How to Write a Brief Story of Your Life
The best thing about the story of your life is the fact that no one else can express it with your perspective. Your experiences, achievements and heartbreaks are worthy of being documented directly from the person who lived them and will be valued for generations to come. Writing a brief story of your life will not only give you the opportunity to reflect on your past, but will give others a glimpse into the events that helped shape the person you are today.
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Instructions
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Decide just how brief you want the story of your life to be. It's easy to feel overwhelmed at the task of chronicling your life, but committing to a minimum and maximum number of pages will help you pace yourself in order to avoid burnout.
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Create a detailed outline of your life. This will serve as an outline for your story as well. For the sake of brevity, focus first on pivotal events. Then outline other notable happenings with one- to two-sentence notations. When complete, the outline should be no longer than one or two pages total. This might vary depending on age and personal experience.
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Consult older family members, friends and important people in your life who can provide further background information on events that took place when you were young. These talks will not only help you flesh out your story, but will jog your memory too. Keep in mind that the purpose of their perspectives is to aid you in solidifying your own.
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Reference photo albums, letters, awards, souvenirs and other memorabilia that can stimulate your memories and thus enrich your written account of them. Make brief notes for each one describing how these things made you feel and what they meant to you at key points in your life.
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Write the story of your life. Use descriptive details and language when describing the biggest events (use your own perception to determine these). Try to avoid rambling when writing about less significant periods. Following your outline will help you chronologically order the story as well as organize your writing. Take breaks from writing if you need to, but don't feel obligated to edit your work to fit anyone's expectations except your own.
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Tips & Warnings
If you aren't the most confident writer, it's sometimes easier to record thoughts vocally and transcribe them later. Use a voice recorder to help translate your spoken words into written text. Writing a rough draft of your brief life story by hand, then typing it into a computer word processor is a great way to refine your writing. This medium is more conducive to adding or deleting text for a final draft.
Writing about your life may stir up unpleasant memories and emotions. This is natural; never be ashamed of shedding a few tears over things you've lost and lessons you've learned.
Resources
- Photo Credit image from http://upload.wikimedia.org
