Writing a personal story, autobiography or a book of memoirs is a need that many people feel: it is healing, it releases burdens, and it helps to communicate... If you have the dream of writing your own memoirs, today we are going to expose the elementary level to address that task.
To begin with, let's dispel doubts and fears. It is not necessary to be Garcia Marquez to dare to write and edit a memoir that recounts our personal experiences.
Nor is it necessary to think of a mass audience since what interests us is that our children and grandchildren, our relatives, friends or neighbors, our workers or students read us... we all have our reading circle, be it small, medium or large. Ahead!
Practical guide to writing about yourself
THE FOUNDATIONS
Center the story
Let's start with writing and then we'll talk about editing, the second necessary step to see our finished work.
The best advice we can give is that you try to advance the entire work in parallel. Imagine the construction of a building. The first thing is to make the complete foundations and then raise the building on all four sides, not just one, nor one end.
Our first objective is to reach the center of the story. We are going to decide which are the events and/or fragments of the personal history that we are going to reflect and which people, relatives, friends and collaborators, are going to be part of the story.
THE KEY MOMENTS
List of events
It is about defining the most important moments of his life:
Ceremonies (weddings, awards, appointments…);Unforgettable trips;Personal achievements (professional or in the practice of a hobby);Personal discoveries, disappointments, shocks, accidents...Review the moments that you would like to point out, allow yourself to dedicate a space of time to the fact of remembering, to dig through the memory and observe what moments tend to come repeatedly to your mind. Try to ask yourself why. In the answers to that question you will find many surprises about details that you have not even considered telling.
We do not pretend, for the moment, to make an exhaustive review of his life. A memoir does not necessarily tell everything, not even in chronological order.
GENEALOGY
Brief family tree
Collection of personal data, as well as a brief family tree. The level or extent of the ancestry and descent of your lineage will be determined by history. It is about specifying which people in your family appear in your story and to which generation you want to go back. As advice, we would tell you to go back to the family member who has some information. It is not usually gratifying to list ancestors without being able to tell any details of their lives.
Then go over your list calmly and write down the details, the anecdotes, the family stories you have heard.
Do not stop to write them, for now it will suffice to write them down.
KEY FIGURES
List of key people
Compilation of data on the most important people in your affective universe: relatives, teachers, close friends, professional colleagues, etc. In addition, it is also possible to include characters who have influenced your life: writers, artists, politicians, spiritual guides...
If these people are essential to add more information to the story, talk to them and ask them to remember so that their story is richer. Take note of the events they explain to you. We also advise you to record these conversations, because by taking notes you can miss many nuances and even entire passages.
GRAPHIC MATERIAL
Collect albums and photo boxes
Photo albums and boxes are great allies to awaken memory, because images evoke and revive memories. Dust off the photo album, rescue the box from the top of the closet, and get ready to relive many moments of your life. It will relive situations; awaken moments, customs, people... and even flavors and smells. Every memory is likely to fill a page of your book.
THE LINE OF LIFE
Timeline
With all the information you have gathered, you might consider creating a life line, or time line. It is a suggestion for those writers who consider the chronological factor, basic for their survival. Although, as you will see, it is a technique widely used in psychology, it is an effective tool for what we are facing today, the phase prior to the start of writing.
Imagine that your line is the equator on a world map. Reserve a good empty space in both “hemispheres” to keep writing down whatever comes to mind. Once Pandora's box is opened, events will begin to pour out of it. This guideline, represented as indicated, will be of great help to locate the events that you select. If you think a memory is important, don't hesitate and mark it.
THE DETAILS
Life is made of details, what colors a memory book is the importance of remembering details. We strongly recommend that you follow your own order of priorities.
Once you have put your life on paper and have marked your essential events you can expand it endlessly and, when you have prepared the points that we have talked about, you can start writing.
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