I submitted three stories to a regional publisher who specializes in this type of material about growing up in a small coastal village in the 1950s with only water and air access. He responded positively and now wants to see my whole 60,000 word manuscript. My task now is to figure out how to present the story collection in a coherent order. Chronologically from the beginning I suppose? Starting with "I was born at an early age" for example and going from there? In some stories for example where I describe entering an abandoned house and looking at abandoned gas lamps, fishing gear and vintage magazines, I mention things about the owner that I did not know at the age of 12, but write what I learned later as an adult. Do you think it is okay to interrupt the narrative like that, or should I stay in the mode of the innocent wonder of 12 year-old kid going through all these antique artifacts?
First off, congratulations! Good luck with the project. It sounds like you're describing a collection of short personal essays, rather than a monolithic book-length memoir. Is that right? If so, then I would say to do whatever works best for each essay, as the reader won't necessarily read them in your order. David Sedaris, for instance, writes extensively about his life (in a humorous way), and when I read his collections I tend to jump around, picking a title that interests me, or reading the shortest one because I'm tired and want something quick before bed, for example. But many readers will go in order, so the arrangement isn't meaningless. You could certainly arrange them chronologically (roughly, if they overlap), but you might also consider grouping them by common themes. If there's an overarching narrative that you want to emphasize about your life, then consider what order might bring it out the best. And if not, maybe just try varying the lengths and tones throughout the book, like you would in a good music playlist. In any case, I'm sure the publisher will want to work with you on the final ordering, so you should probably shouldn't stress too much about it yet. Do your best, but consider whatever you deliver to them as tentative.
Thank you AntPoems. Yes, you are correct, it is a collections of short personal essays about being a kid in a small town, various misadventures and adventures I got into, commercial salmon fishing as an 11 year-old with my dad, working logging with him at 12, solo hikes into the wilderness at 17 and so on. The publisher comes from a similar background and started his house 50 years ago to keep stories like this of the coastal life in that era alive.
Thanks for your recommendations. In my stories, I really want to focus on memories, but I can't do it with the highest quality in terms of form and ease of perception by the reader. When I start to write and build different trajectories of memories, and when after that I read the already finished text, I understand that it is written very difficult, very incomprehensible and not quite sincerely, I guess. I want to improve on this.
