Today we are going to talk about how to write a book about your life. This blog will be an eye-opening experience for you because we will not only help you understand how to write a book about yourself but also things to keep in mind while doing that.
If you are someone who has had a long and adventurous and inspiring life and you want your children and others to get inspired from that story then you should definitely write a story of your life in the form of autobiography writing.
You can also do a memoir creation but there are differences between an autobiography and a memoir. We will get to that.
We will also help you understand how to form a life story composition while writing your life story and what parts to include and exclude.
Along with that, if you want a memoir on your life then we will also help you understand what is memoir planning so that you can get a better sense of the word as well as biography writing tips.
Be it an autobiography, a biography or even a life story memoir, there are certain things that are instrumental to personal storytelling.
We aim to bring all those important tips to this blog so that we can help you with your life story writing process.
But before we do that, we need to understand the differences between autobiography and biography as well as memoirs.
This Is the Difference Between Autobiography, Biography and Memoirs
Autobiography
An autobiography is a book about yourself written by yourself and it should have everything from your childhood to your adult life and much more.
Autobiographies are the best way to write a book about yourself because you are writing it and while you can get it written by a ghostwriter but you are the primary contributor to it.
Is a much more personal way of writing a story about your life.
Biography
A biography is a book about yourself that is written by someone else from a different perspective. This is a book where you are the subject but it is written and narrated by someone else.
It can be someone you are closely associated with and it can also be someone who has researched your life and has compiled a study of your life based on multiple sources such as interviews and speeches and different records.
If you hire a ghostwriter to write an autobiography or story of your life then it is not a biography because you are the primary contributor and it is written from your perspective.
Memoir
A memoir is very similar to an autobiography because it is ultimately the story of your life written from your perspective but there is a primary difference.
An autobiography contains the entirety of your life right from your childhood to your adulthood and how you are leading your life right now.
But when you talk about a memoir, is just a part of your life and it can be an experience you encountered and it can be something you felt.
When we talk about the level of personal experience, a memoir is much more personal because it is much more about emotion rather than just the events categorised in a chronological manner.
These were the differences between the three ways by which your life can be written into a book. When it comes to writing a book, you can write it yourself or you can get it written by a professional and it will still be called an autobiography.
Let us now look at important tips to keep in mind to write the story of your life.
Tips To Write the Story of Your Life
No Perfect Time to Write
If you plan on writing the story of your life or if you can plan on hiring a ghostwriter to write it for you then you need to gather all your information.
This means you need to do some part of the writing yourself and that is why no time is the perfect time to write
By that we mean you do not have to take time out from your life to write about your life. You should carry a pen and paper and get down to writing whenever you are free and whenever a thought comes to your mind.
Spontaneous writing is the most natural form of writing and it is even the best kind of writing when it is about storytelling in your life.
It might be difficult in the first few days because focusing is a really big challenge for someone who might not be a writer.
But you should not think about the prospect of creating a book out of that and you should just practice writing.
If you do just that then it will be easier out and by the time you contact a ghostwriter, you will have so much material in your hands that it will be a breeze to write your autobiography.
Think Of Your Reader
When you are writing your autobiography, you should definitely think about your readers and there is a reason for that.
Generally speaking, we do not recommend writers get influenced a lot by the readers because that is bad for originality but when it comes to an autobiography, things can be different.
This is because, with an autobiography, you want to leave a legacy of your life and that is why you are readers might be your children, grandchildren and their children.
That is why you need to think about their perspective and how they will take in your story and you should use this opportunity as an excellent way of motivating them and not just storytelling.
But there is another school of thought that will tell you to write for the world because that is also important.
You must not just write to impress but to simply explain your story to modern audiences in a way that leaves a mark on their mind.
Organisation Is Important
Some people might say that chronology is very important when you are writing the story of your life but we do not agree with that.
You can write the story of your life in whichever order you want because it is your life. But we need to help you understand something.
Chronology is not important but organisation is important. The story of your life should not be a haphazard mess.
It should have organisation and it should not be confusing to the readers. That is why one of the very first things you need to do when you start writing your story is to create an outline.
That outline can be in chronological order or it can be in any other order you want but that outline will help you organise your thoughts and events into an orderly manner that is easily understandable.
You must always keep in mind that it is your life story and it will always make sense to you whichever you think about it but that is not the case with your readers.
That is why it is important to think about your story from the perspective of your readers and make your story not confusing for them.
Editing Lies with You
When we talk about editing, we are not talking about editing the final draft but editing in a movie making sense in which different scenes are added or removed.
That’s why when you decide to create the outline for your autobiography you need to decide which parts to leave in and which parts do not include in the story.
We do not mean leaving out the wild parts of your young adult life when you had unlimited fun because these are the most fun parts and you should definitely include them.
When we talk about editing, we mean that some events of your life might not be as interesting or as beneficial to your readers as the other ones.
You only have a limited number of pages to write the story of your life as well as keep it interesting. So, thinking about these constraints you need to be very diligent on what to include and what to exclude.
If you plan on publishing it to the world rather than just your family then this is a very important consideration you should make in order to balance the constraints and also keep it interesting.
Themes Are a Blessing
If you are still finding it difficult to create an outline or even start writing your autobiography then it is completely normal if you are not a professional writer.
That is why we bring you the most important and helpful tool that will be a blessing for your entire writing and organisation process.
We are talking about themes or even a particular theme. If you follow a theme then it will be very easy to organise your thoughts and let us help you with an example.
Let’s say you are an army veteran. That is why your autobiography can be on that theme. Every event of your life leading up to the time you were victorious for your country.
If you follow a theme like that then all thoughts can lead to that theme and the process of replaying your life in your mind will be much easier.
This is also a very popular technique with movies and biographies about famous people because everything that they do leads up to what they are good at.
Add Media to The Stories
If you want to add a spark to the story of your life then all you need to do is to add media to your story and if that is a regular book then it is going to be pictures.
If you add pictures to your book then the price of the book might be a little bit more than without pictures but pictures will transform the book into something remarkable.
If you plan on releasing your autobiography in different formats such as an audiobook then you can even include voice recordings and that will also give it a different perspective and something truly unique.
Additionally, if you can then not only at pictures from different events of your life but also diagrams from the places you have worked and things related to your life.
For example, if you are an inventor and writing your autobiography then it’s good to include engineering diagrams and things related to your life.
Emotions Over Information
When you are writing your book, you must always understand that emotions should be prioritised over everything else.
Emotions should be on the top whether it is conveying your emotions or helping your readers understand your emotions during any particular event in your life.
People do not want data in an autobiography because this is not a Wikipedia page for your life. People want to understand and hear you talk.
People want to feel what you have felt all those years back and people want to laugh with you and cry with you and the more effectively you do it the more successful your book is going to be.
When we look back at our life, we do not think about information but we think about memories and we think of emotions and what we felt during different events in our life.
Help The Ghostwriter
If you remember the point about using different mediums, this becomes even more important if you are incapable of writing the book yourself because you might be physically incapable or without any writing experience.
In that case, you have probably hired a ghostwriter who is going to write your autobiography in close coordination with you.
In that case, you need to make sure to deliver as much information as possible to that person and that is fairly easy with all documentation needed.
But if you want to convey your emotions to the person who is writing your book then simple data will not do it and that is why you should add as much audio and video as you can.
For example, if you need to explain to the ghostwriter about how you felt during graduation then you should make a video and talk about it or simply sit down with the ghostwriter and tell him what you felt during the time.
Audio and video are excellent ways to capture emotions rather than information. And if you plan on releasing an audiobook of your autobiography then you should make sure to do the narration yourself.
Add Important Characters
No one’s life revolves around themselves alone because everybody has other characters that have been very influential in their life.
Your life might be just like that because you might have very influential people in your life who have inspired you to become what you are today.
That is why you must never miss out on adding those people to your story. It can be your life partner and it can be your parents, your cousins and your siblings.
It can be your friends and it can even be your boss or your seniors but you must definitely add them to the story to add dynamic to the story.
This is because if you just add a single character that is yourself and do not go deep into other characters then the story is simply going to be dry.
Always Keep Difficult Parts
The thing about autobiography is that people always love to keep the parts about their success stories as they will generously include things like they are job and their graduation and all their wins.
But people subconsciously miss out on the parts in which they were a loser and the parts in which they were vulnerable and all the parts that were unpleasant.
If you want to write a story that truly influences people and truly inspires them and is also accurate and does not feel like a Bollywood film then you should include those parts.
You should include the parts in which you had completely given up on life and decided to quit your studies and you should include those parts in which you had no hopes for your relationship.
You should also include those parts from your job. Those bitter parts will only increase the speediness of your success and show truly what kind of resilient man you are.
Spend Time in Editing
And finally, on the point of editing, when you are writing your autobiography, editing is probably the most important step of it.
That is when you sort out everything you don’t want in the book and this is also when you make sure all the information is correct.
It can be about different historical dates and how they coincide with your life and if there are inaccuracies it can reduce the legitimacy of your autobiography.
If you have hired a ghostwriter to write it for you then you should sit down with them during the editing process and make sure that you are completely satisfied with your autobiography.
You must always keep in mind that this is not just any other ordinary book out there and it is the legacy of your life.
That is why you can take as much time as possible and you are definitely going to make sure that you also do proofreading.
You can take as many iterations of editing as you need but you must make sure that you are satisfied with the work.
We hope this blog will help you write the perfect story of your life and if you are someone who was never classically trained in writing then we are here for you.
We are Ghostwriting India and we are the premier ghostwriters for hire agency in India and you can definitely hire us to write the story of your life.
Along with that, we also do every other kind of ghostwriting which includes online web content and offline content such as every kind of traditional ghostwriting service.
We welcome you to share the story of your life and create your legacy with the help of our ghostwriters.
Common Life Story FAQs
How do I write a story about my life?
You do not need to wait for the perfect opportunity and simply just start writing on any fine day and simply write about all the events you can remember.
When you have a significant amount of material you can then start creating the outline of your life. When you have done creating the outline you can then fill in the gaps and you will have a complete story of your life in your hands.
This may sound complicated but it is not because all you have to do is remember and not leave out sensitive parts of your life and include your wins and failures.
We would suggest you go through the entire blog to understand more about this topic.
Can I Hire Someone To Write My Book?
You can definitely do so and most people do it simply because they might not be physically capable of writing a book about their life or they might not be classically trained as a professional writer.
You must not think that if you hire someone it becomes a biography because it still remains an autobiography because you are commissioning the work and you are the chief contributor.
Someone is just writing it for you but all the information and all the emotion and everything else is yours and you are also the editor.
That is why you can definitely hire a ghostwriter to write your book.
