One of the most common questions I get from nonfiction authors who've just finished a draft is some version of: "Do I need a full developmental edit, or is there something lighter that would still help?

If you've just typed the final word of your nonfiction manuscript, congratulations, and welcome to the question nearly every author asks me next: what is this actually going to cost?

Memoir is the most personal form of nonfiction, and it is also one of the most structurally demanding. The challenge of memoir is not remembering what happened. It is deciding what your life experiences mean, which moments carry the weight of the story you are telling, and how to arrange them so a reader who was not there can understand not just the events but the person who lived through them.