Kia Ora!
How are you and how is your story coming along? I’m writing beside a coughing, sneezing seven year old, ahh the joys of motherhood!
Today I want to ask you if you’re repeating yourself in your story? This is very easy to do, and it can be subtle and easy to miss. I know I have a tendency to say the same thing, but in different words.
And it’s not always a bad thing. You might be writing to a theme and need to repeat yourself. However, it’s good to be aware that you’re doing it, or not.
Here’s how I weed this out of my writing.
I’ll write my story with wild abandon the first time, just to get things moving. Then I’ll read back through it to check for mistakes and to add to it. Then I’ll step back from it for a few hours, or a few days, or even longer, before reading through it again and polishing it. And finally I’ll have at least one other person read over it.
I think it requires some honesty with yourself to search for repeated points. And if you don’t tidy them up, an editor will.
Right, I’m off to tend to my coughing, sneezing child. See what I did there?
Charlotte x
PS if you feel like you need to brush back over the basics of writing before you write your memoir or history, I’ve created a whole module about the basics of writing these days in my online course Write Your Memoir. More info here.
Charlotte Squire 