The Chapter I Cut

I cut a chapter from my memoir, one of the hardest ones to write, and honestly, it hurt a little.

Writing the whole memoir was therapeutic, but this chapter was harder than the rest because it involved a relationship that was very close and deeply important to me. It challenged my core beliefs and exposed parts of me that felt particularly raw and vulnerable. I wrote it anyway and placed it in chronological order in the manuscript I sent to my developmental editor.

When her feedback asked whether it belonged in the book, I felt a bit offended.

Of course it did; it was part of my story. She noted it felt out of character for the story I was telling, which was about the changes I made in myself and my journey as the parent of a special needs child and the wife of an alcoholic. This chapter didn’t support the main theme, and while it felt important to me, the reader didn’t need to experience it to understand my personal transformation.

What I didn’t understand as clearly then but know now is that cutting it served the reader. Writing it had served me.

That is the difference between writing a journal and a memoir. A journal is for yourself, and it often plants the seeds of the ideas that become the story you want to tell others. A memoir is written for a reader to experience. It holds the information and paints the pictures that let her become immersed in the transformation, understand why you made a decision at one point and a seemingly conflicting one at another, and see what you learned from both.

That is exactly the kind of conversation we have in Book Coach Office Hours. Last Thursday, three writers joined me, and one thing we talked about is that you sometimes can’t find the story until you’ve written the journals. Those pages don’t all belong in the book and yet writing them was still worth doing—even if it is just to get in the practice of writing—to become a better writer.

The bigger question is how you decide what belongs. Sometimes it means writing everything and then having the discipline to cut what doesn’t serve the story, even if it’s a well-written chapter, or being willing to get a third-party perspective on what is working and what isn’t. This is one of my favorite parts of book coaching—helping the writer see the blind spots.

I also walked them through my notecard-sorting method so they could see exactly how I write my journal summaries on cards, identify categories of feelings or mini-threads, and then sort them into overarching themes.

It’s what I should have done with the chapter I cut. If I had known to sort it that way back then, I would have realized I couldn’t connect it to how the story was moving forward. But I was too close to the material.

We also talked about whether a book is memoir or autofiction, which is a fictionalized memoir that lets you keep yourself or others from being identified. It also provides some editorial leeway that memoir (a true story) doesn’t. Whichever you choose, the reader still needs to see the writer, or the main character, change. That arc tests everything that comes next. If it doesn’t serve the story, it doesn’t belong.

With three people in the room, everyone actively participated in the conversation as we worked through these and other questions.

If that’s the kind of room you’d like to be in, I’d love to have you join us. I’ve posted the sessions for the rest of the year here. I keep these intentionally small so everyone has the opportunity to ask questions, and I’d love to have you there.

LAST QUARTER BOOK COACH OFFICE HOURS REGISTRATION.

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This was originally posted on my Substack.