A straight line might be the shortest route between two points, but our lives meander and double-back. We haven’t lived in straight lines, so why should a story of our life make it appear so?

You might tell me about your life summarily—an outline quickly sketched. That’s “like the blueprint of a house waiting to be built, the most important details merely suggested by its basic lines,” writes Erica Bauermeister in one of my favorite novels.

What you might say in a single sentence—“we got married, had kids, and lived in that house until my wife died”—holds endless moments waiting to be explored: a lifetime in a string of 14 words.

But if you’re not going to tell your life chronologically—in a straight line—then where the heck do you begin?

Narrowing down themes for a life story book

Rarely do I think it’s a good idea to approach a life story book as a full chronological account of a life. That approach reminds me of history tomes about past presidents, for instance—books that go down like medicine, rather than enjoyable (and enlightening) reads.

Instead, approach your storytelling in smaller bites. One approach I often recommend is writing shorter vignettes and weaving them into a broader tapestry about your life. But even if you prefer a longer narrative in memoir form, it is important to focus on themes that both hold real meaning for you and that you feel will resonate with your family.

In order to narrow down those themes (one of the integral steps in plotting out your life story project), some initial brainstorming is in order.

Writing about one aspect of your life

If you know you want to hone in on a very specific chapter of your life for your book, here are two ways to approach that:

Broken up in chunks of time

• A Slice of Life Portrait - remembering a day in the life or one pivotal year in your adolescence, for instance; while this time period is chosen for its thematic resonance, it fits neatly into a specific period of time.

• A Discrete Time Period - the war years, your time spent in a certain home, your years in medical school, your months of being homeless, to name a few ideas

  
  

Broken up in themes

For example:

• Strong Women in the Smythe Clan

• Our Family’s Military History

• The Annual Road Trips of Our Childhood

• Irish Cooking in the O’Sullivan Homes

• Four Generations of Stanford Grads

No idea where to start?

It’s more likely that there is not one chapter of your life that you know with certainty that you want to write about. If that describes you, you’re in for an exciting journey of discovery.

EXERCISE 1:
Brainstorm your memories.

Brew a cup of tea or pour some wine and get comfortable: It’s time to let your mind wander back in time to brainstorm—and by that I mean: write down your thoughts willy-nilly, with no concern for order or worth, no editing as you go.

Begin writing your memories via phrases—

• that time Marcy broke her leg when we were hiking

• the day I found out I didn’t get into Harvard

• Nonna’s Sunday sauce

• Johnny’s laugh

• the Maple Street tree fort

I recommend setting a timer for 20 minutes for this exercise. It’s really about doing a brain dump and seeing what comes to mind first.

These memories may serve as writing or interview prompts later, but for now they are useful in looking for patterns. Did many of your memories fall within the context of lessons learned? Or take place at your childhood home? Did one influential person from your life come up again and again?

If you see repeated themes, those may be ones you want to explore for your book.

If you do not, then hold onto this page for use as memory prompts later, and move onto the next step.

EXERCISE 2:
Interview yourself about important chapters of your life.

Some questions to ask yourself:

• What have been the major turning points in my life?

• What are the most impactful decisions I have ever made?

• Are there times of struggle that serve as examples of resilience, or that hold other lessons?

• What are the most joyful times of my life?

• What is my biggest personal success? Professional?

• What has been my most memorable failure?

• What have been the most challenging times of my life?

• Is there anything about my career or vocation that is worth telling?

• Who had the most impact on me growing up? As an adult? What did I learn from them?

• What values do I most want to pass on to the next generation—and are there certain stories that exemplify those values?

What you want is to uncover moments of impact. Portions of your life that hold lessons. That shaped you. That are an integral part of your personal narrative.

You might be surprised by some of your answers. Be open and vulnerable when doing this exercise—allow yourself to remember painful times and regrets, not just happy times; even if these are not at the top of your conscious mind most days, the experiences shaped you and likely hold meaning.

This exercise is similar to one I conduct with my clients during pre-interviews. During this conversation we are exploring life themes and milestones, and determining what stories to explore more deeply, what memories to mine for lessons.

When working together, it would be my job—as someone distanced from your experiences and trained as an observant listener—to suggest possible approaches to your book. If that’s something you would like to explore, please drop me a line. I’d love to chat, and a quick (no pressure) 30-minute conversation usually does the trick.

If, on the other hand, you’d like to continue working on your life story book yourself, I recommend setting aside the pages from these two exercises for a couple of weeks. Then revisit them with a fresh perspective. That little bit of emotional distance can do wonders for helping you be more objective in narrowing down what topics to explore.

No matter what, I hope you give yourself the freedom to express yourself without filters during this exploratory period. It’s not the time to edit—or to judge. Be gentle with yourself, and be open-minded (and open-hearted). Your stories deserve to be told—you might as well be telling the right ones!

In a previous post I wrote about how to break down a life story book project into three broad steps.

Now that you’ve learned how to narrow down themes for your memoir project, find out about the remaining two steps:

• Organize your family archive as a resource for sparking memories.

• Write a life timeline.