How to Write an Autobiography Outline

Writing an autobiography requires a lot of fact recollection and organization if you want a quality book in the end. Write an autobiography outline to plan the book before beginning to write.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Word processing program
• Chapter titles delineating life periods
• List of life events

Write an Autobiography Outline

1. Begin an autobiography outline by writing the title, or working title, of the book at the top of a computer word processing file. This could be your name. Use a bold or underlined font to set it off from the rest of the outline.

2. Write one or two sentences at the top of your autobiography outline explaining the reason you are writing it. Is it just a memoir or factual representation of your life? Or do you intend to focus on one aspect of life such as relationships, living with a disease or disability or your own spirituality? Deciding what the focus of the autobiography is will make the rest of the outlining process easier.

3. Create a series of chronological sub-headings or chapter titles for your autobiography outline. These may include such things as: my childhood, teen years, becoming an adult, and middle age. You might also like to organize your autobiography based on locations if you moved often, or other criteria that have been present through most of your life. Give these sub-headings easy-to- understand titles and type them into the text file in bold or underline font.

4. Write a few major points in your life under each sub-heading. These should ideally be indented or marked with a number or bullet. Include dates or ages with these facts. The use of the bulleted list tool in your word processing program is recommended. This part of the outline for an autobiography begins to chart which stories or information you will include in the final book. Do not include basic day-to-day events unless they impact greatly on who you are.

5. Expand each event or fact in the bulleted list with dates, names and other data that explains what happened and why it impacted you and your life. This is the time to take into account the reason behind writing the autobiography that you explained in Step 2. Including details that you remember or research will help your autobiography outline be more easily translated into a quality book all about you.