Quality edit of your memoir or family history book

Give your personal success story best editing job

The editing of a family history, biography, memoir, life story, success story or particular personal experience is extremely demanding because the editor needs to be careful about consistency or accuracy in mentioning names of persons and places. For instance, a name associated with an uncle in an earlier chapter suddenly becomes identified as the grandfather's. The editor needs to be in constant communication with the author, too, to verify events and facts, in addition to names and places. There may also be missing or overlooked episodes that would need to be mentioned for a smoother flow of the story.

The editor should take care that the story will have very high readability since it is meant to be an interesting retelling of important events in the life of a family or clan. It is also written with an informal audience or readership in mind, meaning persons who are not necessarily professionals and who only want to be entertained with light reading.

The editor needs to be careful to maintain a consistent voice in the story. If the author starts out narrating in the first voice but somewhere in the intricate maze of special episodes, detours and flashbacks, the author suddenly shifts to the third voice, the editor needs to figure out whether the first voice really should be maintained through to the end.

The sensitive question of veracity of claimed events, episodes, numbers, and quotes would fall under the matter of fact checking, and that is not a job for the editor. The editor will have to give the author the benefit of the doubt regarding the facts in his story. It’s all in the spirit of trust and confidence between author, editor and publisher that all work on the book should proceed.