If you are just writing for your family, that story might be different than if you were writing your story to be read by the general public. Think about whether or not you want to change people’s names. If your life was a harsh one you may not want to include the real names of the people involved. You may also want to consider whether your life story could be written as fiction. There’s an old adage that “real life is better than fiction.” Maybe your true story could be written in fiction form making it more saleable for mass market.
The theme of your life is to be defined before the story is written. Your goal – and your ultimate achievement of that goal – can be the theme. You should also remember to include something that takes the focus from the past and present, and puts it on the future. A particular event that had a huge impact on your life can be your theme. Find and mark that one day and or one event that twisted your life out of shape and made you think about your future. In general, the end or beginning of somebody’s life has a tremendous impact on many people’s lives. It is around this theme that the story should be woven like rich tapestry of many colors and flavors.
Why it helps: Sometimes we avoid the most obvious—and complicated—events that have happened to us, events that inform our whole life story. Let’s say your three-sentence exercise was Loving mom who worked all the time, no dad. Never really got over lonely childhood. Maybe you could try, “I was just a kid but...” or “I tried my best but...” Was there something else that happened that prevented you from getting over your lonely childhood? Did it happen when you were a child—or later? Did it involve parents? You don’t have to know the answers to these questions. Let the pre-written prompts guide you. “Don’t think and write,” says Temes. “Just write.”
Writing your life story can be one of the most complex forms of storytelling. It could involve emerging themes, narrative flow, and re-creating dialogue from memory. Or it can be surprisingly easy and fun. What if I was to show you a powerful and unique method of capturing a dynamic life by using legacy themes? It involves just ten of these. Best of all, these legacy themes are easy to write with only 2-3 pages for each. If you have ever written a high school term essay, you can write your life story.
Your readers won’t be interested in reading the whole text of your autobiography if you don’t provide a good impression in the introduction. Convince your audience that your story is unique, original, and is worth their time. If you are going to write about an episode from your childhood, use a feeling of nostalgia to create a tight connection between readers and your own memories. Remember that all people are the same to some extent. We live through similar experiences every day, so you should use these similarities to make your writing attractive for the general public.
Live Life Happy is one of the most important quotes site you will ever visit. Here you'll find powerful nuggets of wisdom to help keep you inspired throughout the day and week. Save our quote posters to your phone or computer. Print them out and put them on the wall in your home or office. Share them with friends and family... We hope you enjoy browsing our huge collection of printable quote posters. Please do link back to this site or credit us when reposting - as we work hard to curate and create our own content. Thank you so much for stopping by, and don't forget to visit us again tomorrow. Have the best day ever!
Not only does writing about your life story change you, it can change others as well. Your history can have a powerful effect on other people’s lives! Especially if you’ve learned, grown and changed through the years. And I suspect you have. You wouldn’t be searching for information on how to write about your life story if nothing every happened to you 🙂
Use simple words and phrases: Think from reader’s point of view. Do not imagine that everybody will know what you know. Readers will be fed up if the story narration demands scrambling for a dictionary each time they come across a big word or surfing the net for new topics that you haven’t described at least in brief. Use only simple words and phrases that everyone can understand, and when introducing a new concept or subject, explain it so they know what you’re talking about.
Conduct basic research. Depending on your story, you may feel you need to do in-depth research on a certain subject, like air force pilots in WWII or life in a refugee camp in Poland. However, resist doing too much research before you start your first draft. You may get overwhelmed by the amount of information you come across during your research and start to forget your personal take on the facts. Remember that your memoir should focus on your memory of the event, rather than be purely factual or completely accurate.[7]
Writing about your life is important because it gives you a chance to reflect. Journaling is one of the main practices that therapists recommend for promoting mental health. It helps people manage anxiety, cope with stress, and deal with depression. When you maintain a journal and you go through your previous entries, you witness your memories without distorting the reality. You see your progress. You remind yourself of the important things you forgot.
Live Life Happy is one of the most important quotes site you will ever visit. Here you'll find powerful nuggets of wisdom to help keep you inspired throughout the day and week. Save our quote posters to your phone or computer. Print them out and put them on the wall in your home or office. Share them with friends and family... We hope you enjoy browsing our huge collection of printable quote posters. Please do link back to this site or credit us when reposting - as we work hard to curate and create our own content. Thank you so much for stopping by, and don't forget to visit us again tomorrow. Have the best day ever!
Once you have taken a look at your own life from an outsider’s point of view, you will be able to select the most interesting elements from your notes to establish a theme. What was the most interesting thing you came up with in your research? Was it the history of your family and your region? Here is an example of how you can turn that into a theme:
According to the fascinating field of “narrative psychology,” the stories we tell about ourselves are the key to our well-being. If you’ve interpreted the events of your life to mean that you’re unlucky or unwise, it’s hard to look optimistically at the future. Conversely, if you acknowledge that you’ve made mistakes and faced difficulties but seek (or have already glimpsed) redemption, you’ll feel a much greater sense of agency over your life.
“I was born in 19XX year, I entered school N…” Would you read that if you had a choice? Most likely not, especially if you already have read a dozen biographies which star with the same phrase. Yes, an autobiography is a formal piece of writing. But here, it rather means that you are not allowed to use slang and colloquial language, instead of following a specific pattern of writing.
As is present in the biography of a person, your place and time of birth, your parents’ views, an overview of your personality, your likes and dislikes, and important events that shaped your life should always be included in your autobiography. This will give a mental picture of your life to the readers as a sort of backdrop to the main part of the story.
Build tension and suspense. Structure the narrative so that you have a series of stories leading up to the climax of the conflict. If your central conflict is trying to reach the goal of competing in the Olympics for skiing, lead up to it with stories of small successes and plenty of failures. You want your readers to ask, will she make it? Can he do it? What's going to happen next?
