I love helping people tell their stories

“How did you get them to tell you such deeply personal details?” Someone asked me this a few years ago after he read some stories I’d written about women who had suffered abandonment, abuse, and poverty.

It wasn’t the first time I’d gotten that type of comment, and as a ghostwriter who writes memoir, it’s a high compliment. It reminds me of something I read in an article about J. R. Moehringer, the ghostwriter who has worked with the likes of Prince Harry and Andre Agassi: “He’s half psychiatrist.”

It’s true: to ghostwrite anything requires some intuition into the human psyche, but that’s especially true of memoirs, when you’re trying to tell someone’s story through their eyes.

Background

Like any form of ghostwriting, memoirs require a solid process, good interview skills, an instinct for sensory details (touch, taste, sound, smell, color, etc.), and a good dose of creativity. “Craft?” “Art?” Both are appropriate descriptions of what I do.

With that in mind, let’s look at how I’ve handled some recent projects.

A Solid Process

With any book I ghostwrite or coach, we start with what I call the “30,000-foot view.” Most people want to jump right into the story. That’s fine—people are eager to tell their story and ideas, and I let them – to an extent. 

Still, I bring it back to: 

• What are your goals with this book? (Do you want to get more ideal clients? Get asked to speak at conferences? Help as many people as possible with your story?)
• What are your goals for the reader? (What should your reader know by the end of the book? How should they feel?)
• What is the tone of this book? (Is there an author whose writing style you like?)

We cover a few other big picture items, too. Then we talk about the basic points of their story to develop an outline, which is what I use for the next stage: interview. 

Interview

Mercy, a recent client I worked with, was a joy to interview. An immigrant from Kenya, she is an LPC who wanted to write a book to help and inspire other African immigrants in the US. Mercy did not have the mental bandwidth to concentrate on the writing process on top of her day job and family responsibilities, so she turned to me. 

Once we went through the process I described above, and we developed the outline, I interviewed her to get the details of each point. Of course, as often is the case, while telling a story about an uncle, she began recalling other things about him. It was a bittersweet joy for her to have a memory surface of a time that he’d come through for her when she felt so utterly alone, and it added depth to her story.

Sensory Details

There was a scene that was especially poignant for her, a type of breakfast pastry her mom made on special occasions.

I’m not a visual artist, but these types of scenes make me feel like one. I reveled in asking her about the texture of the freshly fried, light but crispy fritters, the sweetness of the sugar enhanced with the peppery, aromatic cardamom. We talked about her mom’s colorful apron that had faded from long use, the flowing, instinctive movements of her mom’s hands from the counter to the stove, flipping the pastries in the sizzling oil. Making these sensory-rich scenes come to life makes me feel like I’m there myself, and I want my reader to feel immersed in the story. 

Creative Instinct

The project of a different client I worked for illustrates this. As someone who’d worked with an overseas non-profit, Lilith was asked to contribute a chapter to an anthology of inspirational true stories, a sort of Chicken Soup-type book. Like many of my clients, she found the idea of simply telling her story to someone else, reading what they wrote, and making a few revisions a lot less overwhelming or intimidating than trying to organize and write it all herself – I was hired.

Initially, we looked at ways God had brought her from poverty and heartache to where she is now – fulfilled in ways she’d couldn’t imagine as a child. It wasn’t until she attained a measure of success as an adult—by society’s standards—that she had an epiphany in which she saw how He had carried her in those earlier hard times. After that, many of the challenges she encountered transformed into the dreams she had once envisioned in her early years.

I drafted the chapter, and Lilith liked it. However, we agreed that the “aha” incident halfway through her story needed to be expanded. So I threw myself into the moment, drawing details out of her—was the house silent? Or were there night noises as you sensed God moving? Did the door creak when you opened it? What color were your bedroom curtains? What went through your mind as God spoke to you in that everyday activity?

The writing came alive, sizzling with energy. And it hit me: this was the story. Not the journey of her life, but this incredible, intense moment.

It was easy to turn that powerful scene into an entire chapter, breathing into it the intimate thrill of solitude, sorrow, and hope renewed. And Lilith loved the fresh approach. Better yet, she later told me that the compiling editor sent the new chapter to the other contributors as an example of what she was looking for.

All because I listened to that flash of intuition.

A Final Word

 People sometimes ask if it makes me feel cheated to do work I will never get credit for, or if I feel like people are stealing my work.

The answer? No.

Everyone has a story, but not everyone has the time or ability to tell it in a way that is both meaningful for them and impactful to others. The thing is—they aren’t my stories to tell. But I love being able to use my process, skills, and creativity to both give people a voice, and to help them help others.