. I worry that AI is flattening out the human voice because so many of us think we need to sound some particular way or people won’t listen to us.
In fact, you are much, much more likely to get the attention of the people you want to speak to if you speak as yourself, if you can let go of needing it to be perfect so that it can be authentic.
Don’t ignore the voice you’ve been developing all your life. Lean into your authentic, genuine, true self. That is going to always serve you better than any box you think you’re supposed to fit into.
2. Accept That You Need Structure
Most less-experienced writers, and certainly most first-time authors, need structural support.
It is easy to forget that even the most experienced writers cannot hold a whole book’s worth of plot in their head. Even writers who seem to work intuitively are usually relying on years of practice, internalized structures, and a willingness to spend a lot of time revising.
This is where I want to clarify a common misconception. If you’ve spent any time around the literary world, you have probably heard the term “pantsing.” This is short for “flying by the seat of your pants,” meaning that when you write a book by pantsing, you simply write. You do very little planning, and you let the characters or the story show you where they want to go.
There are many famous writers who stand by this method. Stephen King is very well known for being a pantser, which is amazing because his books are not only quite long, typically, but also have very complex plots, often with many more characters than we would expect in a typical novel.
So why is Stephen King able to pants these amazing stories, but I’m telling you that even experienced writers can’t hold a plot in their heads?
The reason is that if you start out your book by pantsing, you should expect to spend much, much longer in revision.
And honestly, most of the clients I work with would not even call that revision. They would call it rewriting.
When you pants a book, you start by putting everything out there the way you think it will go. You let the characters guide you. Stephen King is famous for saying that he designs the place, he designs the characters, and then he lets them tell him where they want to go.
But he does not expect that first draft to be something he would turn over to any reader, even his agent. Instead, he knows that because he pantsed that book, he is going to have to go back to the beginning and rewrite it.
Now, if that is not enough of an argument for why pantsing is often not the way for a first timer, let me add that pantsing a memoir is a particularly bad idea.
When we think about pantsing a memoir, we give ourselves no structure at all to decide what goes in and what stays out. People who try to pants their memoir often wind up with something that looks much more like a journal than a book.
A journal can be meaningful. A journal can be healing. A journal can be an incredibly important tool in your personal life.
But a memoir needs to be shaped for a reader.
That means it needs to be interesting for people to engage with. It needs to be something your readers will not only finish, but finish and enjoy and tell their friends about. And that requires structure.
Pantsing is hardly ever good advice if you are a first-time writer. Instead, what I find is that the most supportive thing is usually a step-by-step process to get the development done.
Remember, earlier I said one thing you have been working on your entire life is your voice. On the other side of that, structure does have particular rules. And most of us had very little exposure to those rules in K-12 or even college.
So a step-by-step process may feel oversimplified. Some people love that. Other people feel boxed in by it. But if you can get through the sense that your story is being oversimplified by taking a step-by-step approach, you will be so much better off.
That is a really early hurdle that many people have to get through: realizing and internalizing that you do need an outline. You do need a plan.
As a side note, in our group program, The Memoir Method, we start every client out with our seven-step trademarked development process. This takes you all the way through dumping your ideas out, refining your topic and message, figuring out how those pieces work together, and plotting the arc so your book can read like fiction if that’s what you want: an engaging narrative your audience can really connect with.
That process culminates in an outline you can share with others for feedback and, within the program, with Emily and me for professional feedback before you even start writing.
This takes so much pressure off first-time authors, and I can’t tell you how valuable it is.
If you’d like to learn more, you can check it out at pageandpodium.com/memoir-method or make an appointment to talk to me at pageandpodium.com/contact.
3. Learn to Play Within the Structure
Once you have gotten through that step-by-step process, once you have figured out how to structure your memoir as a whole, you will be so much more prepared to play with that structure.
This is just like any new skill. At first, we need the training wheels. We need the step-by-step guidance, the rules, the examples, and the clear path forward.
But the further you go through the process, the more you will start to feel your instincts guiding you in one direction or another.
I bet there are at least a few of y’all reading this who are thinking, Oh, that sounds like such a dream. How do I skip to that part?
And y’all, I feel you.
Unfortunately, the only way to get there is to get in there and play. You have to take those baby steps in the dark and feel your way through.
But the good news is that if you get the structure part done correctly in the previous step, you will start to feel freer and freer as you move through the writing process.
You will start to be able to think about structure, at least for a chapter, in your head. You’ll be able to hold part of the shape in mind and play with how you want that structure to unfold—across chapters, within paragraphs and sentences, or with your memoir as a whole.
This is my very favorite point in the process to support people because I love to see people having a big win.
We’ve had a lot of this lately in our group program. Folks are finally sharing with us that they have learned to trust their instincts. They’ll say something like, “I think I was supposed to do X and Y and Z, but I actually wonder if the right choice for this chapter might be A and B and C.”
And oh, it warms my heart.
Because almost always, once you get to this point where you are consistently playing within structure and have the accountability to keep moving forward, you come to a place where your instincts are way, way better than any cookie-cutter advice you could find on the internet.
You come to a point where you are feeling your way through to the next right choice.
And y’all, it feels so, so good.
If you are already there, that is such great news. Because this skill is not going to go away when you finish this book and start the next one. Once you learn to trust your instincts inside a long-form project, you get to carry that skill with you.
4. Notice When Generic Writing Advice Stops Helping
At this point in the process, when you start to have stronger instincts and feel more at home in the writing process, something frustrating often happens.
It can feel like the rug gets pulled out from under you.
The reason is that once your instincts get stronger, all of the writing advice on the internet starts to feel much, much less useful.
That is a bummer. I get it. It is difficult to pull ourselves away from old habits, especially if those habits helped us get started. But what I want you to remember is that the reason it feels like that is because you are expanding your capacity for discomfort.
And the way you are expanding that capacity is by exploring your freedom.
One of the ideas we build our whole company around is this relationship between constraints and freedom. Something I do not hear talked about often enough in the arts world is the fact that every single piece of art is created under some set of constraints.
That is true whether we are talking about writing your first memoir or creating something like visual art, a song, a play, or a movie.
Typically, we have constraints that come from the genre or format itself. A book needs to be written. It needs to go on pages. A movie needs to be a particular length to fit within industry expectations.
But some of those constraints also come from ourselves.
Those constraints can look like things we believe a book should do. They can come from negative feelings we have about ourselves and whether we are able to do the project we are trying to do. They also often come from a sense of whether we even have a right to be working on this book.
Is your story worth it?
Is it good enough?
Will anyone care?
But the beautiful thing that happens when your instincts start building is that you begin to move away from some of those constraints. Some of the shoulds, some of the self-doubts, some of the worries about how you will fit in the larger world once the book is done—those things start to feel less like facts and more like old fears.
Now you are flowing into the freedom side of this relationship.
Now you are exploring what it really means to create, to express, to get things out of yourself in a way that is rewarding and satisfying.
This can be a double-edged sword. If you are someone who has become really reliant on the internet, if you spend a lot of time watching videos like this, listening to podcasts, reading other people’s blogs and books, this stage can feel a little bit out to sea.
Again, I want to encourage you to remind yourself that you are expanding your capacity for discomfort. Having this much freedom might feel unsettling at first, but it is actually really, really good for you.
Once we get through that feeling of having too much freedom, we can start setting constraints that are purposeful. Constraints that are meaningful. Constraints that are about our particular audience, the goals we have for the book, and our own thought leadership and sense of purpose.
Those are the valuable constraints.
First, we have to break away from the others.
That is what is happening when you start to trust your instincts, break away from all of the internet advice, and explore what it feels like to really give yourself the freedom to play.
Because it is from that place that we develop the guiding constraints we have chosen for ourselves.
5. Resist the Urge to Start Over
Often around the time writers start to trust their instincts, explore a little more freedom, and shed some former constraints, they are also about halfway through the book.
This is often what we call the messy middle.
And as we move through that middle part, some things start to shift.
On one hand, as I just mentioned, you will start to feel much more confident, intentional, and in control. You will start to feel more guided by your purpose.
But at the same time, you will also realize how much better you are as a writer than you were when you started.
This is not bad news. Oh my gosh. We love to improve a skill.
But what it signals to so many writers—and listen up if you’re multitasking, because this is important—is that often when you get to that midpoint, the difference in your skill from the beginning to where you are now will falsely try to convince you that you should start over.
You shouldn’t.
The thing I think is pretty magical about the writing process, particularly with long-form books, is that when you move from chapter one through chapter 20, of course you are going to be more skilled in chapter 20 than you were in chapter one.
You’ve written 19 chapters since then.
The problem is that we often think, Well, I’ll scrap this because now I know what I’m doing. I’ll start over.
But guess what?
You are still going to get to chapter 10 and be a lot better than you were at the new chapter one.
It is a cycle, and it will continue forever.
So what do we do instead?
We have to embrace our discomfort and resist the urge to run away. We have to resist the urge to scrap the whole thing. Because if we can keep going, even as the process gets harder in those last few chapters, we can actually finish the manuscript.
There may be a voice telling you to stop. There may be a voice telling you to start over. There may be a voice telling you that now that you know more, the only reasonable thing to do is go back to the beginning.
Do not let that voice take over.
At this stage, the process can feel like dragging yourself across the finish line. But you are also seeing real skill growth. Lean on that. Lean on your new confidence. Lean on your ability to play in a way you couldn’t before.
That is what will help you get the manuscript done.
6. Prepare Yourself for Revision
The next thing that often comes after the first draft is something that can feel, unfortunately, like despair.
What very often happens when you finish that first draft is that it comes as a surprise, even though you cognitively knew it, that you are going to have to revise.
We talk about revision a lot and very intentionally in The Memoir Method group because I hate the way this sneaks up on folks. But the truth is, it probably will sneak up on you.
When writers get to this point, they often start to feel frustrated. Not always only with themselves. Often with the manuscript. Often with anyone supporting them. Often with the world in general.
This can sound like self-talk that says, I thought I was done with this.
Or, How am I supposed to cut stuff?
Or, I spent so long putting this on paper. Why would I delete anything?
It is going to feel like resistance. It is going to feel like the last thing you want to do.
So when you get to this stage, remember that revision is actually what starts to lead you to the fun part.
When you first start revising, I recommend going through your structure first. We have a video called “How to Revise Your Manuscript,” and it gives some practical tips on how to get started. But the main advice we always share is to begin with the structure.
In this case, I suggest starting with a reverse outline.
Before, you outlined and then used the outline to write your manuscript. Now, you are using your manuscript to create an outline based on what actually exists on the page.
This is a much more boring process than it sounds like, but it is incredibly useful.
Effectively, you are going section by section or chunk by chunk through your manuscript and making a note in a separate document of what you are seeing on the page.
Do we start with a scene about the first time you and Aunt Sally got in a fight?
Write down: scene, fight, Aunt Sally.
That’s all you need. Just a little note.
Is the next piece a reflection on the historical context of the moment?
Write that down: historical context.
Then is the next part a scene? Write that down too.
And so on until you have noted your entire memoir into this outline format.
This process does a lot of things for you, but the reason I want you to do it first is that it helps you get a sense of what you are actually working with.
One thing I find when writers go into revision is that they are somehow both overly optimistic and overly pessimistic. There is, within the same person, a sense that the manuscript is nowhere near good enough and never will be, and also a sense that they have worked so hard and are really proud of what they did.
Both can be true.
Be proud. You did work hard. You can get your manuscript to where you want it to be.
But there is also a significant chunk of work left.
Go into this process realizing that you have done something pretty amazing. Look at that outline. Look at everything you have created.
At the same time, recognize that it may not be up to your standards yet. That does not mean the manuscript is bad. It means there is more you can do.
You can make structural changes. You can move things around. You can improve sentence structure and flow.
It just takes work.
This is also the point where you may feel even more detached from the writing advice you used earlier in the process.
When you first started writing this book, you probably needed a step-by-step process. You probably needed a really clear guide for how to move forward.
As you move through the process, you get more used to the structure. You can play more with instinct. You can trust yourself more. You can be free. You can get in there and make it your own.
And as you are doing that, all that internet advice becomes less and less relevant.
In the beginning, you were able to take that advice and apply it to writing your first memoir.
But now your story exists.
And that advice was not written for it.
So now you may need the most personalized, most custom advice you have ever needed. This is often a time when, if you have not already recruited professional support, it can be really helpful to bring someone in.
7. Know When to Stop Revising
As you move through revisions, the process starts to look different for different people. This is one of the places where there is more divergence.
But I do want to give one final note because I think it will be relatable, even though it is a little heavier than I usually get. It might feel disappointing at first.
Come with me. I promise it’s okay.
As you’re working on your first memoir, one thing that will likely happen as you come through rounds and rounds of revision—and yes, it will take rounds—is that eventually, you will realize you are tired.
You will start to realize that this is a really good book.
And you know what?
A lot of those revisions you wanted to make are just not worth it anymore.
I will tell you, as someone who has written many, many books both for myself and others, I have not ever published a book where I made every revision I initially thought I needed to make.
Not one.
In every single case, I realized I was trying to hold my standards, my bar, to a level of perfection. And in every single case, I realized that was not a possible standard.
There was not ever going to be a final pass where I did not find a single thing I wanted to change.
That just does not happen.
For me, and for many of the clients I’ve worked with, having an external deadline from a publisher was really what I needed. It helped me make the revisions I felt strongly about. It helped me add the polish that I believed really did make the book sing.
But it also helped me back away at a level short of perfection.
Because I realize, and I hope you will too, that art is never perfect. The point of it is that it is not perfect. We could revise infinitely, and it still would not be perfect.
As a side note, I will tell you this: once you have that book in your hands, once you have been through the publishing process, one of my oldest and most tried-and-true pieces of writer’s advice is do not open the book.
Once it has already gone through printing, there is literally nothing you can do.
So make peace with the fact that there is probably a typo in there. There probably is. There is probably something in there that you would improve now that you have continued to write and continued to grow.
And that is okay.
It is all right for us to be vulnerable and authentic and imperfect as long as we are getting across the message we want to get across, and as long as the book is reaching our readers in the way we want it to.
8. Expect More Ideas to Arrive
Oh, and one more little thing.
One thing I find almost across the board is that at some point around the middle of these stages, usually around the time writers are exploring freedom and beginning to trust their instincts, other ideas for books will start to come to mind.
And this is so good, y’all.
I know it feels overwhelming when you are still working on the book you are working on, and suddenly you have three more in your head.
I know.
But try to remember that you can write those other books. Once you have been through the process of writing your first memoir, you will know what to expect. You will not have certainty exactly, but you will have some sense of what is possible and what is probable.
And there is nothing I love more than seeing somebody set out to write “just one memoir,” “just my memoir,” and then come to the end of the process and realize they have so much more to say.
Y’all, say it.
If I can help, schedule a call with me at pageandpodium.com/contact. On these calls, I listen to what your idea is. We talk through what your goal for the entire book is, what you want to do with it, and what you want it to do for you. We look at the ways that Page and Podium can help you. And if we can’t, I’ll let you know that too.
It is a low-stakes, low-pressure conversation. And I would love to hear about your book in one of these hour slots. You can book one at pageandpodium.com/contact.
And until then, happy writing.
