Find Story Elements in your Life

You might think only famous people can get contracts to publish their memoir. However, there are publishing opportunities for anyone who can turn their experience into a well-told tale. Frank McCourt’s story about growing up poor was written so well that it caught fire and made him famous. And with a little tweak and embellishment, you could turn your life into material for successful fiction.

So don’t judge your memoir before you write it. The outcome is still in the future, a blank page, as it were, waiting to be filled in. If you accept the challenge of writing your life, fame is not guaranteed, but you are certain to achieve a number of other benefits. You will learn things about yourself, improve your writing skills, make new friends and please existing ones, and find many hours of creative challenge and reward.

When you have resolved to tell a story, you must decide which story to tell. Some people already know exactly which part of their life to write about - the woman whose husband had a sex-change operation; the man who escaped from Nazi Germany; the 18 year old woman who spent her high school years in a high pressure sports camp. But what if highlights don’t jump out?

To learn about your story scan through your experiences, and list the facts and scenes. As the topology emerges, you will see the interesting features, and before long, you can start imagining how to shape them.

Here are some ideas that can help you select story points from an ordinary life. Think about each one, and if any life events seem to fit, write them in your notebook.

Award or pinnacle or skill, and your struggle to achieve it

You succeeded in business when you were 20.
You were the first woman on the board of directors.
You achieved a Toastmaster award after being terrified of public speaking.

Major transition

Marriage, divorce.
Your kids grew up, your kids moved out.
You moved, from house to house, city to city.
New job, laid off, retired, new career.

Coming of age as a young adult

Your transformation from child into adult
Moved from high school in Philadelphia to college in Wisconsin in the sixties

Coming of age later in life

Shed earlier conceptions and limitations and changed into a new you.
Went to Twelve Steps, stopped drugging, changed your life.
Walked away from your last abusive relationship and started living for real.

Going forth from the familiar to the unfamiliar

Experience war as a soldier or a civilian.
Served in the peace corps or foreign service
Moved to a different country.
Changed social or financial status.

Contact with news or history.

You were present when they tore down the Berlin Wall
You fled the Iranian or Cuban revolution
You visited Normandy Beach to see where your father landed.
You stood at the Vietnam Memorial for 12 hours, and watched the people come and touch their loved ones’ names.

Cultural interaction or transformation

Migration, melting pot, inter-cultural marriage or living situation

Life Lesson or triumph

Faced and overcame addiction, hardship.

Romance

Went from solo to couple.

Intense or unique family experience

Angela’s Ashes used family experience to convert extremely ordinary life into an extraordinary memoir.
Jeanette Walls’ Glass Castle tells a zany tale of growing up in a dysfunctional family.
Inquirer columnist Tanya Barrientos used her childhood in a boring, dusty, border town as a dramatic setting for her novels.

Combinations
Your situation may involve a number of story elements. If you emigrated from the Iranian Revolution when you were a child, you; changed culture, touched history, came of age, went forth from the familiar to the unfamiliar, triumphed over hardship, and perhaps have a romantic tale.

Sins of our fathers
If your parents moved to a different country, you may think of yourself as being settled in, or achieved an award, or had a special coming of age, look closely to see what elements of their memoir seeped into your own experience.

Last modified:
2/10/2008