Who You Are: A Message To All Women

HOW TO WRITE AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Edited by Treasure Chest Products, Jack Herrick, Brett, Sondra C and 104 others

What's your story? Every human being has something fascinating to share with the world. The trick to writing an autobiography is to treat it like any good story: it should have a protagonist (you), a central conflict, and a cast of fascinating characters to keep people engaged. Read on to learn how to craft the story of your life and polish your writing to make it sing.

METHOD 1: Mapping Out Your Life

Write out your life timeline. Start writing your autobiography by conducting research on your own life. CREATING A TIMELINE of your life is a good way to make sure you include all the most important dates and events, and it gives you a structure to build upon. You can consider this the "BRAINSTORMING" PHASE, so don't hesitate to write down everything you can remember.

• Your autobiography doesn't have to begin with your birth. You may want to include some family history as well. Write down information about your ancestry, your grandparents' lives, your parents' lives, and so on. Having information about your family history will help readers get a sense of how you became the person you are.

Identify the main characters. Every good story has interesting characters, relatives and friends who help move the plot along. Who are the characters in your life? It's a given that your parents will play a role, along with your friends and other close family members. Think beyond your immediate family to others who have affected your life and should play a role in your autobiography.

 Teachers, coaches, and mentors are extremely influential in people's lives. Decide whether someone who has been a role model (or the opposite) for you will figure into your story.

 Offbeat characters such as animals, celebrities you've met, and even cities are often points of interest in an autobiography.

Pull out the best stories.  The story of your entire life would start to get pretty long-winded, so you'll have to make some decisions about what anecdotes you're going to include. Begin drafting your manuscript by writing out the main stories that will be woven together to create a picture of your life.[2] There are a few main topics that most autobiographies cover since readers find them fascinating :

The childhood story: Whether your childhood was happy or traumatic, you should include a few anecdotes that give a picture of who you were and what you experienced at the time. You can tell the story of your childhood by breaking it down into smaller anecdotes that illustrate your personality - your parents' reaction when you brought home a stray dog, the time you climbed out the window at school and ran away for 3 days, your friendly relationship with a homeless person living in the woods . . . get creative.

Write in your own voice. People read autobiographies to gain insight on what it’s like to be someone else. Being authentically you is a sure way to keep people engaged. If your writing is formal and stiff, or if it reads like a college essay instead of an expose on your life, people will have trouble getting through it.

 Write as though you're opening your heart to a trusted friend, in prose that's clear, strong and not too cluttered with vocabulary words you rarely use.

 Write so that your personality is revealed. Are you funny? Intense? Spiritual? Dramatic? Don't hold back; your personality should come through in the way you tell your story.

METHOD 2: Outlining

This stage of pre-writing blurs with method 1; while you are brainstorming, you are beginning to plan your writing. The first step in planning is to choose a position, a thesis or point to support (it is not necessary to fully support either point of view) - The topic sentence! The second step is to find ways to support your point. Look at the notes you took while brainstorming. Then, write a simple outline; just a simple plan for the number of paragraphs you will write. The outline is like the skeleton, then you fill it with the flesh it needs. 

Example 

Introduction

How your life began

The first things you do when writing an autobiography is start off with a lot of facts about your life; for example, your name and your parents name, where they came from including their family history, when and where you were born, where you lived, where you spent your childhood, where you went to school. You have to give a lot of information so your reader can clearly understand your beginning. Once you have written this introduction, you are ready to start your second Chapter of your autobiography.

Body paragraph 1

What life means to you?

In this chapter you should state how you see life--what does life mean to you. Are you happy or sad? Do you have a lot of friends or just a few? How do you make your days go by? Do you have a relationship? What are your favorite places to go on?

Body paragraph 2

Your life experience and where you are in life?

When you are writing this part of the autobiography, you usually explain the type of person you are; use facts about yourself such as: have you won any awards? Did you achieve anything? State any changes throughout your life! Remembering any events in your life! Your personal and family experiences!

Conclusion

The conclusion is the last chapter of your autobiography and an important one, too. In the conclusion you usually try to re-word the introduction and add some type of closure to bring the whole autobiography together, and how you would like to be remembered?