Autobiography story structure

by George Odhiambo
(Mombasa, Kenya)

Question: I am working on my autobiography and would like to get guidance on the structure. Can you please help?

Answer: The principles of story structure are the same, regardless whether the story is true or not.

The challenge with a real life story is that one life often contains many stories. So you have to carefully select which aspects of your story are the most relevant to the meaning you wish to convey.

Generally, a biography or autobiography covers an entire life. So the four acts of the story generally look like this...

Act 1: Setup (Childhood)
Here you convey the early influences, including the environment you grew up in and the significant people and events. Set a context for what comes later.

Act 2: Complication (early adulthood)
Here you describe the aspirations and challenges you faced early on, how you took advantage of opportunities, setbacks, etc. Sometimes this is where friends and enemies are made. It is the journey through life.

Act 3: Crisis
Here you describe the major turning point in your life. It may be how you made your crowning achievement, or it could be the "darkness before the dawn."

Act 4: Resolution
Here you describe how your life ended. If you had a crowning achievement in act 3, this is often where things fell apart. (Everyone's life can be said to end in tragedy, because we all grow old and die or get surpassed by others eventually.) However, a good autobiography is usually more of a comi-tragedy. The "comi-" is great achievement of the life. The "tragedy" is the decline afterwards. The meaning may come from an acceptance of one's decline, a way to come to terms with the anticlimactic nature of a good life.

Alternatively, if you present a dark moment in act 3, act 4 may be about how that was changed into victory. Either way, act 4 is the place where you make the life ultimately meaningful.

All the other elements of story structure can be applied in a similar way. However, most people don't expect a real story to be as tightly structured as a thriller novel, for instance. The pacing can be a little more leisurely in an auto-biography. But having the story elements in place will help draw the reader along.

It's a good idea to decide on two things before you start...

1. Your greatest achievement in life.
2. The ultimate meaning of your life.

Knowing these, you can then work backwards, identifying the significant events that led up to these two. For instance, you may decide that your greatest achievement is what you did for the world, your career. That is what makes a life significant. But the ultimate meaning of your life may be more personal or family related.

Above all, don't get sidetracked trying to tell everything that happened to you in your life. Just tell the parts that contributed to those two things. They are what will give your story significance and meaning for the reader.

Best of luck.

Write an Autobiography

by Moushumi Dey
(Mumbai;India)

Hi I am a 27 years married working lady; I would like to write an autobiography. I am sure my story will be inspiring for many; but I'm not sure how to start it. Please help!!

Answer: Not to be a downer, but the first question you should ask yourself before writing an autobiography is: "Am I famous?"

Many people (not you necessarily) want to write their autobiography in order to become famous. But generally, this doesn't work. Only the autobiographies of famous people sell, so you have to be famous first.

If you're not famous, is there some other reason why people would want to read a book about you? Have you achieved or done anything extraordinary in your life?

Don't take this as insulting. Everyone's life is worthy in some way. It's just that, if you're not highly exceptional, the readership for your autobiography will likely be limited to your children and grandchildren. If that's okay with you, then fine. These days it is fairly inexpensive to self-publish a few copies of a book for family and friends.

The other question I have is... Is your career nearing its end? Most often, autobiographies are written after the person has retired, when their greatest achievements are behind them. At 27 years old, I suspect you still have a lot of time to accomplish things and have interesting experiences.

Exceptions to this guideline would be...

* if you are writing a memoir of a particular period of your life that has finished.
* if you are someone such as a film or pop star and the period of your greatest fame has ended.

Assuming you have sound reasons for writing an autobiography...

An autobiography is generally structured much like a novel and you should probably work out an outline before you begin. The typical phases are...

Act One: Formative events.
The events in your childhood or youth that shaped the person you became.

Act Two: Early struggles.
The challenges, adventures, early successes, setbacks, etc. on the journey to who you became.

Act Three: Crisis
The events building up to the crucial moment when you had your greatest victory or crowning achievement.

Act Four: Resolution
The later years. How you ended up in life. Your legacy.

You will want to identify the key turning points in your life that led to your biggest triumph and use these as the dividers between acts.

Usually, you will tell the events in your life in chronological order.

Often the hard part is knowing what not to include. One person's life may contain many stories. You need to find the core thread of your life -- the story you want to tell -- and leave out anything that is irrelevant. This is not easy to do when the life is your own -- especially the part about omitting the irrelevant. Most people are not very good at looking at their lives objectively. But knowing what to leave out is important to making the story readable. And knowing what to include is what makes the story interesting.

Best of luck.

Biography

Question: I want to write a novel but I want to write it about my own experiences as if it were a biography. I am afraid people will not be interested in my personal events since I'm not exactly anybody famous, what to do? I thought of depersonalizing the experiences but I'm not sure how exactly. can you help me?

Answer: First, just on a technical point, a biography you write about yourself is called an autobiography.

Second, you are quite correct that biographies generally sell only if they are about people who are famous or who have made a very large and notable contribution or impact on society. You sell a biography by showing readers that it is about someone they would find worth knowing about.

Don't take that personally. It's a problem of marketing. Lots of people have interesting lives, but not all of them will sell books.

That said, the stories told in biographies do not have to be as interesting as those in novels. The style, voice, and characters do not have to be as compelling. People read biographies more for the facts of history than the plot. And this is where you might have an opportunity...

If your book has a great story, and is told in a compelling style and voice, with great characters... if it would be a great read even if the characters were completely fictional, then it still may be publishable.

So one option is to fictionalize your story. You would then have the advantage of being able to alter the events a little to improve the plot. Change the names of the characters, or use one character to represent several real people. Writers do this all the time.

The key will be how good a writer you are.

It might be worthwhile trying to write this story even if it doesn't get published, just because it can be a personally rewarding project. You may also find that your skills as a writer, your voice and style, grow in the course of writing this book, so that after a few drafts or revisions it becomes worthy of being published.

But that's hard to predict. Everything's a long shot in this business.

Best of luck.

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