Your autobiography doesn’t have to begin with your birth. You may want to include some family history as well. Write down information about your ancestry, your grandparents’ lives, your parents’ lives, and so on. Having information about your family history will help readers get a sense of how you became the person you are. What happened when you were a teenager? What led you to make the decisions you made? Did you go to college? Write about those transitory years, too. Write about your career, your relationships, your children, and any big life-altering events that occurred.
Teachers, coaches, mentors, and bosses are extremely influential in people’s lives. Decide whether someone who has been a role model (or the opposite) for you will figure into your story. Ex-boyfriends and girlfriends might co-star in some interesting stories. What enemies have you had in life? Your story will be boring if you don’t include some conflicts. Offbeat characters such as animals, celebrities you’ve never met, and even cities are often points of interest in an autobiography.
The childhood story. Whether your childhood was happy or traumatic, you should include a few anecdotes that give a picture of who you were and what you experienced at the time. You can tell the story of your childhood by breaking it down into smaller anecdotes that illustrate your personality - your parents’ reaction when you brought home a stray dog, the time you climbed out of the window at school and ran away for 3 days, your friendly relationship with a homeless person living in the woods… get creative. The coming of age story. This heady and often sensual period in a human’s life is always of interest to readers. Remember that it’s not about writing something unique; everyone comes of age. It’s about writing something that resonates with readers. The falling in love story. You could also write the opposite of this, the never-finding-love story. The identity crisis story. This usually occurs in the 30s or 40s and is sometimes referred to as a mid-life crisis. The story of facing down some force of evil. Whether it’s your battle with addiction, a controlling lover, or a madman who tried to kill your family, you’ve got to write about conflict you’ve experienced.
Write as though you’re opening your heart to a trusted friend, in prose that’s clear, strong and not too cluttered with vocabulary words you rarely use. Write so that your personality is revealed. Are you funny? Intense? Spiritual? Dramatic? Don’t hold back; your personality should come through in the way you tell your story.
Don’t always cast yourself in a positive light. You can have foibles and still be the protagonist. Reveal mistakes you’ve made and times when you’ve failed yourself and other people. Reveal your inner thoughts. Share your opinions and ideas, including those that may spark controversy. Be true to yourself through your autobiography.
What’s your central conflict? What’s the biggest obstacle life presented that took years to overcome or come to terms with? Maybe it’s an illness you were diagnosed with at an early age, a relationship wrought with turmoil, a series of career setbacks, a goal you worked for decades to achieve, or any other number of things. Look to your favorite books and movies for more examples of conflicts. Build tension and suspense. Structure the narrative so that you have a series of stories leading up to the climax of the conflict. If your central conflict is trying to reach the goal of competing in the Olympics for skiing, lead up to it with stories of small successes and plenty of failures. You want your readers to ask, will she make it? Can he do it? What’s going to happen next? Have a climax. You’ll get to the point in your story when it’s time for the conflict to come to a head. The day of the big competition has arrived, a showdown happens with your worst enemy, your gambling habit gets the better of you and you lose all your money - you get the picture. End with a resolution. Most autobiographies have happy endings because the person writing the story lived to tell the tale - and hopefully get it published. Even if your ending isn’t cheerful, it should be deeply satisfying. You somehow accomplished your goal or won the day. Even if you lost, you came to terms with it and gained wisdom.
You could frame the entire autobiography with reflections from the present, telling your story through a series of flashbacks. You could begin the story with a poignant moment from your childhood, go backward to tell the story of your heritage, move forward to your college years, and launch into the story of your career, with anecdotes from your childhood sprinkled in for comic relief.
Consider ending chapters on a poignant or suspenseful note, so people can’t wait to start the next one. The beginnings of chapters are a good place to take a bird’s eye view of your past, describe the setting of a place, and set the tone for what’s to come.
You can stretch the truth about your own goals and intentions, but don’t include fabricated conversations with real people, or altered versions of events that really happened. Of course, you won’t remember everything perfectly, but you should reflect reality as best you can. Get permission to use people’s names or quote them if you’re including content on what other people said or did. Some people don’t appreciate appearing as a character in someone else’s autobiography, and you should respect that by altering the way you describe them or changing their names if necessary. [6] X Research source
If several people recommend cutting a certain section, strongly consider making the cut. Try to get opinions from people outside your circle of family and friends. People who know you might try to spare your feelings, or they might be biased - especially if they appear in the story.
Bossy Pants, by Tina Fey. My Confession, by Leo Tolstoy. A Long Walk to Freedom, by Nelson Mandela. The Sound of Laughter, by Peter Kay. [7] X Research source
If you don’t want to pay for a publishing service, you can still create a nice copy of your book by taking it to a copy store and having it printed and bound.
Start the query letter with an airtight blurb succinctly describing the highlights of the book. Situate your book in the correct genre, and describe what will make it stand out from the rest. Tell the agent why you think he or she is the right person to shop your book around to publishers. Send sample chapters to agents who show interest. Sign a contract with an agent you trust. Make sure to read the contract carefully and check into the agent’s history before signing anything.
Many publishers don’t accept unsolicited manuscripts or queries. Make sure you only send letters to publishers that accept them. If a publisher decides to move forward with a book deal with you, you’ll need to sign a contract and set up a schedule for editing, designing, proofreading, and finally publishing the book.
