Memoir Coaching: Sizing Up Your Prospective Coach"s Writing Experience
Is it necessary for a writing coach to have a stellar publishing record?
You've decided that tackling writing of your memoir alone is too big a job for you. You want a coach so you went on the internet and found several writers who seem to fit your needs but how do you evaluate them so as to choose one over another? After all your memoir is very important to you and you want it to be just right. Is looking at their publishing history the way to do it?
1. Ask for writing samples from each prospective coach . First of all, you should enjoy your potential coach's writing and find it both interesting and stimulating. But, even more important, you need to assess whether or not the writing fits your own style. If you tend to be insightful and elegant in your speech and the writer you are considering writes like he's doing copy for an action movie, you probably don't have a good fit.
2. Ask the writer if s/he has already created long pieces. An author who has only done articles and short pieces does not have the experience to help you turn out a 300-page memoir. A long piece requires more structure and pacing than a short one and that is a skill not every writer possesses.
3. Chose a writing coach who has already worked in the memoir genre. Experience at fiction or poetry is not the same as experience in writing memoir. If you wanted to learn to play tennis you wouldn't choose someone experienced in ping pong--even if both use balls, and rackets and paddles resemble each other a lot. Memoir writing has its own requirements, and you will be well served by hiring someone who understands them.
There are many other factors to consider in choosing a writing coach for your memoir, and these will be considered in subsequent articles.
You've decided that tackling writing of your memoir alone is too big a job for you. You want a coach so you went on the internet and found several writers who seem to fit your needs but how do you evaluate them so as to choose one over another? After all your memoir is very important to you and you want it to be just right. Is looking at their publishing history the way to do it?
1. Ask for writing samples from each prospective coach . First of all, you should enjoy your potential coach's writing and find it both interesting and stimulating. But, even more important, you need to assess whether or not the writing fits your own style. If you tend to be insightful and elegant in your speech and the writer you are considering writes like he's doing copy for an action movie, you probably don't have a good fit.
2. Ask the writer if s/he has already created long pieces. An author who has only done articles and short pieces does not have the experience to help you turn out a 300-page memoir. A long piece requires more structure and pacing than a short one and that is a skill not every writer possesses.
3. Chose a writing coach who has already worked in the memoir genre. Experience at fiction or poetry is not the same as experience in writing memoir. If you wanted to learn to play tennis you wouldn't choose someone experienced in ping pong--even if both use balls, and rackets and paddles resemble each other a lot. Memoir writing has its own requirements, and you will be well served by hiring someone who understands them.
There are many other factors to consider in choosing a writing coach for your memoir, and these will be considered in subsequent articles.
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