Monday, August 31, 2015

Organize A Life Story

Many of us conceive that the legend of our lives are deluxe ones and value retelling. On the contrary, still of what Testament conceive or gash the do of an autobiography is not the material approximately the continuance you've lived, on the contrary how you choose to construct and ad hoc those stories. Here are some considerations to receive you started.


Instructions


This will serve as a sort of "map" or blueprint as you determine the pacing of your story and how much writing you want to spend on different portions. There is nothing saying that you have to write more about longer periods of time and less about shorter periods. You can, for example, breeze through the description of your childhood and spend several chapters on a pivotal three-day period in college if it seems important. If you're not sure, read autobiographies of others and ask yourself which ones seem closer to the kind of book you want to write and which ones seem to be the best fit for the aspects of your life story that you most want to highlight. Ask yourself what the purpose of this book is, who you intend to have read it, and what they're reaction should be.


2. Write a basic outline of your life events.1. Decide on a format for your life story. Will you write it in first person or third? Will this narrative be a novel-like story, or will it take a form more closely resembling other factual non-fiction books? The latter is a good choice if you want to focus on facts and details, while the former is a better choice if you want to focus on emotional journeys and an entertaining story. This outline will simply serve as a starting point for asking yourself questions about what times in your life you most want to talk about and how.


3. Determine some events in your life that you feel have been critical or life-changing. Especially if you are writing a novel-style story, you will want to take extra time and care to give these events the treatment they deserve. If you can and if you feel comfortable doing so, ask people who have known you for a very long time about the changes they have seen in you over the years. Their insights will likely provide you with perspectives you hadn't considered.


4. Assess the people in your life and determine who has had the greatest influence on you. The people in your life are a vital part of your story, so don't neglect them. For a good autobiography, you will need to devote time and care to how you present each of these people, whether that means presenting facts and brief background about them (as for a non-fiction style biography) or giving them a rich characterization (for a novel-like autobiography).


5. Look for "through lines" or recurring themes in your life story. Look for lessons you find yourself repeating, or personal discoveries that have been years in the making. Look for long-time personal struggles. Revisiting this themes throughout your story and connecting them from one event to another will give your biography some strong continuity.


6. Outline your biography chapter by chapter. Take the information you have assembled, decide what will and won't be included and begin to organize it in a chronological fashion. Write outlines of each chapter, and be flexible.