Telling Your Own Story Some suggestions concerning your autobiography . . .   Most people, especially most young people, have never put any serious thought into the idea of writing their own autobiographies. "I'm just an ordinary person. There's nothing special about my life worth writing about, right?" Wrong! Everyone has a story to tell. Moreover, everyone probably has a special way to tell that story. How can you find your story and how should you tell it? Here are a few tips that will help you to get your story on paper: Just start. Don't worry at first about whether you're starting in the "right place" or in the "right way." Remember that only you have command of your writing, your words. You are the master of your own writing universe, and you can start anywhere you please, and in any way you please. You can't plan everything at first! Just get words on the paper (or the computer screen), and even if this seems difficult at first, be confident that the words will come more and more easily as your mind transforms itself into a "writing mind." You'll soon be amazed that your sense of time passing just melts away -- hours have passed and you've written page after page without realizing how much you've done. Even after a thousand words, or two thousand, you may have the feeling that you've only barely begun! That's all right, just keep going as long as you have that energy. Don't stop until you're really "empty." In the rough draft stage, don't think about the deadline, don't think about the length, don't think about anyone other than you ever reading the words you're writing. Don't worry about "style" or grammar or making your work "presentable" yet. This is your time to experiment freely in the confidence that these are your words and they are private until you choose to show them -- or some of them, or none of them -- to someone else. You might even want to write the rough draft of your autobiography in your journal so that you will always have it there available to yourself for later reconsiderations and additions. (This process just might go on for all your life, and it should.) A good autobiography, like all good writing, moves artfully from the specific to the general. Don't be vague, and don't be dull! The worst kind of autobiographical writing is merely a "laundry list" of locations, or schools, or jobs. ("I was born in Timbuktu. I don't remember much about it. When I was five we moved to Trinidad. It was hot. Then when I was seven we moved to Tokyo. It was nice. Then....") You must anchor your story in vivid images, specific moments, and plenty of detail. No readers will find any of your writing interesting unless they can reconstruct mental pictures of the exact places and faces you have known, and without these images you cannot convey the emotions and insights that give your life meaning. Make your story come alive! In an autobiography, as in any other essay, there should be exactly one main idea, and this idea should be apparent not only to you but to anyone who reads the essay with sensitivity. Maybe your life has a "theme." ("I was always a problem child," or "Mystical experiences have made me what I am.") Maybe you feel that other people have had a crucial role in shaping your life. ("To understand me you first have to understand my older brother," or "My life was meaningless until I met Harold.") Maybe the truth about your life was revealed to you in a single illuminating event. ("Through pain I found my real self," or "I'll never forget that night at Carl's Jr.") Maybe your life seems to you like a symbol of some grand idea that touches many people. ("I represent the plight of schizophrenics everywhere," or "By knowing me you'll know Cambodia.") Of course, you probably don't experience your life as a theme, or a symbol, or an epic quest, or even as a story. Perhaps life just seems like a lot of random, meaningless events. That's all right -- by writing you'll discover the meaning. After the rough draft, wait a little while to let it "cool," and then go back to it with a fresh mind; try to read it like some other reader would, someone who doesn't know you at all except for what you've revealed with your words. Now is the time to find the patterns and that one main idea, and to shape all that writing into a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. The final draft may be in chronological order, or not -- it's your story, so you decide how to tell it. One thing is certain: the more serious effort you put into telling the story of your life, the more value you will find in that story and in your life itself.   © Michael Fleming Berkeley, California September 1991   top of page   other essays   e-mail to Mike   Fox Paws home page