How to write your life story, one scene at a time.
Sooner or later most people think it: someone should write this down. Then they picture the book, three hundred pages beginning with “I was born”, and they close the laptop. The life is not the problem. The first page is.
Here is a way to do it that never asks you for a first page.
Don’t start at the beginning
A life told from birth forwards stalls in the years you remember least, long before it reaches anything you care about. And the order you lived it in is not the order it comes back. Memory hands you a kitchen, then a funeral, then a joke from a school trip.
So collect scenes first and arrange them afterwards. A scene is one moment in one place: who was there, what was said, what you could see. Twenty good scenes are a life story. A timeline with no scenes in it is a CV.
Twelve scenes that hold a life
People who study how we make sense of our lives often ask for a small set of key moments, because between them they carry most of the story. Take them in any order. Skip the ones that are not for today.
- Your earliest memory. However small. What can you see?
- A warm scene from childhood. A moment you felt safe, or simply happy.
- A scene from your teens. Who were you trying to be?
- A high point. A moment you would live again exactly as it was.
- A turning point. After this, things went a different way.
- A vivid adult memory. One that stays sharp for no clear reason.
- A moment of wisdom. A time you did the right thing, or gave good advice.
- A moment of awe. Something larger than you.
- A hard scene from childhood. Only when you are ready, and only as much as you want.
- A low point. The same rule applies.
- The next chapter. What you hope is coming.
- The thread through it all. If one thing ties these together, what is it?
Make each scene small
“My father was strict” is a summary, and nobody can see a summary. “He folded the newspaper before he spoke” is a scene. Reach for the detail only you would know: what was on the table, what the weather was doing, the exact words if you still have them. One detail like that does more than a page of explaining.
If the details will not come, go in through the place. Describe the room first. The rest tends to follow.
You don’t need the dates
Nothing stops a life story faster than trying to work out whether something happened in 1987 or 1988. Let it go. “I was about twelve” places a scene well enough to sit in the right part of the story, and you can tighten it later when another memory, a photograph or a cousin settles the question.
Tell it before you write it
Most family stories were told aloud long before anyone thought of writing them, and they are better for it. Say the scene as you would across a table. You will be less tidy and more truthful. The written version can be made from the told one, and it will still sound like you.
This is also the answer to “I am not a writer”. You do not have to be. You have to be the person it happened to, and you are the only one who is.
Then let the shape appear
Once you have a handful of scenes, lay them out in the order they happened and look at the gaps. The stretches with nothing in them are your next questions. So are the people who appear again and again, and the places you keep going back to. Chapters name themselves at this point: the flat above the shop, the years in the north, before and after the children.
That is what Lapriland is for. Each scene you tell, by voice or in writing, takes its place on one line that runs the length of your life, with the date as loosely as you remember it. The empty stretches show, and you are asked gently about them. When you are ready, it can read across what you have kept and write your life story back to you in your own words, and you can print the whole of it as a book.
Start with one
Not twelve. One scene, today, for two minutes. The one you thought of while you were reading the list is the right one.
Hard memories are yours to keep or to leave. This is reflection, not therapy. If something is heavy, talk to someone you trust.