20 January 2014
This week I received a career memoir that the writer has been working on for 38 years. I was skeptical when he told me it was the first of five volumes. The autobiography of famous leaders usually fits in one volume, even though autobiography needs a lot more factual detail than a memoir. Memoir is a musing on the learning of a life, or even a single aspect of a life – it requires only enough detail to ground the musing. Memoir is about what beliefs the writer has about the experiences. Facts really do not matter as much as the impact of experiences.
Giving my writer the benefit of the doubt, I set about reading. Here’s my response to him:
I want you to write first the back cover copy for the entire Book I. Eventually you’ll do that for the other four books. But way before that, I want you to go through the same exercise with each chapter of Book I.
Basically I’m asking you to redo the chapter outline and write down why each chapter will excite the reader. Then we’re going to have to redo the chapters to make them that exciting. What you have now is a description of a lot of activity and some backstory about it. If it were simply a record of what happened – which maybe your kids will be interested in – it could stand as is. But if you are hiring me to try to make this commercial, I need to know what you think the juice is. I can’t edit unless I know what you want the reader to gain from each chapter. It’s not enough to tell a sequence of events without them fascinating the reader the way a good mystery does. A memoir is a story and must inspire the reader to turn the pages (or scroll down). What you have written is more like a historical record, the guide to an archive.
(An editing colleague I talked with about this project assured me I wouldn’t hear back from my writer. But he called two days later, appreciative of the boost this gave him. Knowing how to address each client in a way that spurs them on with excitement is a hard-earned skill.)
I referred him to my blog on developing back cover text. Here’s my summary for use as a guide for each chapter. First, writing your back cover text even before you start writing will help you hone in on what you want the reader to gain from reading your book.
For fiction, in three or four (efficient) sentences describe the heart of the story and what the reader will experience from reading it. Include words like titillating, sensual, terrifying, infuriating – words that elicit emotional interest appropriate to your intention.
For non-fiction, tell the reader what is unique about your approach to the topic, then include bullet points of what they will learn or what action they will be inspired to take in the world. If you want to build world peace, give them motivation and specific tools to help them build it. If you want to build support for your prejudice, give them details that instill hatred.
The back cover copy will address the book as a whole. It will also keep you on track as you build your outline. No matter what outlining technique you use (or none at all, heaven protect your editor), detail out what the back cover does as relevant in each chapter, using the same guidance.
For fiction, you’ll name the content, the tension, and the emotional tone. For non-fiction, bullet-point the details that will carry the reader toward what you want them to gain.
As you continue outlining and as you progress with the writing, review this question to help you stay on track with each chapter’s blurb: Is the content I’m including bringing readers closer to what I want them to experience?
Until next time, delight in the process.
If you are reading this as an email, click here and leave a comment at the bottom of the page.
Read PDF Version: Marketing Your Book Is Outlining Your Book