If you don’t get this right, you’ll lose readers.

Reading time: 2 minutes, 32 seconds

After dismantling your scaffolding, it’s time to design a catchy opening for your memoir.

(You did remove your scaffolding, didn’t you? If not, you should! “Don’t think the reader will be patient with you until you can get around to the actual story,” writes Matilda Butler. If you need to brush up on what scaffolding is, click on Whether you’re building a castle or a memoir, the scaffolding must come down.)

Today we’re talking about leads, a term I use because of my journalism background. Sometimes the lead is called a narrative hook, or simply a hook.

The lead is the first thing people read. It catches their attention. You hook readers by making them curious and drawing them in. A well-crafted beginning motivates people to (1) buy your book and (2) read it all the way to the end.

A captivating lead is a crucial component in newspaper and magazine articles.

It is a must for blog posts, sermons, talks, and devotionals.

A top-notch lead is vital for a memoir (and for each chapter as well).

Think for a minute about your memoir. When people consider buying it, they’ll check out your opening.

Does that make you a little nervous?

If so, get used to it: Readers will compare your beginning to those of other writers.

After all, when you browse the shelves looking for a good book, before you purchase it, you open it and read the beginning, right?

Before you order a book from Amazon, you click on the “Look Inside” feature to see how it begins, right?

And if the opening doesn’t grab you, you don’t buy it, right?

It makes sense, then, that when people consider spending money on your memoir, they’ll check out how it starts. That’s why you need to craft a humdinger of a beginning.

So, let’s look at openings. But first, a word of clarification: Writing a memoir is not the same as writing a paper in Composition 101 in college.

Do you remember Comp 101?

If not, here’s a reminder of what your professor drilled into you:

Paragraph One is your introduction—a few sentences familiarizing readers with your topic. Here’s an example of a topic: How you decided to work as a nanny in Scotland.

In English Comp format, you follow the intro with the main body: Paragraphs Two, Three, and Four, each explaining one step in your decision-making process.

Then in Paragraph Five, you write your ending, your conclusion—you more or less rephrase your introduction.

But in writing your memoir, do away with the English Comp 101 format. Instead, begin by intriguing readers with your lead, your hook.

Today we’ll look at two types of leads—and in coming days we’ll study even more kinds—so be sure to come back!

The Quote Lead: Use a quote, poem, or proverb to make people curious about your story.

For example, you might use this Martin Luther King, Jr., quote: “There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”

Here’s another example of a quote lead, this one by Elisabeth Elliot: “When you’re in a dark place, you sometimes tend to think you’ve been buried. Perhaps you’ve been planted. Bloom.”

The Scene-setting Lead: Describe your story’s setting so your reader feels she’s standing beside you, hearing, seeing, tasting, feeling, and/or smelling the place or event.

For example: “Suited up in a knee-length tuxedo jacket, 15-year-old Nathan Heintz bowed slightly to the seated girl, held out a corsage and asked, ‘May I have the next dance?’ With a fur stole flung across her shoulders and legs daintily crossed at the ankles, Lindsey Ingalls, 16, smiled and nodded her acceptance. It was enough to make Miss Manners blush with pride.

“With a rustle of gowns, tugging of gloves and twitters of laughter, dozens of teens and pre-teens gathered Thursday night for a winter ball. . . .” (by Hope Brumbach in The Spokesman-Review, January 13, 2007)

Your job is to

write a strong first sentence.

And powerful first paragraphs.

And a brawny first chapter.

Otherwise, you’ll lose readers.

Come back Thursday!

I’ll share with you more types of leads

to use in your memoir!

“The most productive and transformative part of writing a book”

Have you ever re-read something you’ve published and found a grammatical error, misspelled word, or punctuation error? You feel embarrassed, right? If it makes you feel better, you’re not alone—we’ve all found mistakes in our published pieces.

Why don’t we catch those errors before we hit “publish” and send it out into the world?

“Gestalt psychologists were the first to discover that our minds tend to see things not as they are, but as our minds think they should be,” writes Debra Hart May in Proofreading Plain and Simple. “The implications of this phenomenon for proofreading are enormous. Artist and author Carolyn Bloomer, in her book, Principles of Visual Perception, tells us, …‘Your mental “correcting” tends to tune out the very errors you are looking for….’”

A writer can find lots of help in editing and proofreading—from books, blogs, classes, writing workshops, critique partners. (There’s a difference between editing and proofreading. Learn more at Leah McClellan’s post, What’s the difference between editing and proofreading?)

Melissa Donovan at Writing Forward offers 21 tips in Do-It-Yourself Proofreading and Editing Tips. Each one is important but let me call your attention to her point 16: “Start building a collection of grammar books and writing resources so when you do run into questions (and you will), you have access to reliable and credible answers.” I say Amen! to that.

Related to that is Melissa’s point 21: “Make it your business to develop good grammar skills. Read up on grammar or subscribe to a blog that publishes grammar posts (like this one) to stay up to date on proper grammar.” Amen! to that, too.

Ask other writers which books they recommend for editing, proofreading, and grammar. I have the following on my bookshelf: Proofreading Plain and Simple, Keys for Writers, Correcting Common Errors in Writing, Woe Is I, and others.

Melissa’s is one of the most comprehensive lists I’ve seen recently so click over there to take in this rich resource. I printed it so I’d have it as a handy reference, and perhaps you’ll want do so, too.

But I want to add to Melissa’s list. Here are my tips:

• Take a break. Don’t think about your manuscript. If possible, wait a week or two before you set eyes on it again.
• Print your manuscript. Eyes see mistakes on a printed page that they miss on a computer screen.
• Move away from your writing area to read your document—a different room of your house or office, in the back yard, a coffee shop, the beach, the library, or a park.

Here are more tips from Debra Hart May’s Proofreading Plain and Simple:

• Print a portrait (…vertically-oriented) document in landscape (or horizontal) mode.
• Print in a larger or less familiar font. (But choose a serif font… [because] they are easier to read.)
• Work in small time increments—15-20 minutes at a time.
• Take regular breaks to stretch, rest your eyes, and mentally engage from the task.

Editing and proofreading can be tedious tasks, but they are an important part of writing and publishing. If you edit and proofread well (and hire experts if necessary), you can publish a quality book.

How do you find a good editor? What kind of editing do you need?

Last Thursday we considered publishing options. This week I’ve spent lots of time online looking at options for my next memoir. How about you?

Before you are ready to publish, though, you have a LOT of work to do. Most writers need to line up professional editing—often editors are busy and it’s good to get in line.  

But how do you find a good editor? What kind of editing do you need?

Look over the Editors Guild’s website about finding and working with an editor, costs, and types of editing:

• developmental editing
• substantive editing
• copyediting
• proofreading 

You’ll also find good tips in Elisabeth Kauffman’s Finding the Editor Who’s Right For You.

Before you send that manuscript off to an editor, do your own editing. The more you spiff up your manuscript, the less it could cost—some editors charge by the hour. If you submit a manuscript that’s the best you can make it, your editor can focus on other important parts of it. Why pay someone to do what you can do yourself?

(Critique groups and beta readers can be valuable beyond price in helping improve your manuscript and, frankly, they can keep you from embarrassing yourself in public. Read Belinda Pollard’s What is a beta reader and why do I need one? Also check out Valerie Comer’s blog post, Rewrite versus Revise versus Edit.  Many of us use the word rewrite—“from-the-ground-up rewrite”—when we mean revise. See “I like to rewrite. Sound crazy?”)

Like Ruth Harris said, “Editing can…turn an OMG-did-I-write-that? draft into a book you can be proud of.” Don’t miss Ruth’s 9 Ways Editors Can Make You Look Good…And 7 Ways They Can Make You Miserable. It’s packed with important info for you.

You’ll also find good insights in Karen Ball’s What an Editor Does: Peeling Back the Layers.

Be cautious in hiring an editor. “Though there are a lot of honest independent editors out there, you have to be diligent about looking for red flags,” according to The Writer’s Circle. For example, “If an editor doesn’t want to give out information about their credentials…or info about previously edited work then you have reason to be suspicious.” You’ll also find other excellent tips in How to Find an Independent Editor to Review Your Work.