Instructions for Writing a Limited Life History
Instrucciones
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Once you have completed the Consent Form, you can then write your story. Writing a limited life history
isn't like writing your entire autobiography. It's limited. You write
only about one narrowly focused part of your life. And you tell only a few
stories, the most memorable
and vivid.
The process of recalling what happened to you and making sense of it can be
enjoyable. Writing it down isn't "literary" at all but more like telling
stories in ordinary conversation. The payoff is that writing helps you understand
your own experiences. Examining a life makes it more worth living.
Here's how to do it, step by step.
1. Choose
a topic.
Start by limiting your subject. Write about any topic (but only one) that mattered
to you or made a difference throughout your life. Some possibilities include
fandom and teenage idols, famine, women and gender, fame and celebrity, pornography,
race or ethnicity, fashion and models, death, royalty, sexuality, soap operas,
automobiles, abortion, war, sit-coms, politics. Just about any topic will work
as long as you care about it strongly and have personal experiences
to tell about it.
2. Pick
a medium.
Another way to narrow the field down is by including only your experiences with
one or two types of media. Some examples of media: print photojournalism, advertising,
clippings or scrap books, television news, refrigerator or other personal displays
(from media images), newspapers, billboards, dreams (about media), magazines,
the web, posters, political campaign paraphernalia. Any medium will do, if you've
had a few memorable personal experiences with it.
3. Remember.
One way to understand how you feel about life is to sort out your memories.
Search your past for moments related to your topic and medium. Make a list of
as many events as you can recall that are personal and related
to your topic and medium.
4. Make
a chronicle.
A chronicle just lists events in the order they happened. Organize your list
of all the events you recall in chronological order, beginning with your earliest
experiences and ending with today. This becomes your working outline.
5. Adjust
for length.
Cross off any events that aren't personal, that is, things that happened to
you in your relations with people you know and concrete places you've been.
If your list then has fewer than four strong memories or more than ten, you
need to widen or narrow the topic and the medium, so that your life history
will not run too long and be too much work. You'll want a solid list of roughly
six memories.
6. Outline
each event.
You'll find the writing goes easier if you break it into bite-sized pieces.
Begin with only the earliest story. Outline what happened, step by step. Then
list as many details as you can. What did the setting look like to you? What
was your life like then? Who was around you? What did you see? Do? How did you
react? Try to remember the specifics of the event, not only in the media but
within you and in your physical and social surroundings.
7. Write
naturally.
Next use your outline to tell what happened for the first event. Write
just the way you talk, as if you were sitting with close friends over coffee.
Be scrupulously honest. Don't exaggerate in any of your descriptions; avoid
the urge to invent or make up experiences. Please don't spend time trying to
dress up your account in a literary fashion. Be yourself and write as clearly
and directly as you can.
8. Evaluate
the meanings.
Besides telling what happened, explain briefly why it mattered. How did you
feel about the experience? Tell what it means to you. How did the event affect
your moods, your behavior? Please be conscientious and frank. What consequences
did the event cause? Be the judge of your own experience. Don't feel any restraints
in writing truly what you think.
9. Tell
the other stories.
Once you've finished telling the first event in a few sentences or paragraphs,
set it aside and go on to the next event on your list. Do the above three steps
(outline, write, and evaluate) for each event or memory.
10. Compile
the events.
Put all the stories together so that they form a narrative. Write a very brief
opening, just enough to indicate your topic and medium. Add any transitions
needed to shift from memory to memory. At the end, you may draw conclusions
or interpretations about the whole history if you like. Then take a few minutes
to proofread and edit with care (use your spell-checker) and to enjoy what you've
accomplished.
And that's it.
When you've finished
your life history, it takes just a few minutes to submit the essay on line.
Copy the text and paste it into the Web Submission Form. You
will then be guided through two other pages to complete your submission.
Your life history will not be judged on the types of experiences you have had
or on your literary flair. Once you send it in, it can be added to this site
if you like. You can also use the Release Form to choose whether
to remain anonymous, and if you'd like you can have responses forwarded to you.
Finally, you will be provided a Questionnaire to complete the process.