Book Review: The Memoir Engineering System: Make Your First Draft Your Final Draft

The Memoir Engineering System: Make Your First Draft Your Final Draft by Wendy Dale.

Do I believe that my first draft will be my final draft? Absolutely not; however, I did find a lot of useful advice in this book. I’ve read a lot of books about writing craft. This is one of the few that has stuck with me.

The most useful tidbit for me was the idea that a scene is when something happens. A transition is what up put together to connect scenes. You build the story by writing scene-transition-scene-transition. That may seem obvious to some, but I had not thought of it that way.

Her process helped me figure out how to structure a chapter. It helped me figure out what to keep and what to let go of. And it helped me figure out where to spend my writing energy. For that I’m grateful.

I didn’t particularly care for the beginning of the book where she was justifying her process. I didn’t feel like I needed it. I wanted to get to the point, and that is the steps needed to create a good outline.

This book isn’t for pantsers - that is, those that write by the seat of their pants. Rather it is for planners, which I definitely am. Perhaps it is the computer scientist in me that is drawn to the book. If you are the type of person who wants to plan out their book length project, you might find this book helpful. It has certainly helped me.