Saturday, August 18, 2018

How Writers Make History With Memoirs Ghostwriting

By Shirley Reed


Most writers achieve only a shadow of what they intended while attending college. For most of us, newspapers, television, or online articles are the most we are likely to achieve, as we live in a world of hostile competition and slim opportunity. However, if one has the opportunity to conduct memoirs ghostwriting, it can take them right out of the mediocre, and catapult their career into a colorful new direction.

Sometimes we find a subject by accident, and that man or woman makes a generous offer for the opportunity to have their story told from their point of view. Sometimes a writer pursues the work themselves, and commits to this duty for a stipend, or less. No matter how the job is obtained, this writer must know that their role is a vital element in the telling of historical events.

Without free access to the home the job is nearly impossible to accomplish. In fact, sometimes the subject must issue their storyteller a temporary Limited Power of Attorney so that they are able to obtain any legal, medical, or historical documents which might be of a private or protected nature. Many a history teller has had to meticulously organize the documents, photographs, and other memorabilia in homes that can only be described as a hoard.

It might even be advantageous if the subject is bedridden. Elderly men and women often become enraged when they see someone going through their belongings, and this makes the job quite difficult. Even though they may have requested their services, and paid them a large retainer for same, actually witnessing a stranger in their attic can cause chaos in their heart.

Photographs, newspaper clippings, letters, and personal diaries all make the job for the ghostwriter go smoothly. Not only does it reflect how the subject thought and felt at the time of certain events, but it also provides a concise bibliography backing up the manuscript. No writer wishes to be called a Charlatan, but the fact is, documentation guards the writer against fraud on the part of their subject.

Writers must entertain as well as inform, and a good one uses this to their advantage. Mark Twain was best known for his ability to make characters come alive in his stories through the use of written Ebonics. The reader was made to truly hear the voices of characters through the creative recreation of their accented Pigeon English.

Anyone who is friend or kin to a ghostwriter might wish to keep tabs on them while they are in their writer limbo. Artists often suffer for their work, especially when their work requires them to truly experience events in their imagination so that they can describe vital details. This process is often stressful, and can actually cause post traumatic stress.

Only the brave may walk the hallways of history, as terrible events surely befell mankind in the wake of great triumph. Only a soldier of the written word dare cross the bridges that burned decades past. These terrible truths must be written with bitter-sweetness and beauty so that all of us can weep in wonderment at the exquisite beauty and horror of human beings.




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