Before You Begin Your Story
Before you begin your story, ask yourself the following questions:
1. Why do you want to tell your life story?
2. What type of story do you want to tell—a life story, a family history, or a memoir?
A life story covers an entire life. A family history tells the history of your family and may include several generations. A memoir focuses on a particular period in your life.
3. What type of product do you want to produce: an oral history on CD; a book; a DVD, or some combination of these products?
4. Who is your intended audience?
5. Who will be interviewed?
6. How many interviews will you allow to gather information for your life story?
7. What photographs and documents will you add to your life story?
8. When do you want to begin your life story?
9. How much time and money can you devote to your life story?
10. What is your timetable for creating your life story?
Ten Tips for Writing Your Life Story
- Recall your memories. Use photographs, mementos, old magazines or calendars, record albums or sheet music, newspaper clippings, even family recipes to help.
- Divide your life into periods: early childhood, teen years, young adult years, middle age, and retirement years.
- Create life lists by periods. Try to list seven to ten significant events in each period.
- Discover the turning points in your life. Recall specific before-and-after moments when your life changed.
- Focus. Select one period or your entire life. If you choose the latter, write about the ten most significant events during that period.
- Establish a time and place to write. Even if you only have five or ten minutes a day to write, write regularly and enjoy yourself. No one is censoring or reviewing your work, so allow yourself to have fun.
- Write the important stories first. Don’t worry about order, just write.
- Add the details, and be as specific as possible. Incorporate character, setting, action, dialogue, tone, point of view and turning points into your stories.
- Start a life writing group with friends to help continue the process. Once the class has ended, consider meeting informally at someone’s home to continue writing your stories.
- Read, read, read, or listen to books on tape. Reading and listening to books on tape will make you a better writer. You’ll learn techniques by osmosis. Just don’t compare yourself with other writers. You are the person that makes your stories unique. These are the stories your family will treasure.
