Biography Writing Tips

When it comes to life story writing, weather your own life or someone else’s there is no one set of rules. You can write a life story one way or the other. This website is not meant to be a writing contest. There are no specific requirements. You don’t have to define your story: autobiography/biography/story/memoir.

What we do want to read are compelling stories. Stories unique to you: your experiences in the time and place where you've lived. We believe that if a story is moving to you personally, it would be moving to all of us. Since people’s feelings and emotions are the same everywhere, since the beginning of time.

You can go about writing your life story in 2 ways. You can check out our set of questions prepared by a memory specialist and answer the questions that evoke memories in you. Or, you can just write.

Write a life story.  Or see sample life stories

Here are a few writing tips to keep in mind -

1. Let it flow. The hardest thing is to sit in front of a blank page. Start by writing something. Anything. You can go back and forth and edit your life story as much as you like. You can chose not to publish your story until you are ready. You can use the "Show to friends only" option and receive feedback on your story without showing it to the whole world.
2. Give specific details. Most of your readers will be your family members, but also visitors of the site of all ages and all countries. Remember they don't know anything about you or where you grew up. Many things you consider trivial are not so. Many things you take for granted, are not available everywhere. A person lives in a place and time and his biography is a mirror of that era. This is what is so interesting.
3. Don't write as an accountant. There are the dry details that define you, you should put them on the paper, but beyond that there are the stories which make up your life and are the ones that interest us. You don't have to write everything that happened to you. You can write shortly about the big picture, and then tell us one story that has meaning to you.
4. Divide to chapters - decide on order. There are two major ways to write your biography - by chronological order, or by subjects- without a timeline.
   If you want to write chronologically, name your chapters: Childhood, adolescence, 30-40, golden age, etc.
   If you chose to write without a chronological order, you can write by subjects: love & marriage, friends, good times and bad times, etc.