LIFE STORY WRITING 3: five simple story starters

Following up on my last post, here are some easy but effective starting points for life story writing. You might want to try a few of these, and then continue on with whichever one or ones feels the easiest and most rich.


With all of these starters, the keys are the same. First, start small. Define your task as completing one paragraph, two paragraphs, or a single page at most, but try to write regularly. Second, don't judge or censor. Your writing doesn't have to be elegant, skilled, or even neat. As I said in my last post, whatever you write will be a treasure to those who come. Finally, be sure to store whatever you have written safely. If you created your text on a computer, back up the files and print a copy out as well.

1. Choose a single photograph from any point in your past and write a really detailed caption for it. Let yourself capture the people, place, and time it depicts in a full paragraph or even two. Place your text in the album or box in which you keep the photo. Tomorrow, consider writing a caption for another picture. As you go on to write about other images, you can stick to a particular time period or theme, or jump around in whatever way feels right.

2. Choose a single recipe you like to cook. (Or, if you're not a cook, a single recipe you like to eat!) Write a paragraph or two about it. Consider describing what you like about it, when and/or from whom you first learned it, when it is or was eaten, what other memories it inspires, what period of your life it reminds you of. Don't worry if your writing strays from the subject of food; the recipe is just a starting point.

3. If you want to write down memories for your children (adult or still young), start small. Choose one child; write down a single great memory of time with him or her. If you enjoy this, add a second memory about that child tomorrow, or move on to a memory about a different child (or sibling, or grandchild). Don't strain to choose an "important" memory; anything that is meaningful to you will be meaningful to that child, however simple or apparently trivial it seems. On the occasion of my fiftieth birthday, my dad wrote a a note to me with the memory of taking naps with me on his chest when I was an infant. I treasure that note all the more because it reminds me of such a small and tender moment.

4. Use place as a starting point for some memory writing. Each day, choose a single place and do some writing about it. The place you choose could be a home, a city, or a vacation spot. It could be as small as a single spot in your yard or house, or as big as your home town. Let your writing roam as it will, whether what comes up are memories of people, pastimes, landscapes...whatever comes up is just fine.

5. Do some writing about the people from your past. For example, you might make a list of five people who influenced you powerfully, then write about one of them each day. At the end of the five day period, decide where to go next. Do you want to write additional material about one or more of those people? Write about five new folks? Move on to a different starting point?