After the First Draft: A Roadmap for Shaping Your Memoir

Memoir writing is hard. Finishing a first draft—whether it took you weeks, months, or years—is a major milestone. But it’s only step one in the long, meaningful process of turning lived experience into a finished manuscript.

Many writers hit this moment and think: Now what? You have thousands of words on the page. What do you do next?

Step 1: Do Nothing (Yes, Really)

Let your rough draft sit.

For the next seven days, resist the urge to open the file, tweak sentences, or reread your favorite scenes. Taking a break gives your mind the distance it needs to return to your story with fresh, more objective eyes.

While you’re resting, put a date on your calendar for a full read-through next week.

Step 2: Do a Start-to-Finish Read—No Editing Yet

After your week away, read your entire draft straight through.

Sit on your hands if you have to. Don’t rearrange paragraphs, don’t revise dialogue, and don’t correct typos. The goal is to experience your story the way a reader will.

When you're done, reflect:

• How do you feel about what you’ve written so far?
  
• What parts feel strong, compelling, or emotionally honest?
  
• Which sections feel rough, thin, or confusing?
  
• Where might you need more detail, clarity, or scene-building?
  

Finally, pause and acknowledge how far you’ve come. Most people never make it this far. You did.

Now take a deep breath. You’re entering phase two of memoir-making.

Step 3: Identify—or Refine—Your Memoir Premise

If you haven’t written a one-sentence premise for your memoir yet, now is the perfect time. If you have written one, use your read-through to confirm—or update—it.

A strong premise includes three elements:

1. You (the narrator/main character)
   
2. The central situation or conflict
   
3. The lesson, transformation, or theme
   

Memoir Premise Examples

Here are examples of premises drawn from several contemporary memoirs I've read:

• When Breath Becomes Air Paul Kalanithi, a young neurosurgeon facing a terminal cancer diagnosis, confronts the meaning of life, identity, and purpose as he shifts from doctor to patient and seeks to understand what makes a life worth living.
  
• You Could Make This Place Beautiful After the collapse of her marriage, poet Maggie Smith navigates grief, identity, and public scrutiny to reclaim her voice and rebuild a life marked not only by loss, but by unexpected beauty and emergence.
  
• Maid Author Stephanie Land, a young single mother, cycles through low-wage work and unstable housing while fighting to protect her child and dignity, revealing the unseen labor, structural barriers, and resilience at the heart of the working poor.
  
• Braiding Sweetgrass Botanist and Indigenous scholar, Robin Wall Kimmerer, braids together scientific knowledge, Native wisdom, and lived experience to explore reciprocity, belonging, and the deep relationship between humans and the natural world.
  

You can use these as models for your own one-sentence premise. It will feel harder than it looks—and that’s the point. Clarifying what your memoir is really about helps everything else snap into place.

Why Your Premise Matters

Your premise becomes:

• Your north star as you edit
  
• The filter for what stays and what gets cut
  
• The key to writing with clarity and momentum
  
• The backbone of your future book proposal or marketing copy
  

Once you’ve written it, paste it right at the top of your manuscript. Refer to it often.

Step 4: Kill Your Darlings (With Compassion)

On your next read-through, filter everything through your premise.

Ask yourself:

• Does this scene belong in this memoir?
  
• Does it advance the story or illuminate the theme?
  
• Is this just something I personally love but that doesn’t serve the whole?
  

If a scene doesn’t belong—but you’re not ready to let it go—cut and paste it into a separate document I like to call the Memoir Parking Lot. Nothing is lost. You may use it in essays, future writing, or a different book entirely.

This step can feel like surgery, but it makes your memoir stronger.

Step 5: Reorganize the Flow

Now you’re ready to examine structure.

• Which scene is your hook?
  
• Where does tension rise?
  
• Which scenes provide context, backstory, foreshadowing?
  
• Where is the emotional climax?
  
• What brings your arc to resolution?
  

If you're a tactile thinker, print your draft single-sided and physically move pages around. Sometimes seeing your story spread out helps you spot gaps, repetitions, or new connections.

My own first memoir began as scattered, unrelated scenes. Only after I defined the book's core message did I discover the right order. Clarity about the story I was really telling unlocked everything.

Finishing a first draft is a huge accomplishment. Give yourself grace and space as you move into this phase after your first draft is done.