Write what you know, say the experts. What else do you know better than your own life? If you want to start a written documentary about your experiences and emotions, drama or disappointments, you can learn to start in the right direction. By doing research, you can discover the emotional gist of the story you want to tell – your story – and how to gather the material to actually write it. See Step 1 for more information.
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Part 1 of 3: Doing Research
Step 1. Start documenting
It is important for budding autobiographers to document their lives on a regular basis. Journals, videos, photos, and reminiscences of the past are helpful as you begin to explore memories. We often remember things wrongly, or struggle to remember specifics, but things don't lie. Photos will tell the truth. Journals will always be honest.
- If you haven't already, start writing a detailed journal of your daily life. The best way to give yourself a reliable record of what's going on in your world and what's in your head is to keep a journal every night before bed.
- Take lots of photos. Imagine what it's like to forget your best friend's face at school, and not have their picture. Photos will later help trigger memories and provide a record of places and events. Photos are very important for autobiography writers.
- Videos can be very evocative to look back on. Watching how you age on camera, from teenager to adult, or seeing a family pet live and move is a very powerful experience. Take lots of videos during your life.
Step 2. Interview friends and family
To start collecting notes and start working on an autobiography or memoir, it can be helpful to talk to other people. You may think you understand yourself and your "story" well, but other people may have a different version of what you think. Ask for their pure impressions by conducting face-to-face interviews and taking notes, or creating surveys and letting others fill them out anonymously. Ask your friends, family and acquaintances specific questions:
- What is your strongest memory of me?
- What are the most significant events, accomplishments, and moments in my life?
- According to your memory, when did I become difficult?
- Have I become a friend, lover, or a good person?
- What object or place do you most associate with me?
- What would you like to say at my funeral?
Step 3. Go on long trips and talk to relatives you haven't been in touch with for a long time
One great way to find meaning in life and find motivation to start writing is from the past. Get in touch with distant relatives you may not have had contact with, and if so, visit a location in the past that you haven't been to in a long time. See what happened to your childhood home. Look for the old park where you used to play, the church where you were baptized, the grave of your great-grandfather. See everything.
- If you are the child of an immigrant, it can be very moving to visit your family's birthplace, if you have never been. Arrange a trip to your ancestral homeland and see if you identify with the place in a way you didn't feel before.
- Try and understand the story that is not only happening in your life, but also the life story of your family. Where did they come from? Who were they? Are you the son of cattle ranchers and iron workers, or the son of bankers and lawyers? Which side did your ancestors defend in an important war? Has anyone in your family been in prison? Are you descended from a knight? Royal member? The answers to these questions can be very valuable discoveries.
Step 4. Check the family file
Don't just browse through your own documents and memorabilia, search for the remains of your ancestors. Read the letters they wrote and received during wartime. Read their journals and diaries, making copies of everything to keep them safe, especially if you are dealing with very old fragile documents.
- At the very least, going through old photos is a great idea. Nothing can trigger intense emotions and nostalgia faster than seeing your grandparents' wedding day, or seeing your parents as children. Pass the time with old photos.
- All families need a reliable archiver, someone who is responsible for maintaining family documents. If you have an interest in digging into the past, start taking on this responsibility. Learn all you can about your family, history, and yourself.
Step 5. Consider an interesting project plan to write in an autobiography
Many nonfiction books are pre-planned, arranging for exciting changes in life, travel, or projects to be documented with the book. This can be a great way to produce materials. If you're concerned that not many interesting things are happening in your life, consider making a big change and writing a proposal to get funding to do it.
- Try to get out of your usual environment. If you're a city dweller, see what happens if you move to the countryside for a year and decide to eat only what you grow. Spend a year researching farming and herding practices and farmhouse management skills, proposing projects, and tying gloves for gardening. You can also travel to a volatile location, get a teaching job abroad, to a place that is both interesting and unfamiliar to you. Write down your experience there.
- Try and stop doing something over a long period of time, like taking out the trash, or eating refined sugar, and document your experience with the experiment.
- If you have a compelling enough proposal, many publishers will give you a down payment and a contract if you have a good track record in publishing, or if you already have a really great idea for a nonfiction project.
Step 6. Read another autobiography
Before you start your own autobiography, take a look at how other writers have approached their lives in print. Some of the best writing comes from writers who take on their own life challenges. Here are some classic autobiographies and memoirs:
- Townie by Andre Dubus III
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
- The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley
- Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi
- A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
- Life by Keith Richards
- Me by Katherine Hepburn
- Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn
Part 2 of 3: Finding the Beginning
Step 1. Find the emotional truth of your story
The hardest thing about writing an autobiography or memoir is finding the heart of the story. Worst of all, autobiographies can become tedious and rambling series of details, going through months and years without any specific or interesting details to sustain the story itself. Or, an autobiography can elevate mundane details to feel important, profound, and terrifying. It all has to do with finding the emotional core of your story and keeping it at the forefront of your story. What's your story? What is the most significant part of your life that needs to be told?
Picture your whole life, as you live it, like a beautiful mountain looming in the distance. If you want to give other people a tour of the mountain, you can rent a helicopter and fly for 20 minutes, pointing to small things in the distance. Or you can take them across the mountain, showing them the ins and outs, the details, and the personal stuff. That's what people want to read
Step 2. State how you have changed
If it's hard to find a part of your life that you can relate to, start thinking about a major change in your life. What is the difference between you then and you now? How did you grow? What obstacles or struggles have you overcome?
- Quick practice: Write a short one-page self-portrait of yourself 5 years ago, 30 years ago, or even a few months ago, if necessary – to whatever extent you need to tell of any significant changes in yourself. What clothes were you wearing at that time? What was the main purpose of your life at that time? What do you do on a typical Saturday night?
- In Dubus' Townie, the author tells what it was like to grow up in a student city, where his father who was close to him worked as a professor and a famous and successful writer. However, he lives with his mother, takes drugs, fights, and struggles with identity. His transformation from a townie out of control and obsessed with anger to becoming a successful writer (like his father) forms the core of the story.
Step 3. Write a list of the important characters in your story
All good stories need strong supporting roles from other characters to complete the narrative. Even though your life will form the structure and main focus of your autobiography, no one wants to read self-indulgent words. Who are the other very important characters in your life?
- Quick practice: Write a one-page character sketch for each member of your family, focusing on the question you asked yourself earlier, or asking someone else about yourself for research. What is your brother's greatest accomplishment? Is your mother a happy person? Was your father a good friend? If your friends are more significant in your autobiography than family, focus on them more.
- It's important to keep your character list short, and if necessary, "combine" the characters. While all the guys you've been with at the bar, or everyone you've worked with are important at some point in the story, throwing in 10 names every two pages will quickly tire the reader. Combining them into one character is a common technique for writers to avoid overloading the reader with too many different names. Choose one main character for each important setting.
Step 4. Decide where most of your story will take place
What will be the setting of your autobiography? Where did the dramatic shift, event, or change take place? In what ways does that place shape you and your story? Think in terms of both geography and specifics – your country and city may be just as important as the roads, or the neighborhood.
- Quick practice: Write down all the things you associate with your hometown, or the area you're from. Do you identify as Kalimantan, if you are from Kalimantan, or do you identify as Dayak? When people ask you where you're from, are you shy about explaining it? Proud?
- If you move frequently, consider focusing on the locations that are most special, memorable, or very important to the story. Mikal Gilmore's autobiography Shot in the Heart, which chronicles his moving life and turbulent relationship with his brother, killer Gary Gilmore, involves a lot of moving and living, but is often summarized, rather than dramatized.
Step 5. Limit the scope of the book
The difference between a successful and an unsuccessful autobiography lies in whether or not you are able to limit the scope to a single, unified idea, or whether the different amounts of detail will overwhelm the story. No one can fit their whole life into one story. Some things have to be left out. Deciding what to leave out is just as important as deciding what to include.
- An autobiography is a record of the author's entire life, while a memoir is a document that covers a very specific story, time period, or aspect of the author's life. Memoirs are more adaptable, especially if you're young. An autobiography written at 18 can be a bit tedious, but a memoir will do.
- If you want to write an autobiography, you must choose a unifying theme to complete the story. Perhaps your relationship with your father is the most important part of your story, or your military experience, or your struggle with addiction, or your strong faith and struggles to maintain it.
Step 6. Start with a rough outline
When you're starting to get an idea of what you think your autobiography or memoir should be and where you're taking it, writing an outline is as helpful as it is for most writers. Unlike fiction, where you have to create a plot, here you already have an understanding of where the story will end, or what will happen next. Outlining is a very helpful way to see the main plot points and determine what to emphasize and what to summarize.
- Chronological autobiographies tell stories from birth to adulthood, following the exact sequence as they occur in life, while thematic and anecdotal autobiographies will jump around, telling stories based on specific themes. Some writers prefer to let the will of their heart dictate the direction, and not follow the elaborate plans outlined as plots.
- Johnny Cash's autobiography Cash travels with his story, starting from his home in Jamaica and then back there, moving on like a late-night conversation on the front porch with an elderly man. It is an extraordinary and familiar way of compiling an autobiography, impossible to outline in advance.
Part 3 of 3: Drafting an Autobiography
Step 1. Start writing
What is the biggest secret that writers, novelists, and memoirs have about this process? No secrets. You just sit down and start writing. Every day, try and write more of your autobiography. Write more on that page. Think of it as if you were mining raw materials from the earth. Get it all out, as much as possible. Whether it's good or not is up to you later. Try and surprise yourself before the job is done.
Ron Carlson, a novelist and storyteller, calls this commitment "stay indoors." Even if you want to get up and grab a cup of coffee, or fiddle with the music player, or take your dog for a walk, the writer stays indoors and continues to work on the difficult parts of the story. That's where writing is created. Stay indoors and write
Step 2. Write a production schedule
Many writing projects have stalled due to lack of production. It's hard to sit at a desk every day and literally spill words onto the page, but it's a lot easier for some people to make a schedule and try to stick to it. Decide how much you want to earn per day and try to meet that level every day. 200 words? 1,200 words? 20 pages? It's up to you and your work habits.
You can also specify the amount of time you can devote to the project each day and not worry about word or page counts. If you have 45 full minutes of quiet after work, or before going to bed at night, set aside that time to work on your autobiography without distraction. Stay focused and do as much as you can
Step 3. Consider recording your story and copying it later
If you want to write an autobiography but don't like the idea of actually writing it, or if you're having trouble with things like vocabulary and grammar, it may be more appropriate to record your voice "telling" the story and then copy it over. Prepare a nice drink, quiet room, digital recorder and push the button. Let the story flow.
- It might be helpful to have someone to talk to, to think of the recording process more like an interview. Talking to yourself into the microphone can be a little weird, but if you're a great storyteller with lots of interesting stories to tell, maybe talking to a good friend or relative asking questions will put you in your own element.
- Most rock star autobiographies, or memoirs written by non-professional writers, are "written" this way. They would record interviews, tell stories and anecdotes from their lives, and then compile them with the shadow writers who oversaw the writing of the actual books. It may seem like cheating, but it works.
Step 4. Allow yourself to remember wrongly
Memories are unreliable. Most true stories don't live up to the simplicity and fluidity of fiction, but writers have a tendency to let narrative guidelines and rules influence their memories, polishing and adapting them to the story. Don't worry too much about whether your story is 100% accurate or not, worry about whether it sounds emotional or not.
- Sometimes you only remember two important conversations with a friend, both over pizza at your favorite restaurant. Maybe the two conversations took place on two different nights that were two years apart, but for the sake of story it would be easier if the two were made into one conversation. Is it wrong to do that, if it makes a neat narrative? Probably not.
- There's a difference between tidying up the muddled details in your memories and making up something. Don't create people, places, or problems. No obvious lies.
Step 5. Reprimand the "critic"
Every writer has an internal critic perched on their shoulder. The critic complains, thinks it's all too cliché, screams insults into the writer's ear. Tell the critic to stop. When you're just starting out, it's important to free yourself from censorship as much as possible. Just write it down. Don't worry about whether what you write is perfect or not, whether every sentence is neat, whether people will be interested or not. Just write it down. Do the important work of tidying up later in the revision.
At the end of each writing period, review what you wrote and make changes, or, better yet, let your writing stay that way for a while before you do anything to make changes
Step 6. Include as many other elements as possible in the autobiography
If you've already started and written your story, you may end up getting stuck and feeling confused about where to go. It's time to get creative. Use all the research and documents you've gathered to squeeze something out of yourself onto the page. Think of it like a collage, or an art project, more than a "book."
- Dig up family photos from a bygone era and write down your imagination of what each character was thinking when the photo was taken. Write it down.
- Let the other person talk for a while. If you've interviewed family members, write down one of their voices for a few moments. Copy the interviews you have done and ask them for their input on the page.
- Imagine the life of an important object. Turn your grandfather's brass knuckle that he brought from the war into the character of your grandfather and father's argument. Sit down with your dad's coin collection and imagine how he collects it, how he feels, the way he views it. What did he see?
Step 7. Understand the difference between a scene and a summary
When you're writing narrative prose, it's important to learn to distinguish between scene writing and summary writing. Good writing goes fast according to its ability to summarize periods of time in narrative and at a distance, and slow down certain key moments and show them in the scene. Think of summaries like montages in a movie, and scenes like dialogue swaps.
- Example summary: "We moved a lot that summer. Knees scraped and ate hot dogs at the gas station, hot leather in the back of dad's '88 Suburban. We fished in Raccoon Lake, got leeches in Diamond Lake, and visited grandma in Kankakee. She gave us kids a jar of pickles to share while dad got drunk in the backyard, fell asleep, and ended up with the sunburnt lobster god on his back."
- Example scene: "We heard the dog squeal and Grandma opened the door slightly to check on him, but we could see he was holding his feet in place, as if afraid of what he was seeing. His hands were still covered in lumps of pie dough and his face was stiff as a mask. He said, 'Bill Jr. you touch that dog again and I'm going to call the police.' We stopped eating pickles. Suddenly they looked ridiculous. We were waiting to hear what he had to say next."
Step 8. Write down a little and be specific
Good writing is made of clear descriptions and specific details. Bad writing is made of abstraction. The more specific, detail-oriented you can write, the better your autobiography will be. Try and make each important scene as long as possible, bringing out all that is possible. If it ends up being too much, you can always trim it later.
If the emotional core of your story revolves around your relationship with your father, you could give us 50 pages of systematic mechanics of his views, bemoaning his narrow-mindedness, his hatred of women, or his cruel ramblings, but you'll probably lose a lot of us in three pages. Instead, focus on the things we can see. Describe his routine after work. Describe her way of saying something to your mother. Describe the way he eats the steak. Give us the detailed details
Step 9. Use dialogue sparingly
Most inexperienced writers overuse dialogue, writing full pages of dialogue between characters. Writing dialogue is very difficult, especially in autobiographical projects. Use dialogue only when the characters really need to speak, and summarize the rest in storytelling language. Make it a goal not to have more than one dialogue for every 200 word summary and narration.
When writing a scene, dialogue should be used to move the scene forward, and it should also be used to show us how the character experienced the scene. It might be important to the grandma character that she's the only one fighting Jay Jr. and told him to stop. Maybe it was a big, important change in the drama
Step 10. Be generous
There are no "good guys" and "bad guys" in real life, and they shouldn't appear in good writing. Memories have a tendency to distort opinions, and it's easy to erase the good qualities of an ex, or only remember the good parts of a college friend. Try and paint a balanced picture, and your writing will get better for it.
- No truly evil characters should appear in an autobiography, they should have their own motivations and traits. If Bill Jr. is a dog beater drunk, then there must be a good reason, not just because he's a demon reincarnated.
- Let the "good" characters have their moments of shame, or character failure. Show them in failure so we can see them in success and appreciate them even more for it.
Step 11. Hang on
Stick to your production schedule as much as possible. There may be days when you don't really feel like writing, but try to move on. Find the next scene, the next chapter, the next story. Skip if you have to, or go back to the research results to let go of something else.
If you have to put writing aside for a while, go ahead. You can always enjoy life, gain more perspective, and return to the book with fresh eyes. An autobiography can be something that is always changing. Go on with your life and write new chapters
Tips
- Make sure your autobiography echoes the truth. Don't make up anything just to make your autobiography more interesting.
- Use words that will attract the reader and try to replace ordinary words with stronger ones.
