How to Write an Autobiography

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Formany people writing fiction is not the preferred way, and the number ofautobiographies around (not to mention biographies) is very revealing. A lookat any best seller list will find a selection of autobiographies of celebrities(most written by ghost-writers more of that in a minute) that sell in greatnumbers, a telling point in the current climate.

Of course, the fact remains that we like to readabout the lives of those we admire, sports stars life stories and pop starbiographies sell in great numbers as a result, but writing an autobiography isnot something that we consider ourselves. However, there is a pressing question why not?

A distinction needs to be made here beforeconfusion sets in: a biography is a life story written about an individual byanother, while an autobiography is one written by the subject itself. We havealready mentioned ghost writers; these are people that offer their services topeople who wish to write their own autobiography but who are not writers. Theghost then writes the book for them, takes a fee and the book is published withthe subject as the author.

Writing your own autobiography, however, may bea more interesting prospect than you think. If you have a story to tell, or ifyou have had a particularly interesting life, then why shouldnt people want toread about it?

The process is not one that takes a few moments,for it involves research and memory; to start you need to decide on the part ofyour life that you wish to cover primarily. It could be an illness you havesuffered, an achievement, or simply something that you went through that youwant to write about it. You need to lead up to this with a brief outline ofyour prior life, and then embark on telling the tale you wish to tell.

If, however, you wish to tell the story ofsomeone else then there are several ways to go about it: if the subject isdeceased the research could come through archives and libraries or familymembers if the subject is a relative and if still alive then the possibilityof interviews with the subject, and access to their archives, is there.

Planning is all important in either genre ofwriting; you need to have a clear introduction, defined ages and eras, and apath that follows sensibly through the life of the subject. It will be a bitlike planning out the plot of a novel, but using real facts instead of inventedfantasy.

Either way, writing about people is interestingand rewarding, and if you have the patience and application, why not try bywriting a brief biography of a family member as an exercise?