The heart of memoir ghostwriting is transforming spoken stories into written narrative. Your client tells you their life in rambling, non-linear conversations. You transform those interviews into structured, compelling manuscripts that read as though they sat down and wrote them personally. This transformation requires specific skills: extracting narrative from conversation, organizing chronological chaos, maintaining authentic voice while elevating readability, and constructing vivid scenes from fragmentary memory descriptions. Master this process and you can ghostwrite memoirs that feel genuinely authored by the subject, not obviously written by someone else.
Phase 1: Strategic Interviewing for Narrative
The quality of your manuscript depends on interview quality. Interview strategically:
Chronological Interviews First: Begin with 2-3 interviews covering life chronologically. Ask client to tell their story from beginning to present, interrupting minimally. This creates narrative backbone and reveals which periods they emphasize naturally.
Thematic Deep-Dives Second: After chronological overview, conduct targeted interviews on specific themes, relationships, or events. "Last time you mentioned your father's business failure. Tell me everything about that period." These interviews provide the rich detail that becomes compelling scenes.
Detail-Extraction Questions: Don't accept summary statements. When they say "my mother was difficult," ask "Give me a specific scene that shows what you mean." Push for sensory details, dialogue, and concrete moments rather than interpretations.
Record Everything: Audio record (with permission) and get transcripts. Your memory of interviews is unreliable. Transcripts capture their actual language, which is essential for voice authenticity.
Phase 2: Transcript Organization and Analysis
Before writing, organize your source material:
Create Timeline Document: Extract every datable event from transcripts into chronological timeline. This reveals the actual sequence of events versus how client remembered them (often non-linear). Your timeline might show: 1985-Birth, 1990-Parents divorce, 1995-Move to California, etc. Include everything mentioned, even briefly.
Tag by Theme: Mark transcript sections with thematic tags: #RELATIONSHIP-FATHER, #BUSINESS-FAILURE, #TURNING-POINT-1998, #REFLECTION-RESILIENCE. This lets you find all material related to specific themes quickly when writing relevant chapters.
Identify Gold Quotes: Mark exceptional quotes that capture voice, wisdom, or emotional truth. These become chapter openings, section transitions, or memorable lines readers will underline. Look for sentences where their authentic personality shines through.
Map Narrative Arcs: Identify the transformational journey in their story. What changed? What was the before state, the challenge/struggle period, and the after state? Every memoir needs visible transformation or readers wonder what the point was.
Phase 3: Building Outline from Interviews
Transform organized material into narrative structure:
Choose Organizational Principle: Chronological (most common for memoir), thematic (organized by topics rather than time), or bookend/frame (start with climax, flash back to build context, return to resolve). Interview content determines which structure fits best.
Allocate Material to Chapters: Create chapter outline showing which interview material feeds each chapter. Chapter 5 might draw from Interview 2 (minutes 23-45), Interview 4 (minutes 10-30), and Interview 7 (entire). This prevents losing track of where material lives.
Identify Content Gaps: Outline reveals what's missing. Maybe they talked extensively about career but barely mentioned family. You need additional interviews to fill gaps before you can write complete manuscript.
Plan Scene vs. Summary: Mark which chapters will be primarily scene (showing specific moments with sensory detail and dialogue) versus summary (covering time periods quickly). Balance both—all scene exhausts readers, all summary bores them.
Phase 4: Voice Capture and Consistency
Your manuscript must sound like them, not you:
Analyze Their Speech Patterns: How do they naturally speak? Long complex sentences or short direct ones? Formal vocabulary or casual? Do they use specific metaphors, expressions, or verbal tics? Document these patterns in style guide.
Preserve Signature Phrases: If they repeatedly say "here's the thing" or "what people don't understand is..." or use unique expressions, incorporate these sparingly for authenticity. Don't overuse—sprinkle throughout for flavor.
Elevate Without Erasing: Most clients want published-quality prose, not verbatim transcription. Fix grammatical errors, complete sentence fragments, remove filler words (um, like, you know). BUT preserve their rhythm, vocabulary level, and personality. Clean up without sterilizing.
Voice Consistency Checks: As you write, regularly read passages aloud. Do they sound like things the client would actually say? If a sentence makes you think "they wouldn't phrase it that way," revise until it sounds authentic.
Phase 5: Constructing Scenes from Interview Fragments
Interviews rarely provide complete scenes. They give fragments you must reconstruct:
Dialogue Reconstruction: Client might say "My boss told me I wasn't cut out for management." You can write: "My boss leaned back in his chair. 'You're great with clients,' he said, 'but management? I don't see it. Maybe in a few years.'" You're elaborating the essential moment they described while staying true to the core interaction.
Sensory Detail Addition: They might say "We met at a coffee shop to discuss the deal." Ask follow-up: "Which coffee shop? What did it look like? What were you drinking? What season was it?" Add these details to create vivid scenes rather than generic summaries.
Emotional Internalization: Interviews reveal how they felt. They say "I was terrified." Your scene shows: "I sat in the waiting room, watching other candidates come and go. My palms were sweating. I'd rehearsed my pitch forty times but suddenly couldn't remember the opening line." Convert stated emotions into shown experience.
Chronological Filling: They might say "Between leaving that job and starting my company, there were some rough months." You need to fill that gap. Ask: "What happened in those months? Where were you living? What did a typical day look like?" Interview again to flesh out periods they summarized.
Phase 6: Narrative Flow and Transitions
Interviews are choppy. Manuscripts must flow:
Create Bridges: Clients jump between topics in interviews. Your job is building narrative bridges. Example: Chapter 3 ends with business failure. Chapter 4 starts with meeting future spouse. Bridge: "In the months after the business collapsed, I avoided everyone I knew professionally. That isolation led me to Jennifer—I met her at a stranger's party, the only person there I didn't have to explain myself to."
Time Transitions: Signal time passing clearly. "Three years later" or "By 2015, I'd rebuilt" or "The next decade brought changes I couldn't have imagined." Readers need temporal anchors because they can't see chapter breaks indicating time shifts the way you can.
Thematic Callbacks: Reference earlier events when relevant. If Chapter 3 establishes "I learned to never trust partners," and Chapter 9 shows them finally trusting again, explicitly reference the callback: "For the first time since the betrayal that destroyed my first business, I was willing to trust a partner again." Callbacks create satisfying narrative cohesion.
Phase 7: Handling Common Interview-to-Manuscript Challenges
Challenge: Client Remembers Events Incorrectly
Solution: Fact-check dates, names, and sequences against public records or other sources. Present corrections gently: "I found that acquisition actually happened in 2008, not 2010 as we discussed. Should we adjust the timeline?" Memory is fallible—verify important facts.
Challenge: They Tell Same Stories Multiple Times Differently
Solution: Choose the most detailed, vivid version. Note inconsistencies and ask them to clarify which version is accurate. Sometimes the different tellings reveal emotional truth more important than factual precision.
Challenge: Boring Necessary Exposition
Solution: Integrate backstory into active scenes rather than blocks of summary. Instead of "I grew up in Ohio in a working-class family," show them in Ohio: "I was eight when my father came home and announced the plant was closing. That night at dinner, my mother asked what he'd do now. He didn't answer." Show context through specific moments.
Challenge: Missing Emotional Depth
Solution: Some clients tell events without emotional access. Ask "How did that feel?" and "What were you thinking in that moment?" Help them access emotions during interviews so you can write emotionally resonant scenes.
Phase 8: Client Review Process
After draft complete, manage review strategically:
Emotional Preparation: Warn clients that reading their life story is emotionally intense. They might have strong reactions to seeing painful events in writing. This is normal.
Accuracy Review First: Ask them to read first for factual accuracy (dates, names, events). Then read again for voice and emotional truth. Separating these reviews prevents overwhelming feedback mixing correction types.
Expect Discomfort: Clients often feel exposed reading their stories in polished form. They might want to soften difficult truths or remove vulnerable moments. Gently advocate for keeping powerful material while respecting their boundaries—it's their story ultimately.
Voice Calibration: Some clients will say "I wouldn't say it like that." This is your voice-matching chance. Ask them to tell you how they would say it, record that, and use their actual phrasing. This refines your voice accuracy.
Tools and Technology
Transcription Services: Use Rev, Otter.ai, or Trint for accurate transcripts. Don't transcribe manually—it's inefficient and error-prone.
Organization Tools: Scrivener excellent for organizing interview material by chapter. Notion or Evernote work for tagging and cross-referencing across interviews.
AI Assistance: Use AI to summarize lengthy transcripts, extract key quotes, identify themes across multiple interviews, or generate first-draft scenes from interview fragments that you then refine. AI accelerates the mechanical work of organizing and initial drafting, freeing you for the human work of voice matching and emotional depth.
Ghostwriting memoir from interviews is part detective work (organizing evidence), part craft (constructing narrative), part empathy (understanding their experience), and part channeling (writing in their voice). It's demanding but deeply rewarding work—you preserve someone's legacy in their authentic voice. Use River's Interview to Narrative Converter to accelerate the transformation from raw transcripts to polished memoir chapters while maintaining voice authenticity throughout the process.