Autobiography planning

MENU

Autobiography home
Research
Planning
Legal
Copyright
Writing
Pictures
Editing
Publishing
References

Planning

"I don’t need to plan I can just write it down"

Well, some people can, but it’s better to get your facts straight and decide what you’re going to put where. More than any other type of writing biographies (auto or otherwise) have to be organised. So I’d recommend you make a plan.

As you do your research you will begin to see that certain themes emerge in your life and the lives of those around you. At this point it’s worth looking at how you might put your autobiography together.
Is it going to be about you? That might seem like a silly question, after all it’s an AUTO biography, isn’t it?

Certainly your life is the backbone of the content, but some autobiographies are less about the author and more about the people around them, and how they react or how the author sees them.

Then there’s the question of the overall organisation. You can write a simple chronology, from start to finish but unless your early years were packed with interesting events your story will lose its readers on the first page. Most biographies start where the interesting things begin to happen, and then do some flashbacks or back references to earlier events.

But chronologically isn’t the only option. You can write about subjects, you might have one chapter on weddings, another on the military, another on death, another on close family and so on. Within these chapters it’s usual to organise things chronologically so that cause and effect can be seen.

The final item is the subject of themes: While you were researching it may be that a certain theme to your life appeared, or they may be more than one. If there is a theme this is excellent to provide continuity throughout the book, perhaps you’re making a point.
There is one final type of autobiography: the one that reads like a novel. I had to edit one of these once, it was the story of a rich kid gone bad, becoming a drug dealer and how his life disintegrated, until he almost died on the streets. Then was rescued and regained his self-respect and put it all back together again. The narrative was straight-through beginning to end, just him against the world. He was writing the story so that others could read it and see what a bad idea drugs are.

Perhaps this is what you want to write, the research side is the same, but read a couple of books on how to write novels as well.