how to write an autobiography about your childhood

Get 50% OFF Yearly and Lifetime Plans This Black Friday

How to Write an Award-Worthy Autobiography in 5 Steps

Savannah Cordova

Table of Contents

1. make a list of life events, 2. try to recall all the details of each one, 3. write chronologically from your birth (or earlier), 4. weave in the wisdom of your older self, 5. wrap things up on a contemplative note.

An autobiography, in the simplest terms, is a full account of your life that you write yourself. Many of us have read great memoirs in recent years—bestsellers like Educated and Crying in H Mart —but autobiographies, specifically, are more elusive than you might think.

This is because a true autobiography contains every detail you could possibly include about your life, in chronological order. A memoir, on the other hand, revolves around a particular theme or time period in someone’s life, describing only select memories in service of this goal.

So, if what you’re really after is advice on how to write a memoir, I’d recommend this “memoir method” post from Joe Bunting . But if you’re ready to lay out the entire story of your life—warts and all—read on for how to write an autobiography in five (relatively) simple steps.

Since an autobiography must be comprehensive, you can start by listing out all the events that your book will include—that is, every major event of your life (and some minor ones too!).

The earliest events might be your birth, the birth of any siblings, starting school, and coming to realize aspects of your personality and long-term interests that emerged in childhood. The “middle” events might include finishing school, attending college and/or getting your first job, and the advent of any significant relationships—both friendships and romantic relationships. The later-in-life events might include pursuing any other big jobs or degrees, getting married and/or having children, moving house, starting major hobbies, and perhaps even retiring and planning for your “golden years.”

Again, be sure to include all the important events in your career or in your personal life. Obviously, anything that changed the trajectory of your life should be added to the list. However, the nature of each event will depend completely on who you are and how your life has unfolded.

Indeed, going back to the idea of including “minor” events, it may be that some pivotal moments in your life could seem “minor” from an outside perspective. For example, say that one day you happened to spot an unusually shaped cloud, and it caused you to have a revelation about your life and change course somehow. The revelation is the key thing, but don’t leave out the circumstances that led you to it—no matter how irrelevant they might seem.

To be fair, it can be tough to remember every event of importance, especially when some of them happened a long time ago. In that vein, take your time to make this list before you get into actually writing the book. It should take at least a few hours (if not a day or two) to outline everything to include in your autobiography.

If you thought you were done after simply listing out those events, think again. Not to sound like a broken record, but this process is all about being thorough; in order to succeed, you need a solid foundation from which to work. So now, at this next stage, try to remember everything about the initial events you’ve listed.

Say that the average person has around 40 to 50 major life events or pivotal moments to write about in their autobiography. (If you have fewer than that, you may want to reconsider whether you’re really ready to write the whole story of your life —perhaps a memoir would better suit your purposes.) Now, brace yourself: before you start writing, you should put together at least half a page of notes on each of these points.

Sure, some events will warrant more detail than others. But this should still average out to around 20 to 30 pages to serve as the aforementioned foundation for your autobiography. And how should you expand on these events, you might ask—that is, which details should you focus on to ensure your “foundation” is truly useful?

Here are a few questions to jog your memory and help you identify what’s most important:

Which sensory details (still) stand out the most? That is, not just how each scene looked, but how it felt at the time, to the best of your recollection. For example, if you’re recounting the experience of starting school, don’t just say what your elementary school building looked like. Instead, talk about the fragrant leaves on the ground or the chill in the September air; the sounds of birds chirping and parents chatting at early morning drop-off; that first week when you skinned your knee on the playground; etc.

What were the people around you saying? Speaking of chatting, you’ll also need to recreate important “dialogue” in some scenes, just as you would when writing a novel . While you can’t take quite as many liberties as in a work of fiction, you are allowed to paraphrase what you can’t remember precisely. At this stage, just record the gist of whatever was said—you can finesse the details later.

Why was this moment important? Make sure to identify in your notes why each event or moment was so important. For many of the classic “life milestones,” it will be obvious. But try to dig deeper into exactly how each event affected you… even if you didn’t realize it at the time. Articulating this will make your autobiography all the better, allowing you to segue more smoothly between events and draw more resounding conclusions about your life.

Having written up these extremely detailed notes—basically an FBI dossier on yourself—you’re now ready to start drafting your autobiography.

You may have jotted down your notes in any order; indeed, you probably jumped around randomly as different memories came back to you. However, now that it’s time to actually write your autobiography, you should try to write it chronologically.

Why? Because if you want to refer to something that happened “in the past,” it’s best to know how you presented it to readers in earlier chapters. In an autobiography—as in life—each event depends on what came before it. If you jump around while writing, your autobiography could end up feeling messy and uneven, and you risk leaving out important elements simply because you skipped them on the list.

So as you draft, do it in order of events. Begin with the first life event on your list—likely your birth—or go back even further, if you wish. Many of the greatest autobiographies of the 20th century, like Lee Iacocca’s self-titled book and Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom, begin not with themselves, but instead with their family history. Mandela’s book technically opens with the meaning of his name, but he then doubles back to describe his father and the history of his tribe, the Thembu people. And Iacocca’s autobiography begins not just with his father, but his grandfather arriving in America.

In summary: while your birth is a tried-and-true starting point, you’re allowed to briefly touch on your parents and/or family history first. That said, once you’ve established these elements, it’s time to get down to brass tacks. Dive into writing about your life, and try not to deviate from the chronology—no more family history, flashbacks, flash-forwards, or anything else that will distract you or your reader. You can still keep things interesting and “readable” by using those elements we discussed: sensory details, dialogue, and organic transitions between events.

And if you happen to remember something that would work well in a different part of the book, don’t switch gears to that part right now. Instead, just jot it down in your notes and come back to it later. You want to preserve the “flow” of writing chronologically—otherwise, again, you risk choppy prose and a subpar reading experience.

Of course, just because you’re writing chronologically, that doesn’t mean your insights in each section should be limited to the knowledge of your past self. On the contrary, one of the most valuable elements of an autobiography is the injection of present-day reflection and wisdom. Without this extra layer, your autobiography could be written by anyone .

So this is where you’ll incorporate those previous answers to the question of: “Why was this moment important?” Here’s a great example of “wisdom weaving” in the early pages of Mandela’s autobiography:

“I learned my lesson one day from an unruly donkey. We had been taking turns climbing up and down its back, and when my chance came, I jumped on and the donkey bolted into a nearby thornbush. It bent its head, trying to unseat me, which it did, but not before the thorns had pricked and scratched my face, embarrassing me in front of my friends [...] 

“Even though it was a donkey that unseated me, I learned that to humiliate another person is to make him suffer an unnecessarily cruel fate. Even as a boy, I defeated my opponents without dishonoring them.”

While the younger Mandela may not have been able to articulate (or even consciously identify) this lesson, the older Mandela understands it as a crucial moment for his moral development. Yet he explains it so smoothly that it does not take the reader out of the narrative at all—only paints a more detailed picture of the boy and man he would become.

As you’re trying to inject some wisdom of your own, here are some more thought-provoking questions to ask yourself:

How did I feel about this at the time, and how do I feel about it now?

Can I draw parallels between events at different times in my life?

How have I affected the people around me, and how have they changed me?

Is there anything I wish I’d done differently?

What do I want readers to take away from this?

If you’re struggling to articulate what something meant to you—even if you know it was important—running through these questions might help you out. Sometimes your takeaway will be a simple moral lesson; other times, it will be a more complex tangle of emotions.

Whatever you discover about yourself, don’t shy away from putting it down on the page. Your autobiography is the place to be clear-eyed and candid. If you’re not telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about your life, there’s little point to writing this book at all.

As your autobiography draws to a close, you may find yourself struggling with how to end it, especially if you are still relatively young. But rather than trying to fight that feeling, the best strategy is to lean into the uncertainty and end on a note of contemplation.

Consider the following: How do you feel having completed your autobiography? What’s next for you? What are you most looking forward to—or, indeed, dreading? How will you use the lessons you’ve learned to tackle the rest of your life? Will you be writing multiple autobiographical volumes, à la Karl Ove Knausgård?

You might think the answers to these questions are best left off the page. But if we’ve established anything over the course of this guide, it’s that an autobiography should strive for comprehensiveness.

On that note, remember that it doesn’t matter if you don’t have it all figured out or if you’re unsure of what’s next. Once again: Just lay it all out on the page. Readers will appreciate your honesty, and you’ll feel much more satisfied with the final result.

Speaking of which: if you really want to write a satisfying autobiography, but feel intimidated by the lengthy process, consider working with a ghostwriter to get your story on the page. What’s great about this kind of project is that you can involve another writer as much or as little as you want. They might simply advise on structure and chip in to edit the occasional chapter—or they can conduct in-depth interviews with you and take on the lion’s share of writing. Basically, your main goal is to get your autobiography out there, and a ghostwriter can (and will) help you out.

You can also use autobiography-specific editing tools to get your draft into tip-top shape. ProWritingAid is particularly useful for elevating those sensory details we talked about, with the help of its Sensory Report. You can also use ProWritingAid to improve your pacing, sentence structure, and other elements that will turn your autobiography from good to great—not just great like “better than good,” but like Mandela-level great.

Sure, it might sound like a tall order, especially for the novice writers out there. Yet with enough time and effort (and the tips in this article), you’ll find that anyone can write an autobiography—one that not only captures their life story, but also engages readers in a profound way. If you’re willing to put in the hours, your own story could be next. Good luck!

Write like a bestselling author

Love writing? ProWritingAid will help you improve the style, strength, and clarity of your stories.

Get started with ProWritingAid

All features—half price

Save 50% on yearly and lifetime plans

this Black Friday.

Grab the discount while it lasts.

Visit our Help Center or let's stay in touch via:

• PRO Courses Guides New Tech Help Pro Expert Videos About wikiHow Pro Upgrade Sign In
• EDIT Edit this Article
• EXPLORE Tech Help Pro About Us Random Article Quizzes Request a New Article Community Dashboard This Or That Game Forums Popular Categories Arts and Entertainment Artwork Books Movies Computers and Electronics Computers Phone Skills Technology Hacks Health Men's Health Mental Health Women's Health Relationships Dating Love Relationship Issues Hobbies and Crafts Crafts Drawing Games Education & Communication Communication Skills Personal Development Studying Personal Care and Style Fashion Hair Care Personal Hygiene Youth Personal Care School Stuff Dating All Categories Arts and Entertainment Finance and Business Home and Garden Relationship Quizzes Cars & Other Vehicles Food and Entertaining Personal Care and Style Sports and Fitness Computers and Electronics Health Pets and Animals Travel Education & Communication Hobbies and Crafts Philosophy and Religion Work World Family Life Holidays and Traditions Relationships Youth
• Browse Articles
• Learn Something New
• Quizzes Hot
• Happiness Hub
• This Or That Game
• Train Your Brain
• Explore More
• Support wikiHow
• About wikiHow
• Log in / Sign up
• Education and Communications
• Autobiographies

How to Write an Autobiography and Tell Your Life Story

Last Updated: June 6, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Gerald Posner . Gerald Posner is an Author & Journalist based in Miami, Florida. With over 35 years of experience, he specializes in investigative journalism, nonfiction books, and editorials. He holds a law degree from UC College of the Law, San Francisco, and a BA in Political Science from the University of California-Berkeley. He’s the author of thirteen books, including several New York Times bestsellers, the winner of the Florida Book Award for General Nonfiction, and has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History. He was also shortlisted for the Best Business Book of 2020 by the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing. There are 8 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 2,302,653 times.

What's your story? Anyone who has lived a full life has something fascinating to share with the world. The trick to writing an autobiography is to treat it like any good story: it should have a protagonist (you), a central conflict, and a cast of fascinating characters to keep people engaged. You may want to think about a certain theme or idea that has been present in your daily life to revolve your story around. Read on to learn how to craft the story of your life and polish your writing to make it sing.

Writing Your Own Autobiography

Begin by contemplating and writing down some important moments in your life, and think about how they're connected to create a cohesive narrative. Start your autobiography with an engaging scene or idea that introduces readers to yourself.

Mapping Out Your Life

• 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.

Crafting a Narrative

• 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.

Editing the Book

• 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

Publishing Your Story

• 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.

Agents open doors and help propel your work forward. "I'll admit that it's not easy to get an agent, but becoming successful in anything requires perseverance."

• 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.

Writing Help

Expert Q&A

• Your biography can also include a dedication, foreword, vital statistics, chronology sheets, family tree, and epilogue. Thanks Helpful 7 Not Helpful 0
• If the purpose of your autobiography is to pass on your story to your heirs, consider including memorabilia (e.g. pictures, heirlooms, medals, mementos, letters, etc.) and putting your story in a scrapbook format. Of course, you may not be able to copy the memorabilia that accompanies your autobiography, so you still have to think about what you intend to do with your original work and other items, such as medals or bulky heirlooms. Thanks Helpful 7 Not Helpful 0
• Make your story vivid but don't get bogged down in unimportant details. While you want your autobiography to be memorable, you don't want it to be boring. Too many details—listing everyone that was at a party or trying to include all the events of each day—will bog the story down. Thanks Helpful 6 Not Helpful 1

• Be aware of what constitutes libel. If you write something defamatory or maliciously untrue about another person in an autobiography that you intend to publish, consider changing his or her name (if still living). Otherwise, you might find yourself facing a lawsuit. If you're unsure about what to change, consult a lawyer who specializes in libel. Thanks Helpful 5 Not Helpful 0

You Might Also Like

Expert Interview

Thanks for reading our article! If you'd like to learn more about writing as a career, check out our in-depth interview with Gerald Posner .

• ↑ https://theamericanscholar.org/how-to-write-a-memoir
• ↑ https://self-publishingschool.com/how-to-write-an-autobiography/
• ↑ https://blog.reedsy.com/narrative-arc/
• ↑ https://cdn5-ss8.sharpschool.com/UserFiles/Servers/Server_222705/File/Parents%20and%20Students/Star%20Works/How%20to%20write%20an%20Autobiography.pdf
• ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jun/04/how-to-write-a-memoir-jeanette-winterson-and-helen-macdonald
• ↑ https://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/defamation-and-invasion
• ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/feb/07/biographies-autobiography-nielsen-2001
• ↑ https://www.pw.org/literary_agents

About This Article

To write an autobiography, start by making a timeline of your most important life events that you feel you could write about. Then, identify the main characters in your life story, including family members, ex-boyfriends or girlfriends, friends, and enemies. Once you have your cast of characters, pull life events from your timeline, such as a story from your childhood, a coming of age story, a love story, or a triumphant story. Write about these events and then connect them with a cohesive plot by writing in your own voice and being honest with the reader. To learn more about how to edit and publish your autobiography once it's finished, keep reading! Did this summary help you? Yes No

• Send fan mail to authors

Reader Success Stories

Nov 28, 2018

Did this article help you?

Joshua Shaw

Apr 18, 2016

Marcus Ritosa

Apr 26, 2016

Wakeeda Patton

Feb 16, 2017

Barbara Blyth

Mar 24, 2016

Featured Articles

Trending Articles

Watch Articles

• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• Do Not Sell or Share My Info
• Not Selling Info

Get all the best how-tos!

Sign up for wikiHow's weekly email newsletter