When my sister finished a draft of her memoir, I took a couple of days off work to help her get a bird's eye view of the manuscript to identify gaps and opportunities. We used index cards. We spread them over the comforter of my bed, shuffling them around, resorting, reorganizing, removing and replacing. The process helped. She never published that memoir, but in the process of querying, one agent told her she should consider rewriting it as fiction. She did. It became her first novel, which she did publish.
When my sister finished a draft of her memoir, I took a couple of days off work to help her get a bird's eye view of the manuscript to identify gaps and opportunities. We used index cards. We spread them over the comforter of my bed, shuffling them around, resorting, reorganizing, removing and replacing. The process helped. She never published that memoir, but in the process of querying, one agent told her she should consider rewriting it as fiction. She did. It became her first novel, which she did publish.