Can you write your own biography

Your writing should be descriptive. Available in books and online including on some genealogy websites , these tools present you with a series of questions about your life.

You simply answer them, and the templates arrange your answers into story form. A good dictionary, thesaurus, and word processing program are also indispensable tools when writing an autobiography. Editing and improving your work can be a difficult process, even for a professional writer. Consider having friends and family read a draft — their suggestions could help you finish your autobiography more easily.

Before you consider the work finished, you may want to set it aside for a few weeks, then read it with fresh eyes.

Does it say everything you want to say? Is it missing important events, or are there stories you still want to recount? They want to know what really happened in your life! Writing your autobiography can be an enlightening and enjoyable process. By following a structured plan and working to keep your focus and motivation, your life story may soon be a reality that will be treasured by your loved ones for generations to come.

By subscribing you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Health Topics. Health Tools. Healthy Living. By Jamie Simmerman. Do your best to organize a narrative around the core idea from your brainstorm so that your story would engage readers from beginning to end. Now you have everything to start writing the draft of your autobiography essay. For some students, the most challenging part is to choose a start sentence for their autobiography.

Here go a few examples to consider:. None of them is a copybook maxim for you to follow. Depending on your autobiography format, you can start your story from a different angle. Once you finish the draft, please take a little break a few days off to check it with the freshest possible perspective later.

Proofreading is not about looking for typos and grammar mistakes only. You should also identify weak moments in your story and decide on improvements. Or, you can ask a professional editor to help you. The below tips will help you write autobiographies that are memorable and stand out from the crowd.

Like this:. However, you can choose to write autobiography in the second or the third person:. Most autobiographies use past tense as they recall events that already happened. And yet, present tense can also be an option if you want your work to look more stylish and create a sense of immediacy for readers. Remember about the sequence of tenses from grammar lessons? You need to convince them that your writing is distinctive and worth their time.

Palmary examples of the best opening lines come from fiction books; why not consider some for inspiration? This tip is convenient for those writing an autobiography essay in college. Admission officers know about your birth, grades, and academic achievements from other documents; so do your best to give them something new. Keep it simple and use a writing style that goes with your personality. Use online editing software to grade your piece in terms of readability.

Ask family, friends and coworkers to provide honest feedback and an outside perspective on what can be improved. Editing is just one important step to making sure your personal bio is the most professional representation of your background, accomplishments and character.

Your personal bio is a marketing tool. If you are using your personal bio for an online networking profile or on your professional website, consider linking to any work or mention of your accomplishments available online.

Here are some tactics to integrate your portfolio and credentials into your personal bio:. Providing links to these and other online platforms makes it easy for readers to connect your background to examples of your work. While you should keep your tone professional throughout, consider ending with an anecdotal story or some tasteful and fun humor.

This element can personalize your bio and leave your audience with a good impression. A good rule of thumb is to match your humor or joke to appropriate HR standards.

Another important step to finalizing your personal biography is optimizing your presence in online searches. Your biography should be search engine friendly, and in terms of search results, longer biographies fare better. Search engines prefer lengthier pieces with original content, so keep the longer bios to the 1, to 2,word range for optimization.

For shorter bios, be sure to use third person for stronger SEO. Other tips include:. You can use SEO analyzers that check your profiles for strong branding and search engine credentials. Many of these programs offer tips on how to improve content after it is analyzed.

A well-crafted bio is extremely important, but it is only a portion of your personal branding. It needs to connect with the rest of your online presence. Here are some important steps to take:. Make sure all the posts and photos on your websites, portfolios and social media sites are professional. Search your name to check for inappropriate or incorrect information. Check to see that your skills and tone are consistent across all channels.

Once you have finalized your biography, check that the rest of your online profiles convey a consistent and compelling message you want prospective employers and other readers to come away with. The tone and branding should match over all your sites. Below is a shortened version of a personal bio that includes many of the necessary details outlined above.

Sam Johnson has spent his life using his personal and career experiences to help his clients overcome post-traumatic stress disorder and provide them with the support they need when their life seems to be more than they can handle. While his focus is on veteran care, he also provides services for children, adults and families who are dealing with traumatic situations of their own.

He is an avid researcher, and his work has been published in Psychology Today and American Psychologist. Sam is currently in private practice in Boston where he lives with his wife and two young children.

Connect with Sam: Email: s. No one knows you better than you know yourself. Learn why people trust wikiHow. Download Article Explore this Article methods.

Writing Help. Tips and Warnings. Related Articles. Article Summary. Method 1. Write out your life timeline. Start writing your autobiography by conducting research on your own life.

Creating a timeline of your life is a good way to make sure you include all the most important dates and events, and it gives you a structure to build upon. You can consider this the "brainstorming" phase, so don't hesitate to write down everything you can remember, even if you don't think the memory will make it into the final version of the book.

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.

Identify the main characters. Every good story has interesting characters, friends and foes who help move the plot along. Who are the characters in your life? It's a given that your parents will play a role, along with your spouse and other close family members. Think beyond your immediate family to others who have affected your life and should play a role in your autobiography.

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.

Pull out the best stories. The story of your entire life would start to get pretty long-winded, so you'll have to make some decisions about what anecdotes you're going to include. Begin drafting your manuscript by writing out the main stories that will be woven together to create a picture of your life. There are a few main topics that most autobiographies cover since readers find them fascinating.

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.

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 in your own voice. People read autobiographies to gain insight on what it's like to be someone else.

Being authentically you is a sure way to keep people engaged. If your writing is formal and stiff, or if it reads like a college essay instead of an expose on your life, people will have trouble getting through the book.

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? Don't hold back; your personality should come through in the way you tell your story. Be revealing.

You don't have to be explicit, but it's important to reveal truths about yourself and your life in an autobiography. Don't let the book become a list of your accomplishments, with all the negative material carefully kept under the rug. Present yourself as a whole person, sharing talents and flaws alike, and your readers will be able to identify with you and hopefully root for you as they make their way through your story. 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. Capture the spirit of the times. How was your story shaped by the moment in history in which it took place? What wars influenced your politics? What cultural events inspired you?