Use case
Family memoirs
Letters, recordings and half-remembered stories turned into a book your family reads.
Turn letters, recordings and half-remembered stories into a book your family will actually read. Attach your notes as a reference document and the facts, names and dates will be honoured rather than invented. The writing keeps your phrasing where you have given it, and fills the joins with plain, warm prose.
Who it is for
Families recording a life, a business or a generation
Typical length
15,000 – 60,000 words
What to include in your brief
- Whose life the book follows, and across which years
- The people who must appear by name
- Subjects to leave out entirely
- Any documents, letters or notes to attach
- Whether it is written as 'I' or about the person
Example brief
The life of my grandfather Tom, 1931 to 2019, from a Sheffield steel family to running his own garage. Warm, honest, told in third person. Include my attached notes and the 1962 letters. Please leave out his first marriage.
Try this briefA shape that usually works
- 01Where the family came from
- 02Childhood and the years that shaped them
- 03Work, and the first real decision
- 04Marriage, children, the long middle
- 05Setbacks told plainly
- 06What was left behind
Mistakes worth avoiding
- Not attaching your notes, which forces the writing to guess at dates
- Trying to cover every relative — choose a spine and let others appear around it
Tip: List the people who must appear, and any subject you would rather leave out.