If you don't usually use detailed outlines to write, you will still want to learn this skill as a professional ghostwriter. Even if you have the perfect plan in your head, your client will want to feel reassured with whatever you will create going forward and that means giving them something tangible and concrete.
Ghostwriters need to honour their artistry while also keeping in mind that the key to building a successful business is dependent on good customer service. At all stages of the writing process you and your client should be figuratively (and literally) on the same page. Keep reading to learn how to outline your ghostwriting memoir in order to build better client relations, effective writing practices and improve business communication.
Record Memoir Timelines, Dates, And Key Events
This might be the most important step for outlining a ghostwriting memoir. You can't effectively record a sequence of events without an accurate timeline. Readers need clear and concise linear progression and understanding of how one point in time leads to the next. The reason this is so important in memoir writing is because there is a cause and effect relationship between what has happened in a persons life and how they have become the person they are. If you jump into writing developmental milestones someone has lived through while skipping over all the necessary context that made it possible, the reader isn't going to understand the significance of pivotal moments.
Before even getting into the work of interviewing a client, prepare templates or structure future notes to record a clear timeline. You can work through different moments in a linear way or let the conversation be more organic and allow the client to share at their own pace. I personally prefer the second option but it does require a very organised note taking system. You can also use coloured book marks that group together certain notes into specific key moments or dates to help you keep track of what happened, where and when. Once you have the basic information, you can move on to the fun part of creatively playing with the raw ingredients.
More experienced ghostwriters might like to play around with the rules of sequential story telling although the rules of accurate note taking and keeping track of key dates is still applicable. As you become more confident as a ghostwriter, you can start to experiment with different writing styles that are usually found in fiction, such as starting a story from the middle and working your way back in order to flesh out the novel with non linear structure and pacing.
Outline Key Themes For Your Ghostwriting Memoir
This process is similar to what is done in fiction. Narrative non-fiction doesn't have to read as dry just because it is describing the truth and stays loyal to the facts. For example, if someone started their life in poverty but managed to rise to the top of their professional career, some overarching themes that will emerge might include:
Perseverance
Ambition
Courage
Individual vs society
Prejudice
Passion
If your client has experienced family loss, you will want to experiment with themes such as:
Death
Recovery
Survival.
Strength
Family
Love
How you choose to weave these themes into the novel is then subject to creative choices and exploration.
The main idea here is that ghostwriting a successful non-fiction memoir does not simply involve keeping a record of events with dates and times and then writing them down. You have to find a way to make a personal story interesting to the reader without compromising on those details. Deciding early on which themes are prominent will help you in finding interesting angles to write from in addition to bringing beauty and meaning to the small moments that make up life. A good writer knows that even the most seemingly 'ordinary' moments can be written about in way that makes us question life at a deeper level and tugs on the emotional heart strings.
Your creative approach to identifying and writing themes is what sets a narrative non-fiction writer apart from an objective historian. Tell the truth but always remember to bring art and literary finesse into the equation.
"Narrative non-fiction doesn't have to read as dry just because it is describing the truth and stays loyal to the facts."
Outline Structure And Pacing
Many people can relate to the experience of starting to read a book and becoming disinterested and bored halfway through the story. The inability to carry a reader through to the end of a novel is usually a writing failure related to structure and pacing. Some stories may be slow to start, getting bogged down in unnecessary detail that drags the reader along instead of propelling them forward, only then to rush the ending. Other narratives may jump too quickly into fray, leaving out key information that justifies why we should care about what happens to a protagonist and why we should be emotionally invested. A well structured novel will be able to land comfortably somewhere in the middle of these two extremes.
A good rule of thumb for planning the structure of your memoir novel is to follow a traditional three act structure which includes the following parts:
The Set Up. The first part of your novel should include some exposition which introduces key themes, characters and introductory detail as well as an instigating incident which acts as the catalyst for further development and protagonist action.
The Confrontation. This is where your protagonist is faced with the various challenges and obstacles that arise as a result of the initial catalyst event in the setup. This is the time to show character development and demonstrate a character arc that the protagonist must work through in order to grow and evolve in the story.
The Resolution. For the final act, any confrontations or antagonistic events come to a conclusion in which we see the protagonist move through a sequence which brings the story full circle. This provides the reader with a satisfying sense of closure in which all obstacles and character development reach a state of completion.
Your written novel will obviously explore this three act structure in more depth and with more detailed breadth than is presented here. However, it is also common as a beginner ghostwriter to lose sight of the forest for the trees when in the thick of the writing process. If at any point you lose track of the bigger picture, it always helps to refer back to your original structural plan in order to get your bearings and to remember where your ghostwriting priorities lie.
Template Each Chapter of Your Memoir
This step is probably the most straightforward out of all of the tips given in this article for learning how to outline your ghostwritten memoir. Templating chapters is essential for both fiction and non-fiction and especially for the ghostwriter. The reasons for this fall under both good writing practices and effective business communication. From a writing point of view, planning out each chapter will reduce a lot of anxiety when it comes to actually sitting down and writing the book. If you already have some writing experience then you have most likely experienced writer's block at least once. With a full template of pre-planned chapters, you can take away some of the pressure that comes with facing a purely blank white page while also having good metrics for staying on task and on track.
From a ghostwriting perspective, beginning to write before you have established a fully detailed plan that both you and the client are happy with could lead to a lot of unnecessary work and frustration later down the line. If you are already five chapters deep when your client sees the writing for the first time, what is the plan if they don't like the creative direction? Are costs covered if you have to start from the beginning? In that case, you are charging your client for your lack of planning and efficiency. From their perspective it is very unprofessional. Better to be safe than sorry by creating a thorough template that the client can peruse ahead of the writing schedule so that any issues can be dealt with while the project is still in its infant stage.
"Beginning to write before you have have established a fully detailed plan that both you and the client are happy with could lead to a lot of unnecessary work and frustration down the line."
Practice Ghostwriting In 'Voice'
This process will look very different in preparation for non-fiction than it would for fiction. Creating characters for fiction involves developing different personas that you yourself learn about and explore as you experiment with your writing style. Every fiction writer has their own process for fleshing out character interactions and development arcs but by and large it comes largely from imagination or inspiration. For the professional memoir ghostwriter, you don't need to invent new people on the page. A writing client and the life they have lived are very much real and non-imaginary. As such, you need to practice writing in a way that reflects who they already are instead of creating everything from scratch.
The memoir ghostwriter doesn't need to reinvent the wheel or overcomplicate things. One way I like to develop my writing in order reflect the client's voice is by recording conversations with the client and then studying the transcriptions. Every person has their own idiosyncratic habits in their speech patterns, in addition to exhibiting regional accents, dialects and preferred slang. Get to know your client through the interview process until you can start to predict and anticipate how they would react behaviourally and verbally in certain situations. Next, study your transcripts to observe accurate syntax structure your client would use and that you can then transform into a conversational first person style. This takes multiple attempts and a lot of practice to get right and is one of the reasons ghostwriters charge considerable fees. Done correctly, the process of writing the actual novel will go much smoother with adequate preparation.
In Summary...
Knowing how to outline your ghostwriting memoir is an extremely useful skill to develop if you have plans of going professional or are looking to improve your customer relations and overall service. Creative inspirations, writing talent and passion can't be replaced by over relying on planning and structuring alone. However, it does allow the creative spirit to be fully expressed without worrying about all the tedious elements of writing a novel.
Over time, learning how to toe the line between following creative intuition and following a structured plan becomes easier to ascertain and identify during the writing process. In the meantime, every writer has to start somewhere. These outlining tips can get you on the right path to becoming a highly proficient memoir ghostwriter and if you are already a professional, you can revisit this article to get back to basics and ground your writing approach.