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Autobiography Sentence Examples

His Autobiography was published in 1850.

His autobiography was published a few years ago.

He wrote in his autobiography that he was impressed with her beauty.

In the Discourse of Method Descartes had sketched the main points in his new views, with a mental autobiography which might explain their origin, and with some suggestions of as to their applications.

Miss Keller's autobiography contains almost everything that she ever intended to publish.

The Autobiography of Ibn Khaldun was translated into French by de Slane in the Journal asiatique, ser.

In the Autobiography of Jahangir it is stated that the guru was imprisoned in the fortress of Gwalior, with a view to the realization of the fine imposed on his father Guru Arjan, but the Sikhs believe that the guru became a voluntary inmate of the fortress with the object of obtaining seclusion there to pray for the emperor who had been advised to that effect by his Hindu astrologers.

About this work he said little in the Autobiography , probably because his main concern there was to expound the influences that effected his moral and mental development.

He brought out in the Presse (1849) a series of Confidences, and somewhat later a kind of autobiography , entitled Raphael.

When writing her autobiography , Alice tried to highlight all of the milestones in her success.

George Sand, who was a firm believer in the doctrine of heredity, devotes a whole volume of her autobiography (Histoire de ma vie, 1857 seq.) to the elaboration of this strange pedigree.

He had in fact started his university course as a medicinae cultor, and in his autobiography he half regrets that he did not choose the medical profession.

His travels have been translated into many languages, and his Autobiography was written in English.

The latter became particularly attached to him, and really understood his character; and it is strange that his remarks upon Mirabeau in the fragment of autobiography which he left, and Mirabeau's letters to him, should have been neglected by French writers.

Have students write their autobiography telling about their family, their likes, their dislikes and school.

He chose this moment for publishing a Chapter of Autobiography , in which lie explained and justified his change of opinion with regard to the Irish Church.

London, 1816); Alexander Carlyle, Autobiography (Edinburgh, 1860), which gives the account of an eye-witness of the execution of Wilson; pamphlets (2 vols.

In the foregoing account only those particulars which bear directly on Villehardouin himself have been detailed; but the chronicle is as far as possible from being an autobiography , and the displays of the writer's personality, numerous as they are, are quite involuntary, and consist merely in his way of handling the subject, not in the references (as brief as his functions as chronicler will admit) to his own proceedings.

But it is to be remembered that Miss Keller has written many things in her autobiography for the fun of writing them, and the disillusion, which the writer of the editorial took seriously, is in great part humorous.

We may be hearing a lot more from Susan Boyle in the future, including a full-length album, autobiography , and a movie based on her life.

It consists of three books, an introduction and an autobiography .

In 1795 he visited England, one incident of his journey being the loss of all his private papers, including the materials for an autobiography , which were contained in a box stolen from off his postchaise in St Paul's Churchyard.

Her first album, Autobiography , was released in 2004 and debuted at number one on the charts- beating her sister Jessica right out of the gates.

While singing her third single from Autobiography , "La La", the entire stadium rose up in boos.

Outside of press reports and his nationally televised TV show, he recently released the autobiography "You Can Run But You Can't Hide."

These days Tweed spends more time writing (her autobiography , Kiss and Tell was published in 2006), running a fitness club and keeping the family's hectic schedule straight.

The show's title comes from the title of Denton's 2008 autobiography , which itself was a play on Salt-n-Pepa's mega 90s hit song, Let's Talk about Sex.

The HIV-AIDS connection was concealed from the public until his second wife allowed it to be revealed in the second edition of his autobiography , It's Been A Good Life, in 2002.

The religiosity of the Quakers, with their doctrines of the " inner light " and the influence of, the Spirit, has decided affinities with mysticism; and the autobiography of George Fox (1624-1691), the founder of the sect, proceeds throughout on the assumption of supernatural guidance.

The autobiography was used by both Dio Cassius and Marius Maximus.

The introduction is an elaborate treatise on the science of history and the development of society, and the autobiography contains the history, not only of the author himself, but of his family and of the dynasties which ruled in Fez, Tunis and Tlemcen during his lifetime.

An Autobiography was compiled by his widow and his private secretary from his diary, sermons, records and letters (1897-1900).

In a fragment of autobiography printed in the Athenaeum (12th of January 1850) he says that he was entirely self-taught, and attributes his poetic development to long country walks undertaken in search of wild flowers, and to a collection of books, including the works of Young, Barrow, Shenstone and Milton, bequeathed to his father by a poor clergyman.

He published his autobiography in 1894, concluding with a warm panegyric upon British rule in Egypt.

After the 1980s and her film career slowed, she wrote an autobiography and was treated for alcohol dependence at the famous Betty Ford Center.

Actress Mackenzie Phillips released her autobiography , High on Arrival.

Unfortunately, most of the ideas come from an autobiography written in 1918 by a performer named Armen Ohanian.

The memoir generally tells your story while reading like a novel and covers less time than an autobiography .

Chirolla has studied with Roy Eugene Davis since 1984, who learned his craft from Paramahansa Yogananda, author of Autobiography of a Yogi.

Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda, is considered to be one of the 100 best spiritual books of the 20th century.

From London he went to Paris, and he notes in his Autobiography that the Parisians were much more interested in his strange manner of travelling than in the travels themselves.

The Six Long Years The seventh extract from the naval autobiography of George John Sallet.

Airy's Autobiography , p. 127; Observatory, xiii.

His autobiography was published with the title Erinnerungen aus vergangenen Tagen (1889; 2nd ed., 1891).

In his Autobiography he alleges that he learned from the Provincial Letters of Pascal " to manage the weapon of grave and temperate irony, even on subjects of ecclesiastical solemnity."

By his eighth year he had read Aesop's Fables, Xenophon's Anabasis, and the whole of Herodotus, and was acquainted with Lucian, Diogenes Laertius, Isocrates and six dialogues of Plato (see his Autobiography ).

From the Autobiography we learn that in 1826 Mill's enthusiasm was checked by a misgiving as to the value of the ends which he had set before him.

He died on the 5th of September 1879, having, a few years earlier, written an autobiography under the title Bruchstiicke aus dem Leben eines siiddeutschen Theologen.

But Kemal-ud-din's History of Aleppo (composed in the 13th century) contains some details on the history of the First Crusade; and the Vie d'Ousama (the autobiography of a sheik at Caesarea in northern Syria, edited and paraphrased by Derenbourg in the Publications de l'Ecole des langues orientales vivantes) presents the point of view of an Arab whose life covered the first century of the Crusades (1095-1188).

Fortunately we have in the Acta quaedam what is in effect the autobiography of the saint.

It appears also that Darwin, having extended his theory of evolution as far as the rational and moral nature of man, in the Descent of Man, ended in his Autobiography by declaring his attitude to first and final causes to be that of an agnostic. Not that he was a materialist, and shortly before his death, in a conversation with Buchner, he maintained his agnosticism against his opponent's atheism.

During the last five years of his life he wrote an autobiography , Was ich erlebte, and after his death was published Nachgelassene Schriften (1846).

Gibbon, describing his first stay at Lausanne (1752-1755), writes in his Autobiography , "the logic of de Crousaz had prepared me to engage with his master Locke and his antagonist Bayle."

His year's enforced leisure he spent in writing indecent stories, coarse polemics, and an autobiography which is described as "a mixture of lies, hypocrisy and self-prostitution."

Processing aurally was familiar to Augustine while reading silently was revelatory, so noteworthy that he wrote it in his autobiography .

No one can have read Miss Keller's autobiography without feeling that she writes unusually fine English.

Ashlee's first solo album, Autobiography , did well on the charts and prompted a slew of appearances.

Simpson's debut album, Autobiography , was an instant success, in large part because of the exposure from her reality series.

After a concert tour for Autobiography , Ashlee Simpson's second album, I Am Me, was released in 2005.

His autobiography , Out of Sync, covers the first portion of his career and his initial struggles with hiding his sexual orientation.

He penned his 2003 autobiography , I Don't Mean to be Rude, But…, a short yet snappy read filled with amusing anecdotes and even a few tidbits of advice for aspiring singers.

Suleman has also hired a ghostwriter to pen her autobiography .

Other projects in the works include an autobiography and a line of baby care products.

Day also appeared in several television specials and prime time variety shows.In 1976, her autobiography was released.

He has also written his autobiography , entitled Kiss Me Like a Stranger.

A famous actor, musician, or public figure may hire a ghostwriter to prepare his autobiography .

The main thrust of her autobiography states that she fully believes that "magic" is all around us, and that each culture puts their own stamp on this magic.

Thinking in Pictures is Dr. Grandin's autobiography , speaking to what it is like for a child to live with autism from a survivor's point of view.

It is an unfinished autobiography containing an account of the achievements of Maximilian, who is called "the young white king."

He died on the 2nd of July 1816, having occupied his latter years in the composition and revision of an autobiography (published in 1817), which, with all its egotism and partiality, is a valuable work, and the chief authority for his life.

The autobiography of Sulla may also be mentioned.

In his Autobiography he admits that the attempt to form a Radical party in parliament at that time was chimerical.

See Autobiography of Thomas Guthrie, D.D., and Memoir, by his sons (2 vols., London, 1874-1875).

He composed an autobiography , published under the name of his freedman Phlegon; wrote speeches, fragments of two of which are preserved in inscriptions (a panegyric on his mother-in-law Matidia, and an address to the soldiers at Lambaesis in Africa).

Fortunately we have the first-hand evidence of his autobiography , which is a surer guide than the lines written by untrustworthy disciples.

He published The Political and Financial Opinions of Peter Cooper, with an Autobiography of his Early Life (1877), and Ideas for a Science of Good Government, in Addresses, Letters and Articles on a Strictly National Currency, Tariff and Civil Service (1883).

An autobiography , Aus meinem Leben, appeared in 1883, and after his death the Briefwechsel zwischen Martensen and Dorner (1888).

As his share in the controversy, Martineau published five discourses, in which he discussed " the Bible as the great autobiography of human nature from its infancy to its perfection," " the Deity of Christ," " Vicarious Redemption," " Evil," and " Christianity without Priest and without Ritual."' He remained to the end a keen and vigilant apologist of the school in which he had been nursed.

He published also an autobiography entitled Von Magdeburg nach Konigsberg (1873), which deals with his life up to the time of his settlement at Konigsberg.

His influence was enhanced by his personal appearance, which was so striking as to earn him the name of "Jupiter Carlyle"; and his autobiography (published 1860), though written in his closing years and not extending beyond the year 1770, is abundantly interesting as a picture of Scottish life, social and ecclesiastical, in the 18th century.

Bretschneider remarks in his autobiography that the publication of this work had the effect of preventing his appointment as successor to Karl C. Tittmann in Dresden, the minister Detlev von Einsiedel (1773-1861) denouncing him as the "slanderer of John" (Johannisschdnder).

Judged as literature, the first place belongs to his Autobiography , which unquestionably ranks among the few great autobiographies ever written.

Franklin's Autobiography was begun in 1771 as a private chronicle for his son, Governor William Franklin; the papers, bringing the story of his father's life down to 1730, were lost by the governor during the War of Independence, and in 1783 came into the possession of Abel James, who restored them to Franklin and urged him to complete the sketch.

Bigelow published the complete Autobiography with additions from Franklin's correspondence and other writings in 1868; a second edition (3 vols., Philadelphia, 1888) was published under the title, The Life of Benjamin Franklin, Written by Himself.

Fragments of his universal history (`Iaropia KaBoXLKi 7), from the time of the Assyrian empire to his own days, his autobiography , and his life of Augustus (Bios Kacaapos) have been preserved, chiefly in the extracts of Constantine Porphyrogenitus.

He published his autobiography in 1882 under the title Sache,' Leben and Feinde; the mention of "Feinde" (enemies) is characteristic. Diihring's philosophy claims to be emphatically the philosophy of reality.

This sentence from Browne's spiritual autobiography contains the root of the whole matter, and explains the title of his other chief work, also of 1582, A Treatise of Reformation without tarrying for any, and of the wickedness of those Preachers which will not reform till the Magistrate command or compel them.

Amongst his writings an autobiography , now lost, is referred to.

In later years he published a few minor volumes of fiction, and a series of severe and also amusing criticisms of Christian Science (pub lished as a book in 1907), and in 1906 he began an autobiography in the North American Review.

It should be difficult, after the copious details of this autobiography de luxe of the Czech nation in the year 1916, to speak of it historically as an " oppressed " nation of Austria.

Besides some archaeological articles in the Nineteenth Century and contributions to the Dictionary of National Biography, he published a History of the Diocese of Norwich (1879); The Coming of the Friars (1885); The Autobiography of Roger North (1887) and Trials of a Country Parson (1890).

The Toth earl's Autobiography of a Seaman (2 vols., 1860-1861), the main source for his Life (1869, by his son and heir), is written with spirit, but it was composed at the end of his career when his memory was failing, and was chiefly executed by others.

The materials for his biography are very numerous; he was regarded with universal curiosity and admiration in his lifetime; and, besides, he left a garrulous autobiography in verse.

Additional particulars are given in Brougham's Men of Letters and Science, Burton's Life of Hume and Alexander Carlyle's Autobiography ; and some characteristic anecdotes of him will be found in Memoirs of the Life and Works of Sir John Sinclair (1837).

He left valuable materials for a just comprehension of his career in the autobiography (Adventures while Prosecuting Researches and Inquiries on Polish Matters) printed in his Polska.

He was the author of La Follette's Autobiography (1913).

It was doubtless during his stay at Smyrna that he wrote his autobiography and a history of Rome in Greek, part of which is known to have been devoted to the Numantine War.

In the retirement of Brantwood he began his last work, Praeterita, a desultory autobiography with personal anecdotes and reminiscences.

To secure business and to conduct his cases with adequate knowledge, he studied the forms of English law, he solicited William Strahan, the printer, "to get him employed in city causes," and he entered into social intercourse (as is noted in Alexander Carlyle's autobiography ) with busy London solicitors.

Llorente also wrote Memorias Para la historia de la revolution espanola (Paris, 1814-1816), translated into French (Paris, 1815-1819); Noticias historicas sobre las tres provincial va congadas (Madrid, 1806-1808); an autobiography , Noticia biografica (Paris, 1818), and other works.

The first collected edition of his works appeared at Oxford in 1859 (9 vols., 8vo); a small Autobiography was published also at Oxford in 1839.

They were perhaps influenced by the example of Goethe, who in his Autobiography describes, at considerable length, the plan of a poem he had designed on the Wandering Jew.

The autobiography in Latin verse, with its playful humour, occasional pathos and sublime self-complacency, was thrown off at the age of eighty-four.

He was also the author of rhetorical exercises on hackneyed sophistical themes; of a Quadrivium (Arithmetic, Music, Geometry, Astronomy), valuable for the history of music and astronomy in the middle ages; a general sketch of Aristotelian philosophy; a paraphrase of the speeches and letters of Dionysius Areopagita; poems, including an autobiography ; and a description of the Augusteum, the column erected by Justinian in the church of St Sophia to commemorate his victories over the Persians.

In 5904 he published an autobiography entitled Biographia philosophica, in which he sketched the progress of his intellectual development.

The whole movement, intended as a return to the kirk of Knox and Melville and the Covenanters, was a not unneeded protest against the sleepy " moderation," and want of spiritual enthusiasm, which invaded the established kirk in the latter part of the 18th century, a period in which she possessed such distinguished writers as John Home, author of the drama of Douglas, Robertson, the historian, and Dr Carlyle, whose amusing autobiography draws a perfect portrait of an amiable and highly educated " Moderate " and man of the world.

Pellican's autobiography describes the gradual multiplication of accessible books on the subjects, and he not only studied but translated a vast mass of rabbinical and Talmudic texts, his interest in Jewish literature being mainly philological.

Pellicanus's Latin autobiography (Chronicon C.P.R.) is one of the most interesting documents of the period.

For this reason the book is at once the most brilliant and the most difficult of Hegel's works - the most brilliant because it is to some degree an autobiography of Hegel's mind - not the abstract record of a logical evolution, but the real history of an intellectual growth; the most difficult because, instead of treating the rise of intelligence (from its first appearance in contrast with the real world to its final recognition of its presence in, and rule over, all things) as a purely subjective process, it exhibits this rise as wrought out in historical epochs, national characteristics, forms of culture and faith, and philosophical systems. The theme is identical with the introduction to the Encyklopddie; but it is treated in a very different style.

In estimating this drama we must bear in mind Goethe's own Strassburg life, and the turbulent spirit of his own age, rather than the historical facts, which the poet found in the autobiography of his hero published in 1731.

In the following year the first volume of his autobiography was published under the title Aus meinem Leben, Dichtung and Wahrheit.

From his autobiography , it is clear that his keen critical faculty was developed in great measure by the slender means of culture at his disposal.

He wrote books of travel, of popular biography, or of historical or political discussion, &c., from time to time; but his principal literary achievements were editions, between 1868 and 1888, of Franklin's autobiography and autobiographical writings, copiously annotated; and of the complete works of Franklin, in ten octavo volumes (New York, 1887-1889).

Few minerals are wrought in Afghanistan, though Abdur Rahman claims in his autobiography that the country is rich minerals.

The life of Lord Gambier is to be read in Marshall's Royal Naval Biography, in Ralfe's Naval Biography, in Lord Dundonald's Autobiography of a Seaman, in the Minutes of the Courts-Martial and in the general history of the period.

Mill, Autobiography , p. 159.

His last "famous discovery, or rather revival of Dr Giles Fletcher's," which he mentions in his autobiography with infinite complacency, was the identification of the Tatars with the lost tribes of Israel.

An autobiography , Reminiscences of an Astronomer, appeared in 2903; and a bibliography of his writings is given by Mr Archibald in the Trans.

At the Dutch university, where he matriculated on the 27th of October 1745, he associated with a small knot of English youths, afterwards well known in various circles of life, among whom were Dowdeswell, his subsequent rival in politics, Wilkes, the witty and unprincipled reformer, and Alexander Carlyle, the genial Scotchman, who devotes some of the pages of his Autobiography to chronicling their sayings and their doings.

His vacillating autobiography , Exemplar Humanae Vitae, was published with a "refutation" by Limborch in 1687, and republished in 1847.

This led him to a culte du moi, of which the strangest result was an autobiography of crude invective, A Fool's Confession (1893), the printing of which in Swedish was forbidden.

In addition to her numerous free-thought pamphlets and a large number of later works on theosophy, she published her Autobiography in 1893, The Religious Problem in India (1902) and other books.

Kurakin was one of the best-educated Russians of his day, and his autobiography , carried down to 1709, is an historical document of the first importance.

Jehangir tells us in his autobiography that before his father Akbar built the present fort, the town was defended by a citadel of great antiquity.

The artist's autobiography has been translated by Lionel Strachey, Memoirs of Mme.

His later works include Studies, Scientific and Social (1900), Man's Place in the Universe (1903) and his Autobiography (1905).

Accordingly, we find him journeying again in 1351 to Vaucluse, again refusing the office of papal secretary, again planning visionary reforms for the Roman people, and beginning that 'curious fragment of an autobiography which is known as the Epistle to Posterity.

The main source for the life of Bellarmine is his Latin Autobiography (Rome, 1675; Louvain, 1753), which was reprinted with original text and German translation in the work of Dollinger and Reusch entitled Die Selbstbiographie des Cardinals Bellarmin (Bonn, 1887).

The anecdotes of Swift related in Spence, Laetitia Pilkington, Wilson's Swiftiana, Delany's Autobiography , &c., though often amusing, can hardly be accepted as authentic.

In the seclusion of his villa of Sorgvliet (Fly-from-Care), near the Hague, he lived from this time till his death, occupied in the composition of his autobiography (Eighty-two Years of My Life, first printed at Leiden in 1734) and of his poems. He died on the 12th of September 1660, and was buried by torchlight, and with great ceremony, in the Klooster-Kerk at the Hague.

The original part covers the period from 1684-1743, and is to some extent an autobiography of a very adventurous life.

Blaikie's Life (1880), the publications of the London Missionary Society from 1840, the Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, the despatches to the Foreign Office sent home by Livingstone during his last two expeditions, and Stanley's Autobiography (1909) and How I Found Livingstone (1872).

He sincerely believed that the exaggeration and exaltation of the popular editor of the Pesti Hirlap would cast the nation back into the old evil conditions from which it had only just been raised, mainly by Szechenyi's own extraordinary efforts, and in Kelet nepe, which is also an autobiography , he prophetically hinted at an approaching revolution.

A volume of his Reviews and Critical Essays was published in 1896, and was followed in 1900 by his autobiography , a work of great interest.

He has stated in his autobiography that through all his early years of struggle, when he was successively grocer's apprentice at Fiirstenberg, cabin-boy on the "Dorothea" bound for Venezuela, and, after her wreck, office attendant and then book-keeper in Amsterdam, he nourished a passion for the Homeric story and an ambition to become a great linguist.

It immediately made a great impression, which was enhanced by the continuation of his autobiography (Home Letters) and especially by his Fables of Aesop and of other Writers (Leipzig, 1789).

The autobiography of Baber (by Leyden and Erskine) gives interesting details about the country in the 16th century.

Her visions continued, and, by command of her ecclesiastical superiors, she wrote her autobiography containing a full account of these experiences, though she was far from basing any claim to holiness upon them.

Sixteen convents and fourteen monasteries were founded by her efforts; she wrote a history of her foundations, which forms a supplement to her autobiography .

Besides her autobiography and the history of her foundations, her works (all written in Spanish) contain a great number of letters and various treatises of mystical religion, the chief of which are The Way of Perfection and The Castle of the Soul.

His autobiography , found in his Commentarius de rebus ad eum pertinentibus (Paris, 1718), has been translated into French and into English.

I was reading the autobiography of Moss Hart, who wrote very successful comedies with George Kaufman.

Published in 1960, the poem was an immediate best seller and heralded as ' the verse autobiography of the century ' .

The influence of a bigoted priesthood was re-established, and every form of intellectual and moral torment, everything save actual persecution and physical torture that could be inflicted on- the impure was inflicted (Cesare Balbos Autobiography ).

He himself confesses in his autobiography that "it was a great error in me to appear in this matter," and his conduct cost him the patronage of the duke of York.

C. Foxcroft edited A Supplement to Burnet's History of His Own Time, to which is prefixed an account of the relation between the different versions of the History - the Bodleian MS., the fragmentary Harleian MS. in the British Museum and Sir Thomas Burnet's edition; the book contains the remaining fragments of Burnet's original memoirs, his autobiography , his letters to Admiral Herbert and his private meditations.

An Autobiography was published in 1905.

Two of the three daughters, Harriett Elizabeth and Jemima Charlotte, married brothers, Thomas and John Mozley; and Anne Mozley, a daughter of the latter, edited in 1892 Newman's Anglican Life and Correspondence, having been entrusted by him in 1885 with an autobiography written in the third person to form the basis of a narrative of the first thirty years of his life.

As well as writing her autobiography in 1670 and 1671 she published two astrological almanacs.

Answer Bobby Hatfield 12 Who penned the autobiography Banana's Can't Fly?

Late in his life, Wilder started writing an autobiography .

He subsequently co-wrote Bob Geldof's best-selling autobiography , Is That It?

Balletco Poll Which unpublished autobiography would you most want to read?

In reality the film is probably a fictional autobiography with Woody Allen playing the part of ' Woody Allen ' .

You can think of it by reading my industriously revealing autobiography .

Best football autobiography I've read, 2006-06-02 Finished it this morning.

The last three chapters, the 1950s until today, are in part autobiography and, therefore, ensure an original contribution.

She revealed all in her best selling autobiography , Ugly.

Adapted from Mr. Evans's tell-all autobiography , the movie takes the audience on an intimate journey into the mind of this Hollywood legend.

In 1993 he was awarded the OBE, and also published his autobiography crying With Laughter.

Her 2005 autobiography handstands in the Dark was voted a Best Read of 2005 by listeners of BBC Radio 4's Open Book series.

Autobiography Sandra Gregory was caught smuggling heroin through Bangkok airport in 1993.

T he once unsung hero of the celebrity autobiography - the ghostwriter - has tentatively begun to claim his place in the literary limelight.

The final synoptic unit asks you to analyze the language of genres such as travel writing, autobiography , news reportage and speeches.

Of most permanent value, however, is his autobiography , Mein Anteil an der Politik, 5 vols.

It shows that the Autobiography rather understates the amount of work done.

It is believed that he wrote also an autobiography , which has perished.

Browse other sentences examples

The word usage examples above have been gathered from various sources to reflect current and historical usage. They do not represent the opinions of YourDictionary.com.

While an autobiography and a biography both tell the story of someone’s life, they are not the same thing. When a person writes his or her own life story, the finished work is an autobiography. When an author writes a book about another person’s life, the result is a biography.

An autobiography , most often published as a book, is the story of someone's life written by that actual person themselves. Their life stories can be ones of struggle and hardship, but also of triumph and resilience. Here follow several examples of inspiring autobiographies worth reading, plus a sample short autobiography essay, to perhaps prompt you to write your own story.

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Words near autobiography in the Dictionary

autobiographer
autobiographic
autobiographical
autobiographically
autobiographism
autobiographist
autobiography
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autobiography

Definition of autobiography

Examples of autobiography in a sentence.

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'autobiography.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

auto- + biography , perhaps after German Autobiographie

1797, in the meaning defined above

Phrases Containing autobiography

semi - autobiography

Dictionary Entries Near autobiography

autobiographist

Cite this Entry

“Autobiography.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/autobiography. Accessed 18 May. 2024.

Kids Definition

Kids definition of autobiography, more from merriam-webster on autobiography.

Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for autobiography

Nglish: Translation of autobiography for Spanish Speakers

Britannica English: Translation of autobiography for Arabic Speakers

Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about autobiography

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AUTOBIOGRAPHY in a Sentence Examples: 21 Ways to Use Autobiography

Have you ever wondered what goes into writing an autobiography? An autobiography is a self-written account of one’s own life, detailing personal experiences, memories, and moments that have shaped the individual.

Crafting an autobiography allows individuals to reflect on their journey, share their unique story, and leave behind a legacy for future generations. Through this genre of writing, authors have the opportunity to provide insights, lessons, and inspiration drawn from their own lived experiences.

Table of Contents

7 Examples Of Autobiography Used In a Sentence For Kids

Autobiography is a book about someone’s life.
I will write my autobiography about all the fun things I do.
My autobiography will have pictures of my family and friends.
In my autobiography , I will talk about my favorite things to do.
I like reading autobiographies of famous people to learn about them.
Let’s make a autobiography for our classroom pet.
Autobiography helps us share our stories with others.

14 Sentences with Autobiography Examples

Autobiography assignments are a common task for college students studying literature.
College students may be asked to write an autobiography as part of their English course.
Writing your own autobiography can help you reflect on your past experiences and personal development.
Autobiographies allow college students to explore their own stories and share them with others.
An autobiography can serve as a great exercise in self-reflection and self-awareness for college students.
In the context of college, an autobiography can be a unique way to showcase one’s personal journey and growth.
College students often find writing their own autobiography to be a challenging yet rewarding task.
Writing an autobiography can help college students articulate their thoughts, emotions, and experiences.
For college students in India, writing an autobiography can be a culturally enriching experience.
An autobiography assignment can help Indian college students explore their identity and heritage.
College students may discover new insights and perspectives about themselves through the process of writing an autobiography .
In a college setting, an autobiography can serve as a powerful tool for personal expression and growth.
As part of their academic journey, Indian college students may be asked to write an autobiography to document their experiences.
Reflecting on one’s life and achievements through an autobiography can be a valuable exercise for college students in India.

How To Use Autobiography in Sentences?

Autobiography is a noun that refers to a written account of a person’s life, written by that person themselves. To properly use autobiography in a sentence, follow these guidelines:

Identify the Subject: First, identify the person whose life story is being presented. This person should also be the author of the autobiography.

Introduce the Autobiography: Begin your sentence with a clear introduction that the text is an autobiography. For example, “In his autobiography,” or “Her autobiography details.”

Share Relevant Information: After introducing the autobiography, provide some relevant information from the text that you want to highlight. This could be a key event, insight, or personal reflection.

Use Correct Punctuation: Place the title of the autobiography in italics or quotes, following the appropriate punctuation rules.

Proper Grammar: Ensure that your sentence is grammatically correct and clearly conveys the intended meaning.

Example: In her autobiography, “Becoming,” Michelle Obama shares her journey from a young girl in Chicago to becoming the First Lady of the United States.

By following these steps and tips, you can effectively use autobiography in a sentence to accurately convey the subject and context of a person’s life story.

In conclusion, sentences from an autobiography are personal accounts of the author’s life experiences, often reflecting their thoughts, emotions, and memories. These sentences provide intimate insights into the author’s worldview, struggles, triumphs, and growth over time. By narrating key events, relationships, and turning points in their lives, authors shape a narrative that can resonate with readers on a human level.

Autobiographical sentences serve as powerful tools for self-reflection, self-expression, and storytelling. They offer a unique window into the author’s inner life, allowing readers to connect with the author’s journey and gain a deeper understanding of their perspectives and values. Through autobiography sentences, authors create a lasting record of their lives, leaving behind a legacy that can inspire, educate, and resonate with others for generations to come.

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autobiography

[ aw-t uh -bahy- og -r uh -fee , -bee- , aw-toh- ]

a history of a person's life written or told by that person.

/ ˌɔːtəʊbaɪˈɒɡrəfɪ; ˌɔːtəbaɪ- /

an account of a person's life written or otherwise recorded by that person
A literary work about the writer's own life. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa are autobiographical.

Discover More

Derived forms.

ˌautobiˈographer , noun

Other Words From

auto·bi·ogra·pher noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of autobiography 1

Example Sentences

In so doing, she gave us an autobiography that has held up for more than a century.

His handwritten autobiography reawakens in Lee a longing to know her motherland.

His elocution, perfected on stage and evident in television and film, make X’s autobiography an easy yet informative listen.

The book is not so much an autobiography of Hastings — or even Netflix’s origin story.

By contrast, Shing-Tung Yau says in his autobiography that the Calabi-Yau manifold was given its name by other people eight years after he proved its existence, which Eugenio Calabi had conjectured some 20 years before that.

Glow: The Autobiography of Rick JamesRick James David Ritz (Atria Books) Where to begin?

Hulanicki was the subject of a 2009 documentary, Beyond Biba, based on her 2007 autobiography From A to Biba.

And it was also during the phase of the higher autobiography.

“Nighttime was the worst,” Bennett wrote in his autobiography.

Then I picked up a book that shredded my facile preconceptions—Hard Stuff: The Autobiography of Mayor Coleman Young.

No; her parents had but small place in that dramatic autobiography that Daphne was now constructing for herself.

His collected works, with autobiography, were published in 1865 under the editorship of Charles Hawkins.

But there is one point about the book that deserves some considering, its credibility as autobiography.

I thought you were anxious for leisure to complete your autobiography.

The smallest fragment of a genuine autobiography seems to me valuable for the student of past epochs.

Related Words

Autobiography in a Sentence 🔊

Definition of Autobiography

the story of an individual’s life written by that individual

Examples of Autobiography in a sentence

To learn about the deceased celebrity, you should read the autobiography he wrote about his life. 🔊

It was interesting to listen to the actress share a memory she had included in her autobiography. 🔊

During the interview, the singer took a few moments to promote the autobiography he penned about his college days. 🔊

Writing my autobiography has been difficult because my childhood was unpleasant. 🔊

While an autobiography is self-written, a biography is written by someone other than the book’s subject. 🔊

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Definition of autobiography noun from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

autobiography

In his autobiography, he recalls the poverty he grew up in.
in an/the autobiography

Want to learn more?

Find out which words work together and produce more natural-sounding English with the Oxford Collocations Dictionary app. Try it for free as part of the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary app.

"Putting a life into words rescues it from confusion even when the words declare the omnipresence of confusion, since the art of declaring implies dominance." (Patricia Meyer Spacks, Imagining a Self: Autobiography and Novel in Eighteenth-Century England . Harvard University Press, 1976)

The Opening Lines of Zora Neale Hurston's Autobiography - "Like the dead-seeming, cold rocks, I have memories within that came out of the material that went to make me. Time and place have had their say. "So you will have to know something about the time and place where I came from, in order that you may interpret the incidents and directions of my life. "I was born in a Negro town. I do not mean by that the black back-side of an average town. Eatonville, Florida, is, and was at the time of my birth, a pure Negro town--charter, mayor, council, town marshal and all. It was not the first Negro community in America, but it was the first to be incorporated, the first attempt at organized self-government on the part of Negroes in America. "Eatonville is what you might call hitting a straight lick with a crooked stick. The town was not in the original plan. It is a by-product of something else. . . ." (Zora Neale Hurston, Dust Tracks on a Road . J.B. Lippincott, 1942) - "There is a saying in the Black community that advises: 'If a person asks you where you're going, you tell him where you've been. That way you neither lie nor reveal your secrets.' Hurston had called herself the 'Queen of the Niggerati.' She also said, 'I like myself when I'm laughing.' Dust Tracks on a Road is written with royal humor and an imperious creativity. But then all creativity is imperious, and Zora Neale Hurston was certainly creative." (Maya Angelou, Foreword to Dust Tracks on a Road , rpt. HarperCollins, 1996)

Autobiography and Truth "All autobiographies are lies. I do not mean unconscious, unintentional lies; I mean deliberate lies. No man is bad enough to tell the truth about himself during his lifetime, involving, as it must, the truth about his family and friends and colleagues. And no man is good enough to tell the truth in a document which he suppresses until there is nobody left alive to contradict him." (George Bernard Shaw, Sixteen Self Sketches , 1898)" " Autobiography is an unrivaled vehicle for telling the truth about other people." (attributed to Thomas Carlyle, Philip Guedalla, and others)

Autobiography and Memoir - "An autobiography is the story of a life : the name implies that the writer will somehow attempt to capture all the essential elements of that life. A writer's autobiography, for example, is not expected to deal merely with the author's growth and career as a writer but also with the facts and emotions connected to family life, education, relationships, sexuality, travels, and inner struggles of all kinds. An autobiography is sometimes limited by dates (as in Under My Skin: Volume One of My Autobiography to 1949 by Doris Lessing), but not obviously by theme. "Memoir, on the other hand, is a story from a life . It makes no pretense of replicating a whole life." (Judith Barrington, Writing the Memoir: From Truth to Art . Eighth Mountain Press, 2002) - "Unlike autobiography , which moves in a dutiful line from birth to fame, memoir narrows the lens, focusing on a time in the writer's life that was unusually vivid, such as childhood or adolescence, or that was framed by war or travel or public service or some other special circumstance." (William Zinsser, "Introduction," Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir . Mariner Books, 1998)

An "Epidemical Rage for Auto-Biography" "[I]f the populace of writers become thus querulous after fame (to which they have no pretensions) we shall expect to see an epidemical rage for auto-biography break out, more wide in its influence and more pernicious in its tendency than the strange madness of the Abderites, so accurately described by Lucian. London, like Abdera, will be peopled solely by 'men of genius'; and as the frosty season, the grand specific for such evils, is over, we tremble for the consequences. Symptoms of this dreadful malady (though somewhat less violent) have appeared amongst us before . . .." (Isaac D'Israeli, "Review of "The Memoirs of Percival Stockdale," 1809)|

The Lighter Side of Autobiography - "The Confessions of St. Augustine are the first autobiography , and they have this to distinguish them from all other autobiographies, that they are addressed directly to God." (Arthur Symons, Figures of Several Centuries , 1916) - "I write fiction and I'm told it's autobiography , I write autobiography and I'm told it's fiction, so since I'm so dim and they're so smart, let them decide what it is or isn't." (Philip Roth, Deception , 1990) - "I'm writing an unauthorized autobiography ." (Steven Wright)

Pronunciation: o-toe-bi-OG-ra-fee

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Home » Blog » How to Write an Autobiography in 31 Steps

How to Write an Autobiography in 31 Steps

If you’re thinking about writing an autobiography, then you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we will be telling you all about how to write an autobiography – breaking it down and helping you along with the process.

1. What is an Autobiography?

So you want to know how to write an autobiography? First off, let’s start with what an autobiography is. Put simply, a biography is a book written about someone’s life. It includes all elements of their life, particularly featuring any significant events that took place.

The word ‘autobiography’ is made up of the two Greek words ‘autos’ and ‘bios’, meaning self and life. Put them together and you get a book that is a mix of who you are, and the life you have lived.

2. Memoir vs. Autobiography

Before you start any kind of writing process, it is important to know what kind of a book it is you are wanting to write. There is no way to know how to write an autobiography if you can’t distinguish the two. Memoir and autobiography are often plumped into the same genre, because they are both about someone’s life.

But they are two genres of their own. So here’s the difference:

It’s pretty simple – if the book is about the person’s entire life – it’s an autobiography; if it’s about one or two events, themes or memories within their life, it’s a memoir .

Knowing the difference will save you time and energy. It will also help you to shape and plan your book (if that’s your style).

You can always change your mind and switch genres, but at least you will know what you are doing and how both of them work. Whichever you choose will change a lot about your book – particularly the content you choose to include and the structure of the entire piece.

Memoir is the perfect platform to share your personal life experience, and you don’t have to share every other significant moment of your life. (A wise decision if only one really interesting thing has happened to you during your lifetime.)

Writing an autobiography is much different. While they are both to do with the author’s life, biography is more to do with what happened throughout your life.

That means all significant events from birth ’till now.

If you set out to write a biography and it turns into a memoir, this is not a problem. The problem is when you don’t know what you’re doing at all. This leads to confusion in the writing process. And a lack of professionalism outside of it.

A great way to learn how to write an autobiography is to read. A lot. Reading other autobiographies will give you an idea of which direction to go in and how this genre is structured. It can also help you to develop your style and tone of voice, and to pinpoint which writing techniques you find most effective. All good tools to have in your writing toolbox.

Here are a few examples of autobiographies you might want to read:

My Autobiography, Charlie Chaplin (1964)
The autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Franklin
Long walk to freedom, Nelson Mandela
The story of my experiments with truth, Mahatma Gandhi
The story of my life, Helen Keller
The autobiography of Malcolm X, Alex Haley, Malcolm X
An Autobiography, Agatha Christie (1965))
The confessions of St. Augustine, Augustine of Hippo
Scar tissue, Anthony Kiedis, Larry Sloman
Open: An Autobiography, Andre Agassi
Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi
Autobiography of a yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda

4. When to Write an Autobiography

Cellini (1500-1571) wrote one of the finest autobiographies of the renaissance. He stated:

“No matter what sort he is, everyone who has to his credit what are or really seem great achievements, if he cares for truth and goodness, ought to write the story of his own life in his own hand; but no one should venture on such a splendid undertaking before he is over forty.” Cellini

Knowing how to write an autobiography can have a lot to do with your life experiences. This fact brings into question the age of the reader.

Many biographies are written later on in life, when experience has been gathered and there are many exciting moments to draw from. But this isn’t always the case.

If you are a younger writer and feel that your life has been sufficiently fantastic, or you feel a growing desire to get down all of the details of your childhood days, there is no rule that says you can’t. So don’t let others’ perceptions stop you.

Twenty-one-year-old Edouard Louis, for example, published a hugely successful fictional autobiography (aka an autofiction), The end of Eddy about his childhood and adolescence. So it is possible. Sorry Cellini.

That said, an older, more experienced writer may have an easier time writing an autobiography, simply because they have more material to draw from.

Like memoir, autobiographies tend to center around a theme, even though you are including many life events. That is because people tend to also be themed, in a way. Want to know how to start an autobiography? Thinking about theme can be a useful way in.

If you are a professional dancer, and that is the passion of your life, it makes sense that your book would also center around the theme of dancing and how you reached that success.

If you are ghostwriting for a celebrity, naturally they will be famous for something in particular.

The main theme, of course, is the person’s life. But that is not enough to sustain interest across time. So bear in mind a secondary theme that ties it all together.

If your theme or themes are relatable, then that will stand you in good stead. If you are not writing a glitzy celeb autobiography, then having a very relatable and original theme is more likely to find a readership than any other. Be careful not to choose and manufacture your theme, however. If you are meant to write an autobiography, you will likely already feel compelled to write about your life. So try not to put too much thought into it. Just keep it in mind, as it will keep you on track.

6. How to Pick a Theme

How to start an autobiography? One way is to pick a theme. And stick to it.

One way of picking a theme is to choose an aspect of your personality that you feel is awesome and make that your sole focus. Maybe you’re great at maths, for example. Perhaps you made it to the world championships on mathematics or something. That would be a story worth telling.

Another is to look at your philosophy in life and make that the focal point of your book. Showing your values throughout the book can inspire and uplift the reader as it can show a good example of a life well-lived. It also reveals quite clearly who you are as a person, without you having to explicitly spell it out.

A third would be to consider the things that are most important to you in your life and to make a reference to these as you work your way through each significant event mentioned in your book. (This works especially well if you are writing an autobiography for those who know you.)

7. Exceptions

You might also be wanting to know how to write an autobiography, because you want to share your story with your family. This is an admirable reason to write a story. It means that your family will always have a special connection to you through story, no matter what. It also means that generations to come will have that link to their own past and history.

From that sense, everybody should write one!

This kind of story can even be compiled as an oral history of your families’ history and lives, which makes for an extremely personal keepsake.

Autobiographies are sometimes written in short form, as essays for college assignments. This is a similar exercise to writing a full book , but in a condensed format.

Another form of autobiography is as an autofiction. This book is based mostly upon autobiographical content, but is also a work of fiction. This is an easy way of avoiding any concerns you might have about privacy. If you are wanting to distance yourself a little and take more control over the content, then this may be the way to go.

You can also consider other formats, such as writing an autobiographical graphic novel, which has the essence of cool written all over it. If you are an artist or have a passion for strong visuals, this is something to consider.

8. How to Plan

“Look for the times when your life changed the most, and when you changed the most, those are the times of peak drama in your life.” Janice Erlbaum, The Autobiographer’s Handbook

An excellent practice when learning how to start an autobiography, is to begin by writing out all of the significant events in your life. These could be anything; from graduating college, to losing your virginity, to being born. Whatever you think is most important and noteworthy, write it down.

You can later play with the order of events if you like, to shake things up a little bit, but for now, just get anything and everything you can think of written down.

When considering how to write an autobiography, it seems to be the most natural of all genres to plan. This is because within it’s very construction there is a presumption of what it will be about: events in your life. From this sense, it is already set up for you. In some ways, this makes writing a lot easier. On the other hand, the risk that easy planning poses, is boredom. For the reader or yourself. The challenge then becomes, how to make these life events interesting and stand out. But we’ll get to that a bit later on…

Nb If you are a pantser (someone who likes to write by the seat of your pants) then you might want to skip this step. In all likelihood you have something in mind to write about, so just start there.

9. Writing Schedule

A schedule helps you to get things done. You will know what works best for you after trying a few things out. You could try planning out how much you are going to write by the hour (i.e. I will write for an hour a day, every weekday) or by word count (I will write 500 words a day). Be realistic and don’t overwhelm yourself. If you are too overambitious, you may find you end up not writing at all.

Otherwise, you could aim to write a certain section of the book per week or month if that works better for you. Because autobiography is so clearly and easily arranged into story beats (was born, had first pimple, dyed hair red etc.) organizing your writing by these events works for almost all writers, even if you are not a fan of planning.

Ask yourself the question, what’s the minimum I could manage on a regular basis? And be honest.

Everyone has their own writing style, including the way they schedule (or don’t schedule) their writing habits. So don’t ever let anyone tell you how you should be writing. It’s up to you.

10. How to Start an Autobiography

Well, now you have a list of important events in your life, starting to write should be pretty straight forward. If you don’t like planning, it’s even simpler, just pinpoint a significant moment in time and get to work! If you have a plan, all you need to do is start writing out a first draft of each event.

Next up we have a few tips and tricks to get you started.

11. Go Digging

While figuring out how to write an autobiography, you will want to have everything you are writing as fresh and vivid in your mind as possible. This clarity will translate onto the page and give your readers a strong impression of each moment.

To do this, you will be wanting to dig out any old photos of you and whomever you might be writing about, and begin filing things away for each chapter or section of the book.

You also might find it beneficial to interview anyone who remembers what happened. This can bring a new light on old events. Try using a recorder or dictaphone and typing up the best bits once you’re done.

12. Fill Up Your Senses

A good way to get into the moment before a writing session is to surround yourself with the materials relating to that particular event. Look at photos or listen to recordings from around that time, and jot down any thoughts you might have about them.

You may also want to listen to some music from the time. If you have any old clothes or keepsakes from the person, you will also want them to be around or near as you write. Listen to any interviews about the time or the characters before writing.

13. Write a letter

If you’re struggling to start writing, you can try writing a letter to yourself or to other members of the family from the time. This is a very personal way of connecting with the past. Remembering your connection to your characters will help your writing to flow more easily and mean you have material to draw from before you even start writing.

14. Emotions

Writing about certain life events is likely to be emotional. Say you had a car crash when you were younger, or had to deal with some maltreatment of some kind, this will impact your writing, and how you feel about it.

It can be a difficult balance. You need to care enough about your subject matter to write it. But you don’t want your emotions to take over to the point where style and the content of your book suffers.

While feeling impassioned by your writing, it is also important to be able to step back and take a second look at your viewpoint. This may take several rewrites to get right.

If you are finding it difficult, then consider writing out as many different viewpoints of the event as you possibly can. This will open up how you see it and may even lead to an inspiring revelation for both you and your book.

15. New Insights

One of the benefits of learning how to write an autobiography, is that, as you develop as a writer, new insights will likely occur.

So while emotions can run high, it is good to know that writing about anything difficult that has happened in your life can help you psychologically.

Dr. James Pennebaker, a professor at Austin Texas university discovered that students who wrote for just fifteen minutes a day over three days about difficult or emotional experiences had a better level of wellbeing. He found that going through the process was upsetting for them, but it was the new insights the students discovered through the process of writing, that led to their improved levels of psychological health.

16. Take Care

As with memoir, if you feel that it is too much to write any subject matter, always take a break and come back to it (or not). Your mental health and general wellbeing are always more important than a book.

17. Know Your Why

Make sure that you don’t add in topics or incidents simply to vent about them. Instead, get all your feelings out about it during your first draft, and then start with a fresh perspective. If your writing is only about venting, it will not interest the reader. You may come across as petty or whiny.

Instead, you will want to make sure you can see the benefit of sharing your experiences with people. When you truly know how to write an autobiography, it should empower and enlighten people and help them connect to your story, rather than reading like an unfinished diary entry. It is perfectly acceptable for it to start out that way. But by the end of your writing process, you should be confident in the purpose of why you are writing your book, and what kind of impact it will have on its readers.

Knowing why you are writing will keep you on the right track, and help you like a compass in the storm, when you are lost.

18. Tone of Voice

An important aspect of telling your story will be your narrative style and tone of voice. This completely depends upon who you are writing for and the purpose of your book.

If you are writing for your grandchildren, for example, you may use more simplistic language. If you are writing for a broader audience, then you may use a more neutral tone. Writing for friends? You might want to use more familial or colloquial terms.

This also depends a lot on what kind of person you are, and you will want your attitude and personality to be reflected in your writing. This should happen naturally, but don’t be afraid to write as if you are talking or to use a recording device and write up your account of each chapter afterwards.

Pro tip: Relax. You won’t find your tone of voice by constantly thinking about how you might come across. Just write as you think and your natural expression will do the rest.

19. First or Third Person?

You can experiment with viewpoint as you go along, but once you have chosen, you will be wanting to stick with it. Third person gives us the feeling it has been written by someone else. So, if you are employing a ghostwriter or are working on a fictional work, then this is a good way to go.

First person is the generally accepted viewpoint for most autobiographies, because it is your story, and you are the one writing it.

20. Conflict

As you recall the people in your life, adding in any conflicts, even if they are comical, will add to the richness of the book. Conflict drives drama, intrigue and interest. And that’s what you want, if you want your book read, that is.

21. Story Arc

One of the most critical components of how to write an autobiography is story arc. Like most genres of story, autobiography is no exception and will need some sort of an all-encompassing story arc. This is one of the main challenges you may face while writing this kind of book.

It simply can’t be a long list of events and then an ending. They have to all meld together cohesively in order to have some sort of an impact on your reader.

A story arc gives writers a structure, in which our main character aims to do something, and then either manages (or doesn’t) to achieve it. There are normally many obstacles in the protagonist’s way, and they must overcome them. Simply put, our main character must get from A to B. And you will need to decide at some point, what your start and end points in the story will be.

This ties into your overall message in the book. The great thing about autobiography is that it basically tells your reader who you are as a person.

You can start by making a note of your core beliefs and who you feel you are as a person before you begin. But don’t be surprised if, as you write, you reveal a value you hold that you had never especially acknowledged. This is a true gift to the reader, to leave them with your wisdom or knowledge.

Your philosophy can play a big role in the book, as it has likely led you to make certain decisions and can be featured and interlaced with certain events when your process of decision making was integral to the direction of your life.

22. Comedy and Funny Anecdotes

While you don’t want to overdo it on the comedy (unless it is a comedic autobiography, in which case, carry on!) a little comic relief can work wonders in this genre. It can lighten the mood and even make sad moments even more poignant. Funny stories specific to your family can add to the color of your characters, so they don’t fall flat .

23. Where to Begin ?

Think about when you might want to start your story. The logical point to start is from birth, but as your writing evolves over time, you may change your mind. You may want to add some perspective about your life from before you were even born. Your heritage may also be a large influence on who you are as a person today.

Once you have written a full first draft, you can consider changing around the order. Editing in this way can make for a more dynamic and varied read. If placed in the right way, you can even add in a plot twist or add to the suspense of your book.

24. Consider Your Reader

Don’t rest on your laurels. This can especially be a risk if you are writing only for friends or family. Just because someone knows you, it doesn’t mean your story will automatically become interesting to them. It will likely make it more interesting than if you were a random passerby, true. But this is not something to take for granted.

This point can be ignored during the first draft, but as you begin to develop your story, it becomes an implicit part of the process.

If you are wanting your book to sell, this becomes even more important as the reader’s interest and word of mouth can mean the difference between a book being put down or another sale.

25. How to Make Events More Colorful

Once you have written the thing, you will want to make sure that it is an interesting read. Even if you are writing just for friends and family, they will want to be excited by your life. And surely, that is why you are writing this in the first place?!

So a few tips to make sure that each story beat pops with color is to:

1. Keep a notebook with you at all times for when you remember particular details about a person or place. Details will always give your story more originality and color.
2. Show don’t tell – this is always relevant to any kind of writing and autobiography is no exception. Try adding in things you saw, smelt, tasted or touched within the scene. Avoid making a statement and describe what happened in the moment, instead.
3. Add metaphor or simile- when describing a character or a vivid memory, don’t just describe how it looked on the surface. Unless this is not at all your writing style, you can enjoy emphasizing how something made you feel through descriptions that include metaphor. (use ext link for how to use metaphor) For example, ‘she was as fit as a fiddle’.
4. Avoid common descriptive words – words such as ‘nice’ and ‘good’ should be considered with great caution once you have reached the third draft of your book.

26. Consider Your Reader

An important part of knowing how to write an autobiography, is having an awareness of the reader throughout the entire manuscript. This is not only a book for you. So don’t rest on your laurels.

This can especially be a risk if you are writing only for friends or family. Just because someone knows you, it doesn’t mean your story will automatically become interesting to them. It will likely make it more interesting than if you were a random passerby, true. But this is not something to take for granted.

Many new writers are tempted to leave in every detail of their life. But longer doesn’t always equal better – often it means that you simply haven’t cut out the parts that aren’t needed. So make sure you have your ego in check – don’t make your book too long just for the sake of it. Just because it’s interesting to you, does not mean every reader will want to know about it – family and friends included.

The average autobiography is around 75,000 words long. Much shorter than 60,000 and you might want to find other sources to write about, and any longer than 100,000, you might want to cut it down a bit.

28. Consider Privacy/Confidentiality

Much like memoir, autobiography includes characters who are real people. This means that some might be negatively affected by your work. So make sure to talk to those involved and to have an attorney at hand, just in case.

If you are unsure about leaving in their real name, it is best to give their character a pseudonym.

29. Editing

Both editing your book and getting it proofread will make or break it.

That means that you will want to find a professional editor to work with, who knows what she or he is doing. Ideally, you will want to find someone who is experienced in editing autobiography or memoir. Check that you have similar values and that you are both clear on what you are going to be working on, before you start.

30. Proofreading

Make sure that all your hard work shows. You can have a strong storyline and everything else in place, but if there’s a typo on the front cover, there is no way you will be taken seriously.

So, ask friends to check over your manuscript, or better yet, employ a few proofreaders to check it over for you. Don’t use the same editor to proofread, as they will find it more challenging to spot minute mistakes by the time they have reread the story more than once. A fresh pair of eyes will likely do a better job.

31. Autobiographies on the Shelf

The autobiographies in our bookshops today, you will notice, are mostly written by celebrities. This is because they often have interesting lives that we want to read about. They include incidents that we could never have access to otherwise, in our day to day lives.

And that’s what makes them so appealing.

Most people are not so interested in other’s lives, unless they have done something extraordinary. So if you’re thinking of writing something purely to try and get it sold, then you might want to rethink the genre you are writing in. We’re not saying it doesn’t happen that unknown authors sell a lot of autobiographies. It does. It’s just a lot less likely.

But don’t dismay, this is only a problem if that is the only reason you are writing your book. If it is because you feel impassioned to do so, then that is all the reason you need.

If it is for your friends and family to read, then you need not worry about big sales or landing a large publisher. It is so easy to self-publish these days on a relatively small budget, that you are pretty much guaranteed to achieve your aim.

If you are looking for a book deal, then you might be hard pushed, if you can’t say your life has an original element to it at all. If this is the case, consider writing a memoir , instead. There are many more memoirs written by ordinary people with extraordinary stories, than autobiographies. Because people love to hear about how ordinary people overcame the odds.

No matter what your reason, if you believe in your book enough to start writing the first page, then don’t let anyone stop you from writing the book inside of you.

So there you have it. Hopefully you will now feel confident about how to write an autobiography and ready to start. All it takes, is putting pen to paper.

How to Write a Book (10 Mistakes to Avoid)

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How To Write an Autobiography 2024 (Tips, Templates, & Guide)

Your life story has value, merit, and significance. You want to share it with the world, but maybe you don’t know how .

Here’s how to write an autobiography:

Write an autobiography by creating a list of the most important moments, people, and places in your life. Gather photos, videos, letters, and notes about these experiences. Then, use an outline, templates, sentence starters, and questions to help you write your autobiography .

In this article, you are going to learn the fastest method for writing your autobiography.

We are going to cover everything you need to know with examples and a free, downloadable, done-for-you template.

What Is an Autobiography?

Typewriter, lightbulb, and crumpled paper - How To Write an Autobiography

Table of Contents

Before you can write an autobiography, you must first know the definition.

An autobiography is the story of your life, written by you. It covers the full span of your life (at least, up until now), hitting on the most significant moments, people and events.

When you write your autobiography, you write an intimate account of your life.

What Should I Include In an Autobiography?

If you are scratching your head, baffled about what to include in your autobiography, you are not alone.

After all, a big part of how to write an autobiography is knowing what to put in and what to leave out of your life story. Do you focus on every detail?

Every person? Won’t your autobiography be too long?

A good way to think about how to write an autobiography is to use the Movie Trailer Method.

What do movie trailers include?

High emotional moments
The big events
The most important characters

When you plan, organize, and write your autobiography, keep the Movie Trailer Method in mind. You can even watch a bunch of free movie trailers on YouTube for examples of how to write an autobiography using the Movie Trailer Method.

When wondering what to include in your autobiography, focus on what would make the cut for a movie trailer of your life:

Most important people (like family, friends, mentors, coaches, etc.)
Significant events (like your origin story, vacations, graduations, life turning points, life lessons)
Emotional moments (When you were homeless, when you battled a life-threatening condition, or when you fell in love)
Drama or suspense (Did you make it into Harvard? Did your first surgery go well? Did your baby survive?)

Autobiography Structure Secrets

Like any compelling story, a well-structured autobiography often follows a pattern that creates a logical flow and captures readers’ attention.

Traditionally, autobiographies begin with early memories, detailing the writer’s childhood, family background, and the events or people that shaped their formative years.

From here, the narrative typically progresses chronologically, covering major life events like schooling, friendships, challenges, achievements, career milestones, and personal relationships.

It’s essential to weave these events with introspective insights.

This allows readers to understand not just the what, but also the why behind the author’s choices and experiences.

Towards the end, an effective autobiography often includes reflections on lessons learned, changes in perspective over time, and the wisdom acquired along life’s journey.

Example of the Structure:

Introduction: A gripping event or anecdote that gives readers a hint of what to expect. It could be a pivotal moment or challenge that defines the essence of the story.
Childhood and Early Memories: Recounting family dynamics, birthplace, cultural background, and memorable incidents from early years.
Adolescence and Discovering Identity: Experiences during teenage years, challenges faced, friendships formed, and personal evolutions.
Pursuits and Passions: Describing education, early career choices, or any particular hobby or skill that played a significant role in the author’s life.
Major Life Events and Challenges: Chronicles of marriage, parenthood, career shifts, or any significant setbacks and how they were overcome.
Achievements and Milestones: Celebrating major accomplishments and recounting the journey to achieving them.
Reflections and Wisdom: Sharing life lessons, changes in beliefs or values over time, and offering insights gained from lived experiences.
Conclusion: Summarizing the journey, contemplating on the present state, and sharing hopes or aspirations for the future.

How To Write an Autobiography Quickly: Strategies & Templates

Want the quickest way to organize and write your autobiography in record time? You can literally write your autobiography in 7 days or less with this method.

The secret is to use done-for-you templates.

I have personally designed and collected a series of templates to take you from a blank page to a fully complete Autobiography. I call this the How to Write an Autobiography Blueprint.

And it’s completely free to download right from this article. 🙂

In the How to Write an Autobiography Blueprint, you get:

The Autobiography Questions Template
The Autobiography Brainstorm Templates
The Autobiography Outline Template

Here is an image of it so that you know exactly what you get when you download it:

How To Write an Autobiography: Step-by-Step

When you sit down to write an autobiography, it’s helpful to have a step-by-step blueprint to follow.

You already have the done-for-you templates that you can use to organize and write an autobiography faster than ever before. Now here’s a complete step-by-step guide on how to maximize your template.

Brainstorm Ideas
Order your sections (from medium to high interest)
Order the ideas in each section (from medium to high interest)
Write three questions to answer in each section
Choose a starter sentence
Complete a title template
Write each section of your by completing the starter sentence and answering all three questions

Brainstorm Your Autobiography

The first step in writing your autobiography is to brainstorm.

Give yourself time and space to write down the most significant people, events, lessons, and experiences in your life. The templates in the How to Write an Autobiography Blueprint provide sections for you to write down your brainstormed ideas.

This will help you organize your ideas into what will become the major sections of your book.

These will be:

Y our most significant events and experiences.
The people who impacted you the most.
The challenges you have overcome.
Your achievements and successes.
The lessons you have learned.

The “other” sections on the second page of the Brainstorm template is for creating your own sections or to give you more space for the sections I provided in case you run out of space.

As I brainstorm, I find asking myself specific questions really activates my imagination.

So I have compiled a list of compelling questions to help you get ideas down on paper or on your screen.

How to Write an Autobiography: Top 10 Questions

Order Your Sections (From Medium to High Interest)

The next step is to order your main sections.

The main sections are the five (or more) sections from your Brainstorm templates (Significant events, significant people, life lessons, challenges, successes, other, etc). This order will become the outline and chapters for your book.

How do you decide what comes first, second or third?

I recommend placing the sections in order of interest. Ask yourself, “What’s the most fascinating part of my life?”

If it’s a person, then write the name of that section (Significant People) on the last line in the How to Write an Autobiography Outline Template. If it’s an experience, place the name of that section (Significant Events) on the last line.

For example, if you met the Pope, you might want to end with that nugget from your life. If you spent three weeks lost at sea and survived on a desert island by spearfishing, that is your ending point.

Then complete the Outline by placing the remaining sections in order of interest. You can work your way backward from high interest to medium interest.

If you are wondering why I say “medium to high interest” instead of “low to high interest” it is because there should be no “low interest” parts of your autobiography.

But wait, what if you met the Pope AND spent three weeks lost at sea? How do you choose which one comes first or last?

First of all, I want to read this book! Second, when in doubt, default to chronological order. Whatever event happened first, start there.

Here is an example of how it might look:

Order The Ideas in Each Section (From Medium To High Interest)

Now, organize the ideas inside of each section. Again, order the ideas from medium to high interest).

Within your “Significant People” section, decide who you want to talk about first, second, third, etc. You can organize by chronological order (who you met first) but I recommend building to the most interesting or most significant person.

This creates a more compelling read.

Keep in mind that the most significant person might not be the most well-known, most famous, or most popular. The most significant person might be your family member, friend, partner, or child.

It comes down to who shaped your life the most.

So, if your “significant people list” includes your dad, a famous social media influencer, and Mike Tyson, your dad might come last because he had the biggest significance in your life.

Write Three Questions to Answer in Each Section

Ok, you’ve done the heavy lifting already. You have the major sections organized and outlined.

Next on your autobiography to-do list is to choose and write down three questions you are going to answer in each section. You can write your questions down in the provided “boxes” for each section on the template outline (or on another piece of paper.

This is easier than it might seem.

Simply choose one of the sample autobiography questions below or create your own:

Why did I choose this person/event?
What does this person/event mean to me?
How did I meet this person?
Where did it happen?
When did it happen?
Why did it happen?
How did it happen?
What is the most interesting part?
How did I feel about this person or event?
How do I feel now?
Why does this person or event matters to me?
How did this person or event change my life?
What is the most challenging part?
How did I fail?
How did I succeed?
What did I learn?

Questions are the perfect way to write quickly and clearly. I LOVE writing to questions. It’s how I write these blog posts and articles.

Choose a Starter Sentence

Sometimes the hardest part of any project is knowing how to start.

Even though we know we can always go back and edit our beginnings, so many of us become paralyzed with indecision at the starting gate.

That’s why I provided sample starter sentences in your How to Write an Autobiography Blueprint.

Here are the story starters:

I began writing this book when…
Of all the experiences in my life, this one was the most…
I’ve been a…
My name is…
Growing up in…
It wasn’t even a…
It all started when…
I first…
I was born…

Keep in mind that you do not need to begin your book with one of these story starters. I provide them simply to get you going.

The key is to not get bogged down in this, or any, part of writing your autobiography. Get organized and then get writing.

Complete a Title Template

At the top of the How to Write an Autobiography Outline is a place for you to write your book title.

Some authors struggle forever with a title. And that’s ok. What’s not ok is getting stuck. What’s not ok is if coming up with your title prevents you from finishing your book.

So, I provided a few title templates to help juice your creativity.

Just like the story starters, you do not need to use these title templates, but you certainly can. All you need to do is fill in the title templates below and then write your favorite one (for now) at the top of your outline. Presto! You have your working title.

You can always go back and change it later.

How to Write an Autobiography Title templates:

[Your Name]: [Phrase or Tag Line]
The [Your Last Name] Files
Born [Activity]: A [Career]’s Life
The Perfect [Noun]: The Remarkable Life of [Your Name]

Examples using the Templates:

Christopher Kokoski: Blog Until You Drop
The Kokoski Files
Born Writing: A Blogger’s Life
The Perfect Freelancer: The Remarkable Life of Christopher Kokoski

Write Your Autobiography

You have your outline. You have your title, templates, and sentence starters. All that is left to do is write your autobiography.

However, you can use tools like Jasper AI and a few other cool tricks to craft the most riveting book possible.

This is the easy way to remarkable writing.

Check out this short video that goes over the basics of how to write an autobiography:

How To Write an Autobiography (All the Best Tips)

Now that you are poised and ready to dash out your first draft, keep the following pro tips in mind:

Be vulnerable. The best autobiographies share flaws, faults, foibles, and faux pas. Let readers in on the real you.
Skip the boring parts. There is no need to detail every meal, car ride, or a gripping trip to the grocery store. Unless you ran into the Russian Mafia near the vegetables or the grocery store is perched on the side of a mountain above the jungles of Brazil.
Keep your autobiography character-driven . This is the story of YOU!
Be kind to others (or don’t). When writing about others in your story, keep in mind that there may be fallout or backlash from your book.
Consider a theme: Many autobiographies are organized by theme. A perfect example is Becoming . Each section of the book includes “becoming” in the title. Themes connect and elevate each part of the autobiography.
Write your story in vignettes (or scenes). Each vignette is a mini-story with a beginning, middle, and end. Each vignette builds. Each vignette should be described in rich sensory language that shows the reader the experience instead of telling the reader about the experience. Each vignette is immersive, immediate, and intimate.
Include snippets of dialogue. Use quotation marks just like in fiction. Show the dialogue in brief back-and-forth tennis matches of conversation. Remember to leave the boring parts out!
Choose a consistent tone. Some autobiographies are funny like Bossy Pants by Tina Fey. Others are serious such as Open by Andre Agassi. Your story (like most stories) will likely include a mix of emotions but choose an overall tone and stick with it.
Don’t chronicle, captivate . Always think about how to make each section, each chapter, each page, each paragraph, and each sentence more compelling. You want to tell the truth, but HOW you tell the truth is up to you. Create suspense, conflict, and mystery. Let drama linger until it becomes uncomfortable. Don’t solve problems quickly or take away tension right away.

How Do I Format an Autobiography?

Most autobiographies are written in the first person (using the pronouns I, me, we, and us).

Your autobiography is written about you so write as yourself instead of pretending to be writing about someone else.

Most autobiographies are also written in chronological order, from birth right up to your current age, with all the boring parts left out. That doesn’t mean you can’t play around with the timeline.

Sometimes it’s more interesting to start at a high moment, backtrack to the beginning and show how you got to that high moment.

Whatever format you choose, be intentional, and make the choice based on making the most compelling experience possible for your readers.

How Long Should an Autobiography Be?

There are no rules to how long an autobiography should be but a rough guideline is to aim for between 200 and 400 pages.

This will keep your book in line with what most readers expect for books in general, and will help get your book traditionally published or help with marketing your self-published book.

How To Write a Short Autobiography

You write a short autobiography the same way that you write a long autobiography.

You simply leave more out of the story.

You cut everything down to the bones. Or you choose a slice of your life as you do in a memoir. This often means limiting the people in your book, reducing the events and experiences, and shrinking your story to a few pivotal moments in your life.

How To Start an Autobiography

The truth is that you can start your autobiography in any number of ways.

Here are four common ways to begin an autobiography.

Start at the beginning (of your life, career or relationship, etc.)
Start at a high moment of drama or interest.
Start at the end of the story and work backward
Start with why you wrote the book.

Good Autobiography Titles

If you are still stuck on titling your autobiography, consider going to Amazon to browse published works. You can even just Google “autobiographies.”

When you read the titles of 10, 20, or 50 other autobiographies, you will start to see patterns or get ideas for your own titles. (HINT: the title templates in the Autobiography Blueprint were reverse-engineered from popular published books.

Also, check out the titles of the full autobiography examples below that I have included right here in this article.

Types of Autobiographies

There are several different kinds of autobiographies.

Each one requires a similar but slightly nuanced approach to write effectively. The lessons in this article will serve as a great starting point.

Autobiography Types:

Autobiography for School
Autobiography Novel
Autobiography for a Job
Short Autobiography
Autobiography for Kids

Therefore, there is actually not just one way to write an autobiography.

Memoir vs. Autobiography: Are They The Same?

It’s common to feel confused about a memoir and an autobiography. I used to think they were the same thing.

But, nope, they’re not.

They are pretty similar, which is the reason for all the confusion. A memoir is the story of one part of your life. An autobiography is the story of your full life (up until now).

What Is the Difference Between an Autobiography and a Biography?

An autobiography is when you write about your own life. A biography, on the other hand, is when you write the story of someone else’s life.

So, if I write a book about the life of the President, that’s a biography.

If the President writes a story about his or her own life, that’s an autobiography.

What Not To Include In an Autobiography

Autobiographies are meant to be a snapshot of our lives that we can share with others, but there are some things that are best left out.

Here are three things you should avoid including in your autobiography:

1) Anything That Readers Will Skip

Your life may not be filled with non-stop excitement, but that doesn’t mean you need to include every mundane detail in your autobiography.

Stick to the highlights and leave out the low points.

2) Character Attacks on Others

It’s okay to discuss conflicts you’ve had with others, but don’t use your autobiography as a platform to attack someone’s character.

Keep it civil and focus on your own experiences and how they’ve affected you.

3) Skipping Highlights

Just because something embarrassing or painful happened to you doesn’t mean you should gloss over it in your autobiography.

These are the moments that shape us and make us who we are today, so don’t skip past them just because they’re uncomfortable.

By following these simple tips, you can ensure that your autobiography is interesting, honest, and engaging.

How To Write an Autobiography: Autobiography Examples

I have always found examples to be extremely instructive. Especially complete examples of finished products. In this case, books.

Below you will find examples of published autobiographies for adults and for kids. These examples will guide you, motivate you and inspire you to complete your own life story.

They are listed here as examples, not as endorsements, although I think they are all very good.

The point is that you don’t have to agree with anything written in the books to learn from them.

Autobiography Examples for Adults

A Promised Land (Autobiography of Barack Obama)
If You Ask Me: (And of Course You Won’t) (Betty White)
It’s a Long Story: My Life (Willie Nelson)
Stories I Only Tell My Friends: An Autobiography (Rob Lowe)
Becoming (Michelle Obama)

Autobiography Examples for Kids

This Kid Can Fly: It’s About Ability (NOT Disability) (Aaron Philips)
Bee Fearless: Dream Like a Kid (Mikaila Ulmer)

Tools to Write Your Autobiography

Here are some recommended tools to help you write your autobiography:

Final Thoughts: How To Write An Autobiography

Thank you for reading my article on How to Write an Autobiography.

Now that you know all of the secrets to write your book, you may want to get it published, market it, and continue to upskill yourself as an author.

In that case, read these posts next:

Can Anyone Write A Book And Get It Published?
The Best Writing Books For Beginners 2022 (My 10 Favorites)
Why Do Writers Hate Adverbs? (The Final Answer)
How To Write a Manifesto: 20 Ultimate Game-Changing Tips

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Shaping Your Legacy: How to Write a Compelling Autobiography

The Speaker Lab
March 12, 2024

Ever thought about how your life story would read if it were a book? Writing an autobiography is like creating a map of your personal journey, each chapter representing milestones that shaped you. But where do you start and how can you ensure the tale holds interest?

This guide will help unravel those questions by delving into what makes an autobiography stand out, planning techniques to keep your narrative on track, writing tips for engaging storytelling, and even ethical considerations when revealing private aspects of your life.

We’ll also touch on refining drafts and navigating publishing options. By the end of this read, you’ll be equipped with all the insights you need to create a compelling autobiography!

Understanding the Essence of an Autobiography

An autobiography provides a comprehensive view of one’s life journey from birth to the present day. Imagine climbing into a time machine where every chapter represents different eras in your life. The goal of an autobiography is to allow readers to explore a factual, chronological telling of the author’s life.

Autobiographies aren’t merely catalogues of events, however; they need soulful introspection too. Think about why certain episodes mattered more than others and how those experiences influenced your perspectives or decisions later on.

You’ll also want to infuse emotional honesty, allowing yourself vulnerability when recalling both triumphant milestones and painful obstacles. Authenticity creates connections between authors and their audience, so let them see real human emotions behind every word written.

Distinguishing Features Of An Autobiography

The unique thing about autobiographies is they are first-person narratives . This allows readers to experience everything through your eyes, as if they’re living vicariously through you. From triumphs to trials, each page unravels another layer of who you are.

While memoirs are also first-person narratives of a person’s life, there are different from autobiographies. In a memoir, the author focuses on a particular time period or theme in their life. If you’d rather skip the details and dates needed for an autobiography and focus more on emotional truths, you might consider writing a memoir.

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Pre-Writing Stage: Planning Your Autobiography

The planning stage is a crucial part of writing your autobiography. It’s where you map out the significant events in your life, establish a timeline, and identify who will be reading your story.

Selecting Key Life Events

To start, you need to pinpoint key moments that have shaped you. While you will include plenty of factual details in your autobiography, you won’t include every single one. Rather, you’ll be spending the majority of your autobiography focusing on the transformative experiences that defined your life journey. After all, an autobiography is not just a catalogue of events; it’s also an exploration into what these experiences meant to you.

Establishing A Timeline

Next up is establishing a timeline for your narrative flow. Since you’re writing an autobiography, it’s important to first map out your story chronologically so that you can keep your events straight in your mind. MasterClass has several suggestions for key elements you might want to include in your timeline.

Identifying Your Audience

Finding out who’ll read your book helps shape its tone and style. Self-Publishing School says understanding whether it’s for close family members or broader public can guide how personal or universal themes should be presented.

While this process might feel overwhelming initially, take time with this stage. Good planning sets solid foundations for creating an engaging autobiography.

Writing Techniques for an Engaging Autobiography

If you’re on the journey to pen down your life story, let’s dive into some techniques that can help transform it from a simple narrative into a riveting read. An engaging autobiography is more than just facts and dates—it’s about weaving your experiences in such a way that they captivate readers.

Incorporating Dialogue

The first technique involves incorporating dialogue. Rather than telling your audience what happened, show them through conversations. It lets the reader experience events as if they were there with you. As renowned author Stephen King suggests , dialogue is crucial in defining a the character of a person (including yourself).

Using Vivid Descriptions

Vivid descriptions are another effective tool in creating an immersive reading experience. But remember: overdoing it might overwhelm or bore the reader, so find balance between being descriptive and concise.

Narrative Techniques

Different narrative techniques can also enhance storytelling in autobiographies. For instance, foreshadowing creates suspense; flashbacks provide deeper context; and stream of consciousness presents thoughts as they occur naturally—a powerful way to share personal reflections.

All these writing tools combined will give you a gripping account of your life journey—one where every turn of page reveals more layers of depth and dimensionality about who you are as both character and narrator.

Structuring Your Autobiography for Maximum Impact

Deciding on the right structure for your autobiography is essential to ensure your book captivates readers and keeps them engaged.

The first step towards structuring your autobiography effectively is deciding whether to organize it chronologically or thematically. A chronological approach takes readers on a journey through time, letting each event unfold as you experienced it. On the other hand, a thematic approach revolves around central themes that have defined your life—think resilience, ambition or transformation—and might jump back and forth in time.

Creating Chapters

An effective way to manage the vast amount of information in an autobiography is by dividing it into chapters. Each chapter should be structured around a specific time frame (if you’re opting for chronological order) or theme (if taking the thematic approach). The key here isn’t necessarily sticking rigidly to these categories but using them as guides to help shape and direct your narrative flow.

Crafting Compelling Beginnings and Endings

A strong beginning pulls people into your world while an impactful ending stays with them long after they’ve closed the book—a little like how memorable speeches often start with something surprising yet relatable and end leaving audiences pondering over what they’ve heard. So consider starting off with something unexpected that gives insight into who you are rather than birthplace/date details right away. For endings, look at wrapping up major themes from throughout the book instead of simply closing out on latest happenings in your life.

Remember, structuring an autobiography is as much about the art of storytelling as it is about chronicling facts. Use structure to draw readers in and take them on a journey through your life’s highs and lows—all the moments that made you who you are today.

Ethical Considerations When Writing an Autobiography

When penning your life story, it’s important to respect privacy and handle sensitive issues well. Because let’s face it, writing about others in our lives can be a slippery slope. We need to tread carefully.

Respecting Privacy: Telling Your Story Without Invading Others’

The first thing we have to consider is the right of privacy for those who cross paths with our narrative journey. While they might play crucial roles in our stories, remember that their experiences are their own too.

A good rule of thumb is to get explicit consent before mentioning anyone extensively or revealing sensitive information about them. In some cases where this isn’t possible, anonymizing details or using pseudonyms could help maintain privacy while keeping the essence of your story intact. Author Tracy Seeley sheds more light on how one should handle such situations responsibly.

Navigating Sensitive Topics With Care

Sensitive topics often make for compelling narratives but dealing with them requires tact and empathy. You’re walking a tightrope, balancing honesty and sensitivity, a fall from which can lead to hurt feelings or even legal troubles.

An excellent way around this dilemma would be by focusing on how these experiences affected you personally rather than detailing the event itself. Remember, your autobiography is an opportunity to share your life experiences, not just a platform for airing grievances or settling scores.

Maintaining Honesty: Your Authentic Self Is the Best Narrator

Above all else, stay truthful when writing your autobiography, both when you’re writing about sensitive topics and even when you’re not. While it can be tempting to bend the facts so that your audience sees you in a more positive light, maintaining honesty is the best thing you can do for yourself.

Editing and Revising Your Autobiography

Your initial draft is finished, but the job isn’t done yet. Editing and revising your autobiography can feel like a daunting task, but it’s essential for creating a polished final product.

The Importance of Self-Editing

You may feel that you have written your autobiography perfectly the first time, but there are always ways to make it better. The beauty of self-editing lies in refining your story to make sure it resonates with readers. You’re not just fixing typos or grammar mistakes; you’re looking at structure, flow, and consistency. Essentially you’re asking yourself: does this piece tell my life story in an engaging way?

Inviting Feedback from Others

No matter how meticulous we are as writers, our own work can sometimes evade us. Inviting feedback from others is invaluable during the revision process. They provide fresh eyes that can spot inconsistencies or confusing parts that may have slipped past us.

Hiring a Professional Editor

If you’re serious about publishing your autobiography and making an impact with your words, hiring a professional editor can be worth its weight in gold. An editor won’t just fix errors—they’ll help streamline sentences and enhance readability while respecting your unique voice.

Remember to approach editing and revising with patience—it’s part of the writing journey. Don’t rush through it; give each word careful consideration before moving onto publication options for your autobiography.

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Publishing Options for Your Autobiography

Once you’ve spent time and energy creating your autobiography, the following challenge is to make it available for others. But don’t fret! There are numerous options available for releasing your work.

Traditional Publishing Houses

A conventional path many authors take is partnering with a traditional publishing house . These industry giants have extensive resources and networks that can help boost the visibility of your book. The process may be competitive, but if accepted, they handle everything from design to distribution—letting you focus on what matters most: telling your story.

Self-Publishing Platforms

If you want more control over every aspect of publication or seek a faster route to market, self-publishing platforms like Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), offer an accessible alternative. With this option, you manage all aspects including cover design and pricing ; however, it also means greater responsibility in promoting your book.

Bear in mind that both options have their own pros and cons, so consider them carefully before making any decisions.

Marketing Your Autobiography

Now that you’ve crafted your autobiography, it’s time to get the word out. You need a plan and strategy.

Leveraging Social Media

To start with, use your social platforms as launching pads for your book. Sites like Facebook , Twitter, and especially LinkedIn can help generate buzz about your work. And don’t underestimate the power of other platforms like Instagram and TikTok when trying to reach younger audiences. Whatever social platform you use, remember to engage with followers by responding to comments and questions about the book.

Organizing Book Signings

A physical event like a book signing not only provides readers with a personal connection but also generates local publicity. Consider partnering up with local independent stores or libraries, which are often open to hosting such events.

Securing Media Coverage

Contacting local newspapers, radio stations or even bloggers and podcasters in your field can provide much-needed visibility for your work. It might seem intimidating at first, but who better than you knows how important this story is?

FAQs on How to Write an Autobiography

How do i start an autobiography about myself.

To kick off your autobiography, jot down significant life events and pick a unique angle that frames your story differently.

What are the 7 steps in writing an autobiography?

The seven steps are: understanding what an autobiography is, planning it out, using engaging writing techniques, structuring it effectively, considering ethics, revising thoroughly, and exploring publishing options.

What are the 3 parts of an autobiography?

An autobiography generally has three parts: introduction (your background), body (major life events), and conclusion (reflections on your journey).

What is the format for writing an autobiography?

The usual format for autobiographies involves chronological or thematic structure with clear chapters marking distinct phases of life.

Writing an autobiography is a journey, a trek exploring the unique narrative of your life. Together, we’ve covered how to plan effectively, select key events, and set timelines.

Once you’re all set to write, you now have the techniques you need for engaging storytelling, including vivid descriptions and dialogues. You also learned about structuring your story for maximum impact and navigating sensitive topics while maintaining honesty.

Last but not least, you learned editing strategies, publishing options, and effective ways of promoting your book.

Now you know more than just how to write an autobiography. You know how to craft a legacy worth reading!

Last Updated: March 22, 2024

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Autobiography in a sentence

某某 2016-01-13 联网相关的政策
daughter (227+70)
rule (251+36)
single (235+53)
choice (212+53)
condition (217+60)
letter (186+73)
short (245+92)
opportunity (154+46)
likely (156+54)
plant (159+51)
available (178+56)
hundred (181+56)
realize (150+16)
summer (267+97)
period (291+68)
energy (262+54)
brother (180+71)
chance (187+71)
soon (271+66)
listen (241+51)

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Modern Love

My Twisted Path to a Meaningful Life

A bad night of partying left my body broken and nearly paralyzed. I let the pain shape me for the better.

An illustration of a man with crutches, an ankle cast and an upper-body cast standing with a woman holding a drink amid a college party scene.

By Grayson Zulauf

I lifted the sheets to look at my right ankle. Bruised, maybe broken. My back hurt, too. I called my friend Danny to take me to the emergency room. We laughed about our big night out while limping down the stairs, driving south on I-91 and sitting in the waiting room — until the doctor said I may have broken my cervical spine and could become paralyzed.

When the doctor pulled on a latex glove for the anal muscle exam, Danny stepped behind the curtain to call my mother. She asked him what happened. Danny told her he didn’t know. I had passed out on the couch of the third floor of the fraternity house, but I woke up in a bed on the second floor. Everything in between was a blank.

Suspecting that Danny was lying to protect either me or himself, my mother got in her car and drove to the hospital to find out. From Colorado. To New Hampshire.

A week later, she wheeled me from the hospital to an extended stay hotel to recover. My tibia-fibula and lumbar spine fractures were immobilized in hard white casts — and I was 40 pounds lighter. But not paralyzed.

Our first night there, at 1 a.m., the fire alarm went off. In the rush to safety, my wheelchair got stuck in the doorway; it couldn’t summit the lip of the door frame. My mother rescued me with a pair of backup crutches. I hobbled to the parking lot, nightmares of a fiery death looping in my head.

We returned the wheelchair and refilled the painkiller prescription. A few days later, I went back to my senior year of college on crutches, hazy and housed in a room with special accommodations.

And that’s how I started my last year of college, a year I had thought would be full of partying, girls and just enough school to get a job. Now I was facing a year of pain, crutches, recovery and self-pity. Twice a week, I went to physical therapy to relearn how to sit up straight. Every day, my mother called and said, “How are you doing? What happened that night? Stop lying to me.”

For the first time in college, I slowed down. I traded late nights out for long meals in the cafeteria with friends who were kind enough to carry my food tray. I treasured my classes and professors, signing up for faculty dinners and actually doing the reading.

One of my courses was drumming, an easy “A” for science majors who needed to fulfill an art requirement. To start every class, our professor would ask us to rate how we were doing on a scale of 1 to 10. It was rumored that you did better in the class if you ranked yourself high, so I was always an eight or above, despite my full-upper-body brace, leg brace, crutches and painkiller haze.

When a pre-med student rated himself low because of a bad grade in organic chemistry, the professor pointed at me and said, “Look at him. He’s an eight! How can you be a three because of a test?”

There was one other person on campus using my situation for a boost. Near the food court one day, I saw a pair of soccer teammates, Kim and Emma, whom I barely knew. Kim was also on crutches with a torn ACL.

Seeing me, Emma said something to Kim, and they both laughed.

Later I learned why: To cheer Kim up about her missed soccer season, Emma had said, “At least you’re not that guy!”

Hobbled or not, I was responsible for planning our quarterly fraternity formal party. I went dateless since I could barely walk, much less dance. But I still needed to find designated drivers for the night. My friend Annie offered to drive, and she invited Emma along.

Annie and Emma came early to drive Danny and me to the venue so we could set up. I rode with Emma. We started talking about her philosophy class on free will. Free will is an illusion, she had decided. Or not.

The next morning, I emailed Emma to see if she wanted to go to dinner. Emma told Annie, who knew me better, about the invite.

Annie said, “He’s always in it for the wrong reasons.”

She was right. Emma still said yes.

We sat by the window. I wore sweats since real pants didn’t fit over my cast. I left Danny at the library, in disbelief that I had nearly finished my final paper and that I had an actual date, my first ever. Never had I asked a girl out to dinner or coffee or on any sort of respectable outing. Everything had been casual hookups, fraternity and sorority mixers, drunken encounters.

Unsure how it would go, I prepared three questions on a notecard to ask at conversational lulls.

Emma ordered a goat cheese pizza. I had macaroni-and-cheese. We talked about her upcoming internship back home in Michigan and my injuries. At the first pause, I got nervous and went to my notecard: “How was your soccer season?”

At our parting point on the college green, we paused to say good night. Emma was holding her leftover pizza with both hands and saying something important, or long-winded. I interrupted with a kiss. She kissed me back, as much as one can while clutching a to-go box.

I crutch-ran back to the library. With the addition of a kiss to my now-successful date, Danny was even more incredulous: “There was no date! Show me the email!”

I emailed Emma to ask if she would like to watch a movie in my room. She said yes. I showed Danny that email and left him for the second time that night.

We graduated and got our first jobs. Two years to the day after my injury, a college friend, Jonny, fell down a flight of stairs after a night out in New York City and died. At 23, from a traumatic brain injury. When I heard the news, I thought of his mother. Then I thought of my mother, knowing that could have been me, and stopped feeling sorry for myself.

Over time, my leg healed, and my back mostly healed. Every few months, my back locks up and I can hardly move. When that happens, I take a week off and tell my co-workers that I injured myself skiing. At only 33, I can’t help but wonder how much worse and frequent these episodes will get as I age.

When the pain is unbearable and my guilt and self - pity return, Emma runs me ice baths. She strokes my hair and kisses my face while I lie on the couch after a day of sitting. She “camps” with me in our living room, where the stiff floor provides more back support than a bed. She tries to ease the pain with an amateur massage, or at least wields the massage gun with gusto. She moves our couches and books and picks up whatever I drop. She tells me to do my physical therapy and to exercise. She reminds me about everything I love and can still do.

We cook, with Emma standing and me sitting. We binge shows while lying on the floor. We travel on long flights with seat cushions and foam rollers and lacrosse balls, and Emma always takes the middle seat. We talk about how we were fated to be together because free will is a lie. And two years ago, we got married.

Our lives are shaped by pain, but more by love. I told Emma in my wedding vows that my life story is the story of the luckiest boy in the world. We laugh and love and play like puppies, as Danny calls us, through and around and during the pain. Even as it gets worse with each year, the pain is what I make of it: a footnote to the love story.

Last year, 12 years after our first date, we found ourselves back in our college town and went to the same restaurant for dinner. The goat cheese pizza was no longer on the menu, so we split the mac-and-cheese. Then we walked to the green to finish the re-enactment of our first kiss. Except that Emma was sure it happened under the tree in the corner, and I was sure we were on the sidewalk across the road. We pleaded our cases but never kissed, unable to agree, and then walked back to the car.

For my mother, the truth: I never knew, and I still don’t know, how I broke my back and leg, but I have stopped caring. I do know this: That night, I fell into a lifetime of both pain and love. And I would choose it again — if the choice ever existed at all.

Grayson Zulauf, who lives in Burlington, Vt., builds companies that fight climate change.

Modern Love can be reached at [email protected] .

To find previous Modern Love essays, Tiny Love Stories and podcast episodes, visit our archive .

Want more from Modern Love? Watch the TV series ; sign up for the newsletter ; or listen to the podcast on iTunes , Spotify or Google Play . We also have swag at the NYT Store and two books, “ Modern Love: True Stories of Love, Loss, and Redemption ” and “ Tiny Love Stories: True Tales of Love in 100 Words or Less. ”

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Meaning of autobiography in English

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exercise book
multi-volume

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Autobiography | american dictionary, examples of autobiography, translations of autobiography.

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If you are on hold when using the phone, you are waiting to speak to someone.

Searching out and tracking down: talking about finding or discovering things

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26 Types of Punctuation Marks & Typographical Symbols

What Is Punctuation?
What Is A Typographical Symbol?
Punctuation Vs. Typographical Symbols
Types Of Punctuation And Symbols
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We use words in writing. Shocking, I know! Do you know what else we use in writing? Here is a hint: they have already appeared in this paragraph. In addition to words, we use many different symbols and characters to organize our thoughts and make text easier to read. All of these symbols come in two major categories: punctuation marks and typographical symbols . These symbols have many different uses and include everything from the humble period ( . ) to the rarely used caret symbol ( ^ ). There may even be a few symbols out there that you’ve never even heard of before that leave you scratching your head when you see them on your keyboard!

What is punctuation ?

Punctuation is the act or system of using specific marks or symbols in writing to separate different elements from each other or to make writing more clear. Punctuation is used in English and the other languages that use the Latin alphabet. Many other writing systems also use punctuation, too. Thanks to punctuation, we don’t have to suffer through a block of text that looks like this:

My favorite color is red do you like red red is great my sister likes green she always says green is the color of champions regardless of which color is better we both agree that no one likes salmon which is a fish and not a color seriously

Punctuation examples

The following sentences give examples of the many different punctuation marks that we use:

My dog , Bark Scruffalo , was featured in a superhero movie .
If there ’ s something strange in your neighborhood , who are you going to call ?
A wise man once said , “ Within the body of every person lies a skeleton .”
Hooray ! I found everything on the map : the lake , the mountain , and the forest .
I told Ashley ( if that was her real name ) that I needed the copy lickety-split .

What is a typographical symbol ?

The term typographical symbol , or any other number of phrases, refers to a character or symbol that isn’t considered to be a punctuation mark but may still be used in writing for various purposes. Typographical symbols are generally avoided in formal writing under most circumstances. However, you may see typographic symbols used quite a bit in informal writing.

Typographical symbol examples

The following examples show some ways that a writer might use typographical symbols. Keep in mind that some of these sentences may not be considered appropriate in formal writing.

The frustrated actor said she was tired of her co-star’s “annoying bull **** .”
For questions, email us at anascabana @ bananacabanas.fake!
The band had five # 1 singles on the American music charts during the 1990s.
My internet provider is AT & T.

⚡️ Punctuation vs. typographical symbols

Punctuation marks are considered part of grammar and often have well-established rules for how to use them properly. For example, the rules of proper grammar state that a letter after a period should be capitalized and that a comma must be used before a coordinating conjunction.

Typographical symbols, on the other hand, may not have widely accepted rules for how, or even when, they should be used. Generally speaking, most grammar resources will only allow the use of typographical symbols under very specific circumstances and will otherwise advise a writer to avoid using them.

Types of punctuation and symbols

There are many different types of punctuation marks and typographical symbols. We’ll briefly touch on them now, but you can learn more about these characters by checking out the links in this list and also each section below:

Question mark
Exclamation point
Parentheses
Square brackets
Curly brackets
Angle brackets
Quotation marks
Bullet point
Pound symbol
Caret symbol
Pipe symbol

Period, question mark, and exclamation point

These three commonly used punctuation marks are used for the same reason: to end an independent thought.

A period is used to end a declarative sentence . A period indicates that a sentence is finished.

Today is Friday .

Unique to them, periods are also often used in abbreviations.

Prof . Dumbledore once again awarded a ludicrous amount of points to Gryffindor.

Question mark (?)

The question mark is used to end a question, also known as an interrogative sentence .

Do you feel lucky ?

Exclamation point (!)

The exclamation point is used at the end of exclamations and interjections .

Our house is haunted !

Comma, colon, and semicolon

Commas, colons, and semicolons can all be used to connect sentences together.

The comma is often the punctuation mark that gives writers the most problems. It has many different uses and often requires good knowledge of grammar to avoid making mistakes when using it. Some common uses of the comma include:

Joining clauses: Mario loves Peach , and she loves him .
Nonrestrictive elements: My favorite team , the Fighting Mongooses , won the championship this year.
Lists: The flag was red , white , and blue.
Coordinate adjectives: The cute , happy puppy licked my hand.

Try out this quiz on the Oxford comma!

The colon is typically used to introduce additional information.

The detective had three suspects : the salesman, the gardener, and the lawyer.

Like commas, colons can also connect clauses together.

We forgot to ask the most important question : who was buying lunch?

Colons have a few other uses, too.

The meeting starts at 8:15 p.m.
The priest started reading from Mark 3:6 .

Semicolon (;)

Like the comma and the colon, the semicolon is used to connect sentences together. The semicolon typically indicates that the second sentence is closely related to the one before it.

I can’t eat peanuts ; I am highly allergic to them.
Lucy loves to eat all kinds of sweets ; lollipops are her favorite.

Hyphen and dashes (en dash and em dash)

All three of these punctuation marks are often referred to as “dashes.” However, they are all used for entirely different reasons.

The hyphen is used to form compound words.

I went to lunch with my father-in-law .
She was playing with a jack-in-the-box .
He was accused of having pro-British sympathies.

En dash (–)

The en dash is used to express ranges or is sometimes used in more complex compound words.

The homework exercises are on pages 20–27 .
The songwriter had worked on many Tony Award–winning productions.

Em dash (—)

The em dash is used to indicate a pause or interrupted speech.

The thief was someone nobody expected —me !
“Those kids will— ” was all he managed to say before he was hit by a water balloon.

Test your knowledge on the different dashes here.

Parentheses, brackets, and braces

These pairs of punctuation marks look similar, but they all have different uses. In general, the parentheses are much more commonly used than the others.

Parentheses ()

Typically, parentheses are used to add additional information.

I thought (for a very long time) if I should actually give an honest answer.
Tomorrow is Christmas (my favorite holiday) !

Parentheses have a variety of other uses, too.

Pollution increased significantly. (See Chart 14B)
He was at an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting.
Richard I of England (1157–1199) had the heart of a lion.

Square brackets []

Typically, square brackets are used to clarify or add information to quotations.

According to an eyewitness, the chimpanzees “climbed on the roof and juggled [bananas] .”
The judge said that “the defense attorney [Mr. Wright] had made it clear that the case was far from closed.”

Curly brackets {}

Curly brackets , also known as braces , are rarely used punctuation marks that are used to group a set.

I was impressed by the many different colors {red, green, yellow, blue, purple, black, white} they selected for the flag’s design.

Angle brackets <>

Angle brackets have no usage in formal writing and are rarely ever used even in informal writing. These characters have more uses in other fields, such as math or computing.

Quotation marks and apostrophe

You’ll find these punctuation marks hanging out at the top of a line of text.

Quotation marks (“”)

The most common use of quotation marks is to contain quotations.

She said, “ Don’t let the dog out of the house. ”
Bob Ross liked to put “ happy little trees ” in many of his paintings.

Apostrophe (‘)

The apostrophe is most often used to form possessives and contractions.

The house ’ s back door is open.
My cousin ’ s birthday is next week.
It isn ’ t ready yet.
We should ’ ve stayed outside.

Slash and ellipses

These are two punctuation marks you may not see too often, but they are still useful.

The slash has several different uses. Here are some examples:

Relationships: The existence of boxer briefs somehow hasn’t ended the boxers/briefs debate.
Alternatives: They accept cash and/or credit.
Fractions: After an hour, 2/3 of the audience had already left.

Ellipses (…)

In formal writing, ellipses are used to indicate that words were removed from a quote.

The mayor said, “The damages will be … paid for by the city … as soon as possible.”

In informal writing, ellipses are often used to indicate pauses or speech that trails off.

He nervously stammered and said, “Look, I … You see … I wasn’t … Forget it, okay.”

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Typographical symbols

Typographical symbols rarely appear in formal writing. You are much more likely to see them used for a variety of reasons in informal writing.

Asterisk (*)

In formal writing, especially academic and scientific writing, the asterisk is used to indicate a footnote.

Chocolate is the preferred flavor of ice cream.* * According to survey data from the Ice Cream Data Center.

The asterisk may also be used to direct a reader toward a clarification or may be used to censor inappropriate words or phrases.

Ampersand (&)

The ampersand substitutes for the word and . Besides its use in the official names of things, the ampersand is typically avoided in formal writing.

The band gave a speech at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame .

Bullet Point (•)

Bullet points are used to create lists. For example,

For this recipe you will need:

baking powder

Pound symbol (#)

Informally, the pound symbol is typically used to mean number or is used in social media hashtags.

The catchy pop song reached #1 on the charts.
Ready 4 Halloween 2morrow!!! #spooky #TrickorTreat

Besides being used as an accent mark in Spanish and Portuguese words, the tilde is rarely used. Informally, a person may use it to mean “about” or “approximately.”

We visited São Paulo during our vacation.
I think my dog weighs ~20 pounds.

Backslash (\)

The backslash is primarily used in computer programming and coding. It might be used online and in texting to draw emoticons , but it has no other common uses in writing. Be careful not to mix it up with the similar forward slash (/), which is a punctuation mark.

At symbol (@)

The at symbol substitutes for the word at in informal writing. In formal writing, it is used when writing email addresses.

His email address is [email protected] .

Caret symbol (^)

The caret symbol is used in proofreading, but may be used to indicate an exponent if a writer is unable to use superscript .

Do you know what 3 ^ 4 (3 to the power of 4) is equal to?

Pipe symbol (|)

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Definition of 'autobiography'

autobiography

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Autobiography in american english, examples of 'autobiography' in a sentence autobiography, cobuild collocations autobiography, trends of autobiography.

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What can we look forward to in 2024? Books, always books.

As 2023 winds down and 2024 prepares to rush in, people quietly reveal their true natures: Some of us look back on the year past, while others look forward to the year to come. My own sensibility has always been retrospective, but I fall into an even deeper “auld lang syne” mood whenever the present starts to seem overwhelming. There have been times — many, many times — in 2023 when my job, writing about books, has struck me as meaningless and irrelevant. The title of one of Charles Lamb’s essays has also started to haunt me: “The Superannuated Man.” That long word means over the hill, useless, old.

During the last decade, I’ve tried to resist the growing feeling that modern America no longer cares about what I most value: empathy and respect for others; religious tolerance; knowledge of history; some familiarity with great literature, art and music; a sense of humor; good manners. The late critic Robert Hughes once lamented that ours had become “a culture of complaint.” Sad to say, complaint is now the least of our troubles.

Is there any need to list the frightening and heartbreaking disasters now unfolding at home and abroad? Where would one even begin? At times, I can hardly read The Washington Post or listen to NPR without wishing that the aliens would finally land and take me away to some other, better planet. I hope there will be room on board for at least a few of my books.

And yet, to resort to one of my favorite expressions, I do soldier on. My family and friends keep me sane, when they aren’t driving me crazy. Every week I sit down at my desk and tell myself: If I just write well enough about this biography, work of intellectual history or novel, maybe a few people will go on to read it, maybe it will give some of them respite from their own worries and heartaches, maybe it will even affect the course of their lives. That sounds grandiose, but such things happen.

I was around 14 when I ran across a piece in the Cleveland Plain Dealer about the mystery novelist Raymond Chandler. In it, the reviewer — whose name I don’t remember — quoted the celebrated passage from “The Long Goodbye” in which private eye Philip Marlowe catalogues the various sorts of blondes in the world. While blondes were certainly on my adolescent mind back then, what really struck me was Chandler’s prose. I’d never read anything quite like it and I wanted more. By the end of that year, I’d tracked down and devoured all the Marlowe novels, starting with “The Big Sleep,” and quickly followed with the short stories. I underlined a lot of passages, like this one from “The High Window”:

“The bar entrance was to the left. It was dusky and quiet and a bartender moved mothlike against the faint glitter of piled glassware. A tall handsome blond in a dress that looked like seawater sifted over with gold dust came out of the Ladies' Room touching up her lips and turned toward the arch, humming.”

Chandler once said, “I live for syntax,” and that last sentence shows he meant it.

Even though I’d been a bookish lad ever since my mother finally bought me a pair of glasses, Chandler’s writing nailed down my growing appreciation of style. No longer would I read just for roller-coaster action. I was henceforth attuned to the sound and rhythm of sentences. Here’s Chandler again: “A large black and gold butterfly fishtailed in and landed on a hydrangea bush almost at my elbow, moved its wings slowly up and down a few times, then took off heavily and staggered away through the motionless hot scented air.”

“Staggered away” — those two words, used to describe a butterfly’s zigzag flight, are utterly unexpected and absolutely perfect.

To this day, if a writer’s style strikes an echoing chord in me, I’m happy to sit down with almost any kind of book. From my discovery of Chandler springs my love for the highly distinctive prose of writers as diverse as Lord Dunsany, Jack Vance, P.G. Wodehouse, Janet Flanner, Russell Hoban, Guy Davenport and Steven Millhauser. For me, there’s no resisting the enchantment of their voices on the page, their entrancing way with the English language.

Still, those words “enchantment” and “entrancing” bring us, as James Joyce might say, by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to this year’s existential dismay. Am I just using books to escape from the world? George Saintsbury’s old classic, “The Peace of the Augustans,” bears the port-and-slippers subtitle “A Survey of Eighteenth Century Literature as a Place of Rest and Refreshment.” Is such escapism my half-conscious purpose when I open a novel or work of history? Is it perhaps yours, too? Kafka, for one, insisted on a more activist kind of reading, famously declaring that a book should be “the ax for the frozen sea inside us.” In my case, after using that ax I’d almost certainly gear up to go ice-fishing through the resulting hole. I’d have one of those little huts, with a stove and sandwiches and a thermos filled with Irish coffee.

During this last week of the year, it’s impossible to avoid a sense of transience, an awareness of how quickly our lives slip by. This fall, for instance, Book World ran excellent pieces on new paperback reprints of Flaubert’s letters and Mavis Gallant’s “ Paris Notebooks .” As I can attest, they are wonderful books: I reviewed them both when they first appeared in the 1980s . Thirty-some years ago, I also wrote about Alasdair Gray’s mind-bending novel “Poor Things,” the basis for the new art-house movie starring Emma Stone. When A.S. Byatt died last month I remembered how, during a trip to Washington, she asked me to lunch because she so liked my review of “Possession.” That review appeared on the very day my youngest son was born. He is now 33.

So it goes — or so it would seem. For despite the dismal state of the world, my existential self-questioning, the death of cherished friends, a backlog of good work now largely forgotten and the various crises that come with family life, I nonetheless find myself avidly awaiting the books of 2024. In the coming weeks I’ll be reading Dick Davis’s translation of Nezami Ganjavi’s romantic Persian epic, “Khosrow & Shirin,” Andrew Stauffer’s “Byron: A Life in Ten Letters” and Nicholas Shakespeare’s huge biography of Ian Fleming. At the very beginning of January, I’ll even catch up with some books that I missed from 2023: Mark Gregory Pegg’s “Beatrice’s Last Smile: A New History of the Middle Ages,” Anthony Grafton’s “Magus: The Art of Magic From Faustus to Agrippa” and Nikhil Krishnan’s “A Terribly Serious Adventure: Philosophy and War at Oxford, 1900-1960.”

Some heavy intellectual stuff there, admittedly, but I can hardly wait. Is that eagerness a blessing, a mania or a curse? Probably something of all three. But when it comes to reading, and in no other way, I still have the heart of that 14-year-old who, long ago, first opened “The Big Sleep” as Philip Marlowe, in his powder-blue suit, was about to call on wheelchair-bound General Sternwood, forever seated among his hothouse orchids exuding the “rotten sweetness of corruption.”

What can we look forward to in 2024? Books, always books.

Web publishers brace for carnage as Google adds AI answers

The tech giant is rolling out AI-generated answers that displace links to human-written websites, threatening millions of creators

Kimber Matherne’s thriving food blog draws millions of visitors each month searching for last-minute dinner ideas.

But the mother of three says decisions made at Google, more than 2,000 miles from her home in the Florida panhandle, are threatening her business. About 40 percent of visits to her blog, Easy Family Recipes , come through the search engine, which has for more than two decades served as the clearinghouse of the internet, sending users to hundreds of millions of websites each day.

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As the tech giant gears up for Google I/O, its annual developer conference, this week, creators like Matherne are worried about the expanding reach of its new search tool that incorporates artificial intelligence. The product, dubbed “Search Generative Experience,” or SGE, directly answers queries with complex, multi-paragraph replies that push links to other websites further down the page, where they’re less likely to be seen.

The shift stands to shake the very foundations of the web.

The rollout threatens the survival of the millions of creators and publishers who rely on the service for traffic. Some experts argue the addition of AI will boost the tech giant’s already tight grip on the internet, ultimately ushering in a system where information is provided by just a handful of large companies.

“Their goal is to make it as easy as possible for people to find the information they want,” Matherne said. “But if you cut out the people who are the lifeblood of creating that information — that have the real human connection to it — then that’s a disservice to the world.”

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Google calls its AI answers “overviews” but they often just paraphrase directly from websites. One search for how to fix a leaky toilet provided an AI answer with several tips, including tightening tank bolts. At the bottom of the answer, Google linked to The Spruce, a home improvement and gardening website owned by web publisher Dotdash Meredith, which also owns Investopedia and Travel + Leisure. Google’s AI tips lifted a phrase from The Spruce’s article word-for-word.

A spokesperson for Dotdash Meredith declined to comment.

The links Google provides are often half-covered, requiring a user to click to expand the box to see them all. It’s unclear which of the claims made by the AI come from which link.

Tech research firm Gartner predicts traffic to the web from search engines will fall 25 percent by 2026. Ross Hudgens, CEO of search engine optimization consultancy Siege Media, said he estimates at least a 10 to 20 percent hit, and more for some publishers. “Some people are going to just get bludgeoned,” he said.

Raptive, which provides digital media, audience and advertising services to about 5,000 websites, including Easy Family Recipes, estimates changes to search could result in about $2 billion in losses to creators — with some websites losing up to two-thirds of their traffic. Raptive arrived at these figures by analyzing thousands of keywords that feed into its network, and conducting a side-by-side comparison of traditional Google search and the pilot version of Google SGE.

Michael Sanchez, the co-founder and CEO of Raptive, says that the changes coming to Google could “deliver tremendous damage” to the internet as we know it. “What was already not a level playing field … could tip its way to where the open internet starts to become in danger of surviving for the long term,” he said.

When Google’s chief executive Sundar Pichai announced the broader rollout during an earnings call last month, he said the company is making the change in a “measured” way, while “also prioritizing traffic to websites and merchants.” Company executives have long argued that Google needs a healthy web to give people a reason to use its service, and doesn’t want to hurt publishers. A Google spokesperson declined to comment further.

“I think we got to see an incredible blossoming of the internet, we got to see something that was really open and freewheeling and wild and very exciting for the whole world,” said Selena Deckelmann, the chief product and technology officer for Wikimedia, the foundation that oversees Wikipedia.

“Now, we’re just in this moment where I think that the profits are driving people in a direction that I’m not sure makes a ton of sense,” Deckelmann said. “This is a moment to take stock of that and say, ‘What is the internet we actually want?’”

People who rely on the web to make a living are worried.

Jake Boly, a strength coach based in Austin, has spent three years building up his website of workout shoe reviews. But last year, his traffic from Google dropped 96 percent. Google still seems to find value in his work, citing his page on AI-generated answers about shoes. The problem is, people read Google’s summary and don’t visit his site anymore, Boly said.

“My content is good enough to scrape and summarize,” he said. “But it’s not good enough to show in your normal search results, which is how I make money and stay afloat.”

Google first said it would begin experimenting with generative AI in search last year, several months after OpenAI released ChatGPT. At the time, tech pundits speculated that AI chatbots could replace Google search as the place to find information. Satya Nadella, the CEO of Google’s biggest competitor, Microsoft, added an AI chatbot to his company’s search engine and in February 2023 goaded Google to “ come out and show that they can dance .”

The search giant started dancing. Though it had invented much of the AI technology enabling chatbots and had used it to power tools like Google Translate, it started putting generative AI tech into its other products. Google Docs, YouTube’s video-editing tools and the company’s voice assistant all got AI upgrades.

But search is Google’s most important product, accounting for about 57 percent of its $80 billion in revenue in the first quarter of this year. Over the years, search ads have been the cash cow Google needed to build its other businesses, like YouTube and cloud storage, and to stay competitive by buying up other companies .

Google has largely avoided AI answers for the moneymaking searches that host ads, said Andy Taylor, vice president of research at internet marketing firm Tinuiti.

When it does show an AI answer on “commercial” searches, it shows up below the row of advertisements. That could force websites to buy ads just to maintain their position at the top of search results.

Google has been testing the AI answers publicly for the past year, showing them to a small percentage of its billions of users as it tries to improve the technology.

Still, it routinely makes mistakes. A review by The Washington Post published in April found that Google’s AI answers were long-winded, sometimes misunderstood the question and made up fake answers.

The bar for success is high. While OpenAI’s ChatGPT is a novel product, consumers have spent years with Google and expect search results to be fast and accurate. The rush into generative AI might also run up against legal problems. The underlying tech behind OpenAI, Google, Meta and Microsoft’s AI was trained on millions of news articles, blog posts, e-books, recipes, social media comments and Wikipedia pages that were scraped from the internet without paying or asking permission of their original authors.

OpenAI and Microsoft have faced a string of lawsuits over alleged theft of copyrighted works .

“If journalists did that to each other, we’d call that plagiarism,” said Frank Pine, the executive editor of MediaNews Group, which publishes dozens of newspapers around the United States, including the Denver Post, San Jose Mercury News and the Boston Herald. Several of the company’s papers sued OpenAI and Microsoft in April, alleging the companies used its news articles to train their AI.

If news organizations let tech companies, including Google, use their content to make AI summaries without payment or permission, it would be “calamitous” for the journalism industry, Pine said. The change could have an even bigger effect on newspapers than the loss of their classifieds businesses in the mid-2000s or Meta’s more recent pivot away from promoting news to its users, he said.

The move to AI answers, and the centralization of the web into a few portals isn’t slowing down. OpenAI has signed deals with web publishers — including Dotdash Meredith — to show their content prominently in its chatbot.

Matherne, of Easy Family Recipes, says she’s bracing for the changes by investing in social media channels and email newsletters.

“The internet’s kind of a scary place right now,” Matherne said. “You don’t know what to expect.”

A previous version of this story said MediaNews Group sued OpenAI and Microsoft. In fact, it was several of the company's newspapers that sued the tech companies. This story has been corrected.

IMAGES

40 Autobiography Examples ( + Autobiographical Essay Templates)
Autobiography: Paragraph and Sentence Structure
40 Autobiography Examples ( + Autobiographical Essay Templates)
40 Autobiography Examples ( + Autobiographical Essay Templates)
How to write a autobiography paragraph
40 Autobiography Examples ( + Autobiographical Essay Templates)

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Novel, Autobiography, Biography, Memoir, Biopic

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Examples of "Autobiography" in a Sentence
Kurakin was one of the best-educated Russians of his day, and his autobiography, carried down to 1709, is an historical document of the first importance. 2. 1. Jehangir tells us in his autobiography that before his father Akbar built the present fort, the town was defended by a citadel of great antiquity. 2.
Examples of 'Autobiography' in a Sentence
'Autobiography' in a sentence: I read her autobiography last year. While Robertson's autobiography doesn't go into the specifics of their breakup, which has been a point of conjecture for decades, much of the book centers on the friendship that made the band's bitter ending that much more heartbreaking. — Anna Tingley, Variety, 10 Aug. 2023
AUTOBIOGRAPHY in a sentence
Examples of AUTOBIOGRAPHY in a sentence, how to use it. 98 examples: Critics often applaud rock autobiographies that go at least partially ' against…
How to use "autobiography" in a sentence
Sentence Examples. As you would expect from a historian of Molony's distinction, his autobiography is written chastely, elegantly, self-critically and charitably. While going through such varied sources, it is a great joy when one finds an autobiography or a biography or an unpublished piece of writing.
How To Use "Autobiography" In A Sentence: Exploring The Word
The most common usage of the word "autobiography" is as a noun. It functions as the subject or object of a sentence, providing information about a person's life story. For example: "I am currently reading an autobiography about Nelson Mandela.". "Her autobiography provides a fascinating insight into her early years.".
Autobiography Definition & Meaning
The meaning of AUTOBIOGRAPHY is the biography of a person narrated by that person : a usually written account of a person's life in their own words. How to use autobiography in a sentence.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY in a Sentence Examples: 21 Ways to Use Autobiography
Use Correct Punctuation: Place the title of the autobiography in italics or quotes, following the appropriate punctuation rules. Proper Grammar: Ensure that your sentence is grammatically correct and clearly conveys the intended meaning. Example: In her autobiography, "Becoming," Michelle Obama shares her journey from a young girl in ...
Autobiography Definition, Examples, and Writing Guide
Autobiography Definition, Examples, and Writing Guide. Written by MasterClass. Last updated: Aug 26, 2022 • 6 min read. As a firsthand account of the author's own life, an autobiography offers readers an unmatched level of intimacy. Learn how to write your first autobiography with examples from MasterClass instructors.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY Definition & Meaning
Autobiography definition: a history of a person's life written or told by that person.. See examples of AUTOBIOGRAPHY used in a sentence.
Examples of 'autobiography' in a sentence
The Sun. ( 2015) She is in talks for a 5million fee to write her autobiography, something she always said she would only do at the end of her career. The Sun. ( 2013) The third requirement was for a detailed autobiography.
Autobiography: In a Sentence
Definition of Autobiography. the story of an individual's life written by that individual. Examples of Autobiography in a sentence. To learn about the deceased celebrity, you should read the autobiography he wrote about his life. It was interesting to listen to the actress share a memory she had included in her autobiography.
autobiography noun
Definition of autobiography noun in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Meaning, pronunciation, picture, example sentences, grammar, usage notes, synonyms and more.
Definition and Examples of Autobiography
Examples and Observations of Autobiographical Compositions "An autobiography is an obituary in serial form with the last installment missing." (Quentin Crisp, The Naked Civil Servant, 1968) "Putting a life into words rescues it from confusion even when the words declare the omnipresence of confusion, since the art of declaring implies dominance."
AUTOBIOGRAPHY definition in American English
Examples of 'autobiography' in a sentence autobiography. These examples have been automatically selected and may contain sensitive content that does not reflect the opinions or policies of Collins, or its parent company HarperCollins. We welcome feedback: report an example sentence to the Collins team.
How to Write an Autobiography in 31 Steps
3. Read. A great way to learn how to write an autobiography is to read. A lot. Reading other autobiographies will give you an idea of which direction to go in and how this genre is structured. It can also help you to develop your style and tone of voice, and to pinpoint which writing techniques you find most effective.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY definition
AUTOBIOGRAPHY meaning: 1. a book about a person's life, written by that person: 2. the area of literature relating to…. Learn more.
How To Write an Autobiography 2024 (Tips, Templates, & Guide)
Order your sections (from medium to high interest) Order the ideas in each section (from medium to high interest) Write three questions to answer in each section. Choose a starter sentence. Complete a title template. Write each section of your by completing the starter sentence and answering all three questions.
Shaping Your Legacy: How to Write a Compelling Autobiography
The goal of an autobiography is to allow readers to explore a factual, chronological telling of the author's life. Autobiographies aren't merely catalogues of events, however; they need soulful introspection too. Think about why certain episodes mattered more than others and how those experiences influenced your perspectives or decisions ...
How To Use "Biography" In A Sentence: Exploring The Term
3. Failing to capitalize "biography" when referring to a specific work: When mentioning the title of a specific biography, it is important to capitalize the word "biography" as you would with any other title. Incorrect Example: "I recently read a biography of Leonardo da Vinci.".
40 Autobiography Examples (Autobiographical Essay Templates)
Fortunately, there are plenty of innovative and well-thought-out autobiography samples that are available. They can assist you in organizing your thoughts to come up with a great autobiography. These samples can save you valuable time, especially on how to start an autobiography. Check out our extra 40 biography templates.
Autobiography in a sentence
134+3 sentence examples: 1. In her autobiography she occasionally refers to her unhappy schooldays. 2. She has just written her autobiography. 3. The novel is a thinly disguised autobiography. 4. They published an extract from his autobiography. 5.
Word of the Day: demarcation
demarcation \ ˈdimɑrˌkeɪʃən \ noun. 1. the boundary of a specific area. 2. a conceptual separation or distinction.
My Twisted Path to a Meaningful Life
My Twisted Path to a Meaningful Life. A bad night of partying left my body broken and nearly paralyzed. I let the pain shape me for the better. I lifted the sheets to look at my right ankle ...
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
AUTOBIOGRAPHY definition: 1. a book about a person's life, written by that person: 2. the area of literature relating to…. Learn more.
26 Types of Punctuation Marks & Symbols
No sentence is complete without a punctuation mark! Learn about the common types of punctuation marks & typographical symbols and how to use them.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY definition and meaning
An account of a person's life written or otherwise recorded by that person.... Click for English pronunciations, examples sentences, video.
Putin, Xi Issue One-Sentence Warning on Nuclear War
In response to Putin's remarks in March, Mao Ning, a spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry, warned about the risks of nuclear war just days later. "In January 2022, leaders of the five nuclear ...
What can we look forward to in 2024? Books, always books.
Books, always books. As 2023 winds down and 2024 prepares to rush in, people quietly reveal their true natures: Some of us look back on the year past, while others look forward to the year to come ...
I've studied happiness for 10 years—10 sentences I use every day
Here are 10 sentences I try to use every single day to keep my relationships thriving and put what I've learned about happiness into practice. 1. 'How are you feeling, really?'. Even in our ...
As Google AI search rolls out to more people, websites brace for
Google's AI tips lifted a phrase from The Spruce's article word-for-word. A spokesperson for Dotdash Meredith declined to comment. The links Google provides are often half-covered, requiring a ...

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autobiography

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How to Write an Autobiography

How to Write an Autobiography in 31 Steps

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. What is an Autobiography?

2. Memoir vs. Autobiography

4. When to Write an Autobiography

6. How to Pick a Theme

7. Exceptions

8. How to Plan

9. Writing Schedule

10. How to Start an Autobiography

11. Go Digging

12. Fill Up Your Senses

13. Write a letter

14. Emotions

15. New Insights

16. Take Care

17. Know Your Why

18. Tone of Voice

19. First or Third Person?

20. Conflict

21. Story Arc

22. Comedy and Funny Anecdotes

23. Where to Begin ?

24. Consider Your Reader

25. How to Make Events More Colorful

26. Consider Your Reader

28. Consider Privacy/Confidentiality

29. Editing

30. Proofreading

31. Autobiographies on the Shelf

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