Free · 12 pages · PDF
The Memoir Toolkit.
Twelve pages from our senior memoir editor on the structural moves that get a memoir past chapter four. Free, no strings, refundable politeness if you find it useless.
Inside
What the 12 pages actually cover.
- Find the question. One prompt, ten minutes, and the question your memoir is the answer to is on the page.
- Pick the slice. Which months or years of your life actually carry the question. The autobiography-vs-memoir test in two paragraphs.
- Build the dual timeline. Why single-timeline memoirs collapse at chapter seven, and the structural fix.
- Scene vs. summary. The two registers memoir uses and when each one earns its place.
- Real people on the page. Three legal moves and two ethical ones, applied at the outline stage so you do not have to undo a chapter twelve.
- Interview yourself. Eight prompts that consistently produce material you can write from. Plus the cadence that survives a year.
- Five-question structural test. Run it on any outline before drafting. If three of five answer no, the outline needs work.
- Endings. The pattern that almost always works and the one that almost always fails.
The toolkit, in five frames
Pages from inside the PDF.
Toolkit FAQ
Honest answers.
What is inside the toolkit?
12 pages: how to find the question your memoir is the answer to, the dual-timeline outline framework, scene-versus-summary decision rules, three legal moves for writing about real people, an interview prompt set you can use on yourself, and a one-page structural test for any draft.
Who wrote it?
Maya Rosenberg, our senior memoir editor. Ten years in long-form magazine work before book-side development; seven memoirs developed that hit the NYT or WSJ lists.
Why is it free?
It is the most concentrated tool we have for filtering memoir authors who can finish a manuscript on their own from those who would benefit from us writing it for them. Both outcomes are fine.
Will you spam me?
You will receive one delivery email, a 5-email educational sequence over 14 days, and a monthly newsletter. Unsubscribe at any time, one click, no questions. We do not sell or share your email.
Ready when you are
Want a memoir editor on the project, not in a PDF?
The toolkit gets you started. A discovery call with Maya gets you a writer or an editor matched to your specific manuscript, by name, within one business day.