Patricia offers the following three levels of Memoir Analysis Service:
1. Memoir Analysis: Testing Your Concept
Your memoir is stuck at the starting line. It’s a courageous and compelling idea, especially for you as the writer. But the concept, as a memoir, needs clarity and refinement in order to move forward. For the spiritual writer who loves the memoir format, but keeps wandering in the dark without a clear strategy for unleashing your narrative, I offer this one-time consulting call to help unravel your thinking, sharpen your creative clarity and get your memoir back on the right track. We’ll review your writing motivation, examine your writing style and voice, explore your memoir’s story problem and desire line, test your story’s appeal and relatability, examine your story’s anecdotal potential, clarify your theological and cultural contexts, outline your optimal narrative structure, review 7 key memoir-writing principles to use as tests while you write, and address a writing schedule to help carry you across the finish line.
My fee for this work is $149. Includes up to 90-minute Skype consulting call, discussion of your memoir concept, marketability of your story, writing-schedule planning and “Moving Forward” recommendations.
2. Memoir Analysis: Chapter One Review
Your first chapter is written? Congratulations. Your memoir is under way. But is your opening chapter the best start for your memoir? Does it set the right stage, lay the right foundation and point your narrative in the right direction? This service provides a review and analysis of your memoir’s vital opening chapter. Is your writing voice clear and brave? Your story problem identified? Your tone appealing and relatable? Your writing skill evident? Your theological problem properly suggested or foretold? Your bravery and fear disclosed or addressed? Your story’s anecdotal power fully revealed? Indeed, is your reader hooked? Eager to move on? This review tests your memoir’s opening chapter for these and other critical elements, offered in timely written feedback designed to highlight your chapter’s strengths while identifying problem areas to address before moving on.
My fee for this work is $129. Includes up to 60-minute Skype consulting call, discussion of your memoir concept, a full read of your opening chapter—followed with detailed written feedback of your chapter’s strengths and weaknesses, plus suggestions for effective revisions, refinements and improvements. While not a line edit, this service offers a full content analysis of your opening chapter, including suggestions for key edits and revisions.
3. Memoir Analysis: Testing Your Manuscript
It’s all finished. But is your memoir fully done? Done right. And done well. I’ll take your completed memoir manuscript and test its critical points. Is your story problem strong? Your writing voice clear and confident? Your story structure strongly narrative? Your anecdotes detailed and contextual? Your insights reflective? Your turning points consequential? Your theological exploration honest, deep and wise? Your motivation fair? Your conclusions heart-opening? Your writing evocative and beautiful? Such things and more go into developing an effective spiritual memoir. This analysis applies such tests to your work, offered in timely written feedback designed to provide both celebration and critique of what you’ve accomplished and what’s left to do to finish your memoir well.
My fee for this work is $429. Includes an initial consulting call of up to 90 minutes, discussion of your memoir concept, a full read of your manuscript—followed with detailed written feedback of your manuscript’s strengths and weaknesses, plus suggestions for effective revisions, refinements and improvements. While not a line edit, this service offers a full content analysis, including suggestions for key edits and revisions.
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Patricia Raybon is an award-winning author and journalist whose personal essays on faith, family, race and personal healing have been published in The New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, USA Today, Country Living Magazine, Chicago Tribune, The Denver Post, Guideposts, In Touch Magazine, Christianity Today, the Washington Post’s “Acts of Faith” blog, The High Calling and other faith-related and news blogs, and aired on National Public Radio. Patricia writes top-rated books that dig deep into the intersection of Christian belief and everyday life. She is the award-winning author of My First White Friend, which won the Christopher Award; I Told the Mountain to Move, a 2006 Book of the Year Finalist in Christianity Today Magazine’s annual book competition; a One Year® devotional on Bible virtues entitled God’s Great Blessings; Bound for Glory, a tribute to African American spirituals, co-authored with calligrapher Timothy Botts; and Undivided: A Muslim Daughter, Her Christian Mother, Their Path to Peace, co-authored with daughter Alana Raybon.
A journalist by training, Patricia earned a B.A. in journalism from Ohio State University, an M.A. in journalism from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and is a former editor of The Denver Post’s Sunday Contemporary Magazine and a former feature writer at the Scripps Howard newspaper, the Rocky Mountain News. In mid-career, she joined the journalism faculty at the University of Colorado at Boulder, teaching for 15 years and getting promoted in 2006 to professor emerita. She is now a full-time author who speaks and teaches at writing and diversity/inclusion conferences and retreats nationwide. A member of the Authors’ Guild and JAWS (Journalism and Women Symposium), Patricia served recently on the board of the Colorado Authors League and is now a board of trustee member at Denver Seminary. A mother of two and grandmother of five, she lives with her husband Dan, a retired educator, in her beloved home state of Colorado.
Website: patriciaraybon.com
Twitter: @patriciaraybon
Facebook: PatriciaRaybonAuthor
If you are interested in learning more about these services click here.
Back to main Writer Support Services page.