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This is a two-part series. Look here for part two, Editing Life Stories Using Scrivener.
How I Edit
Back in 2010, when I first started The Story Scribe, my memoir-writing business, I asked a man to sit down with me and tell me his life story. We met for a total of fifteen interviews over the course of many months. He was happy to just talk, but my goal was to shape his words into a life story book—my first. I wanted the practice. I needed the practice. Or so I thought.
Turns out I needed something else even more: the realization that if I didn't get my act together and create a functioning system, I'd never get his book or any other written.
Every week, we met at the same (noisy) coffeeshop, and every week I went home feeling worse than the week before. The words were building up, on my recorder, in the transcripts I was doing myself, behind files scattered across the desktop of my Mac. I felt like I was drowning in his words.
At some point, I gave up. He didn't mind. The act of telling was what interested him. But I did. I had disappointed myself.
I never got the book done, but I did create a system so that would never happen again.
If you've got a great system that's working for you, this episode isn't for you. But if you're interested in how one life story writer (errr, that'd be me) gathers together a series of transcripts and turns them into a book, here's a peek.
(By the way, if you DO have a great system, please share some tips in the comments. The only reason I can do what I do is because of all the help I've gotten along the way. And I'm sure I'm not alone.)
Have a listen. Or, if you'd like to see my computer screen as I walk you through my process, you can watch the video here.
Until next time, go out and save someone's story.
I enjoyed your podcast. I use many similar methods but I thought it was helpful to hear how you use the brackets around text to use the find feature more effectively. I also use dual computer monitors so I have the interview transcript up on one and the other is used for writing the draft. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks, Charlene. Two monitors sounds like a good way setup. Now that I’m using Scrivener, I can use a split screen directly in the app–works like a charm.
I can’t remember if I mentioned it in the podcast, but I also use the square brackets to leave notes for myself, usually [AMY: start here] but occasionally something more like [AMY: are you kidding? Clean up this passage!!!]. So far I’ve never forgotten to strip them from the draft before it gets to the client 🙂