How to structure your life story, Part Two

In How to Structure your Life Story Part One, we discussed why a writer of life story, autobiography or memoir should employ structures for their similar to those utilised by writers of fiction. Fiction writers use many different approaches to structuring a story, some simple, others much more complex, and some with fun names like The Hero’s Journey, Freytag’s Pyramid, The Snowflake Method, and Save the Cat.

You can find in-depth outlines for all these and more on Reedsy’s platform for everything writing and publishing-related here. But for the purpose of this post, I’m going to keep things simple and look at the three I think are most helpful for anyone writing their life story.

Knowing your purpose

In my previous post, I looked at reasons why you might be writing your life story–your purpose–beyond a simple record of events. For instance, you might want your family to understand what made you the person you are, or help others by sharing the story of how you coped with serious illness.

Publishers of memoir call these kinds of themes, or messages, the ‘takeaway’; ‘What will the reader take away from this story?’ Whether you call it a theme, a message or the takeaway, this is what will inform your story structure. 

Even in an autobiography you can’t (and wouldn’t want to) include everything that happened in your life. Once you know what the takeaway is, it’s easier to prioritise what to include and what to leave out. So knowing your purpose is a crucial step.

Beginnings, middles and ends

We’ve all heard the adage that a story needs a beginning, a middle and an end, and this approach does have the virtue of simplicity. If you’ve got some material already written, either by using my ‘one anecdote at a time’ method, or another approach, you might try this exercise:

 

1. Give each of your individual anecdotes or stories a title (they won’t appear in the final text, they're just to help you plan your story).

2. Get three pieces of paper and head them ‘Beginning’, ‘Middle’ and ‘End’. 

3. Decide which category each of your anecdotes belongs in and add its title to the relevant sheet. If you like, you could put them on post-it notes to make it easier to move them around.

Just doing this exercise may be enlightening. You might realise that a crucial part of your story is missing, something that explains why you took a particular course of action at a particular time, or the consequences of that action, for instance.

 

It will also start the process of giving your story a shape that will make it a more satisfying read. Imagine, for example, that your takeaway is ‘we need to grab opportunities when they arise’. Having organised your anecdotes into beginning, middle and end, you may realise there were moments where you didn’t grab the opportunities, and the consequences of that. Or, that certain incidents helped you learn that lesson.

 

Even an autobiography may not be written in strictly chronological order. To highlight your theme or message, for example, you may choose to group a series of anecdotes that weren’t contemporaneous, or choose to introduce a particular person who had an influence on you at a particular point in your story. Knowing the shape of your story will help you make those decisions.

 

If you haven’t begun writing yet, you can take your three pieces of paper and use the categories to decide what to include or not before you’ve even put pen to paper. 

Either way, you’ll end up with an outline for your story that keeps it focused on what you actually want to say - your theme, message or takeaway.

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The Three Act Structure

The Three Act Structure is a development of the basic beginning, middle and end format, and is used in a lot of fiction, as well as film. Each act includes specific story elements: 

 

Act One sets the scene and introduces the reader to your normal world–where you lived, what your life was like, the important people in it–before anything changes. In autobiography, this would most likely centre around your childhood and adolescence, or even a specific part of your childhood. In a memoir, it’ll outline how things were before the main events of your story.

 

Act Two tells of the ups and downs and the people you encountered on your journey, how you responded to them, and how you grew and changed as a result. In fiction, this is where the central character encounters the story’s major conflict and the climax, and where they do or don’t succeed in overcoming it. A single climax moment may not be appropriate to your story, but few of us get through life without confronting some challenges along the way. How we respond to them and what we learn are often what define us and bring the greatest change. So they’re going to be an important part of any life story.

In fiction, Act Three resolves the major conflict, ties up any loose ends, and achieves a ‘new normal’. In your life story, it’s where you reflect on what you’ve learned; there may also be elements of resolution and reaching a new normal, particularly if you’re writing a memoir.

 

You can use the same process of giving your anecdote titles then placing them under Act One, Act Two and Act Three to get you started.

Examples of stories that use the Three Act Structure are The Wizard of Oz, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone, and The Hobbit.

This is a very basic description of the Three Act Structure with particular reference to writing your life story. If you’re interested in exploring this structure more deeply, there are numerous guides to be found online. Another version of the beginning, middle and end structure is Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, which might be especially useful if there’s an obvious pivotal moment in your story. It was famously used by George Lucas as the structure for Star Wars.

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‘But, but, but …’ I hear you cry, ‘a novelist can adapt their storyline to make it fit a structure. My story is my story. I can’t change it!’ That’s true, and as we’ve already said, there’s nothing wrong with a simple telling of the events of your life in chronological order. 

Depending on the answer to the question ‘who are you writing for?’ (see Part One of this guide), there’s no need to follow a structure slavishly. But structuring your story gives it shape and direction, and helps you say what you want to say - your message or takeaway.

If you’re you’re considering self-publishing your story, a strong structure is essential to grab your readers’ attention and keep it, to the last page. If you’re writing for yourself or your family, then you have more flexibility. But even a very light beginning, middle and end structure will help you get more out of the process, make your story easier to write and a more enjoyable read.

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Amanda Edgar’s Memoir Method

As indicated by the title, this approach is designed specifically for those writing a memoir rather than an autobiography. (Reminder: a memoir focuses on a particular period or aspect of your life, as opposed to an autobiography which starts at the beginning and tells your whole life story.)

Edgar’s method has three stages:

• Bracket 

• Segment

• Outline

In Stage One, Bracket, you decide:

•     Your core topic - what is your memoir really about? (apart from you!)

•     When did this journey begin, and

•     When did this journey end?

 

In Stage Two, Segment, you work out:

• What’s my core message?

• When did I fail? [author's note: this may sound strange, but if you got beyond failing, and continued on - say you found a way to come to terms with long term serious illness - acknowledging the initial failure makes your success even more powerful - the idea of the darkest moment before the dawn]

 

In Stage Three, Outline, the key questions are: 

• What are the moments that move the topic (from Stage One) forward?

• What are the moments that support the message (from Stage Two)?

These moments will form the Outline of your memoir. Once you have this outline, the task of actually writing it will become much easier.

You can watch Amanda talking about the method in more detail here. You’ll notice that she also talks about ‘plotting your memoir like a novel’!

In conclusion

Structure gives shape and form to your story and helps support your theme, message or takeaway.

There’s nothing wrong with a simple collection of anecdotes in chronological order if that suits your purpose. But there’s no doubt that even a light structure will give your story direction and make it a more compelling read.

You can go for a simple beginning, middle and end approach, a Three Act Structure, Amanda Edgar’s Memoir Method, or utilise one of the more complex forms used by fiction writers. Any of them will lift your writing from a simple record of the events of your life to a powerful story.

I’m a firm believer that, particularly as we approach later life, most of us, if we’ve reflected at all on our lives, have something to say about life in general. If you want your story to interest others, it’s certainly worth making the effort.

So get out that paper and pen - or your laptop - and get started!