Once a luxury of the rich and famous, technology has, for the first time in history, made it potential for anyone to capture, share and withhold their most precious life stories. With the advent of computers, the Internet, digital photography, video, and audio, anyone can capture the richness and texture of their life stories. These personal histories will be appreciated by family, friends, and time to come generations.
Today it is potential to as a matter of fact blend the art of original biography and memoir with grand new technologies into a new form of private life storytelling: the personal life history. Personal life histories are satisfying to create. And, because of the interactive multimedia possibilities potential in computers and the web, a well-done personal life history can be rich and fully rounded in ways that are impossible to achieve in text-only memoir or biography. But most importantly, personal life histories withhold vital private and family stories. And, when properly done, they will last for generations.
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In this article you will study how to use time-honored life story writing techniques along with the latest technologies to originate a story that is uniquely "you."
The Art of original Life-Story Formats
For anyone interested in creating their own autobiography, memoir or personal life history, it is important to understand the distinctions in the middle of these forms of telling one's own life story. To over-generalize for a moment, an autobiography is more fact-based, while a memoir is more emotion-based.
Autobiographies are written by the subject, sometimes with the collaboration of other writer. Autobiographical works take many forms, from intimate writings made during life that are not necessarily intended for publication (including letters, diaries, journals, memoirs, and reminiscences) to the formal autobiography. Interestingly, the autobiography format does not necessarily have to be true. It may also be a literary fictional tale.
Memoirs are a form of personal recollection that has grown enormously in popularity in recent times. Memoirs often focus on more subjective recollections such as memories, feelings, and emotions and are ordinarily written from the first-person viewpoint. The memoir is often focused on capturing inescapable meaningful highlights or moments.
In his own Memoir, Palimpest, Gore Vidal writes that "a memoir is how one remembers one's own life, while an autobiography is history, requiring research, dates, facts double-checked."
Memoirs ordinarily focus on a brief period of time or a series of related events (an autobiography covers a longer time period). In a memoir, the writer is ordinarily retrospective, and contemplating past events. Memoirs may couple the techniques of storytelling such as setting, plot, conflict, character development, foreshadowing, flashback, irony or symbolism. And lastly, writing one's memoir often has a therapeutic follow for the writer.
Oral History Recordings
An oral history is a verbatim transcription of an interview, left in the narrator's exact words. These are ordinarily left in a question-and-answer style and are an economical way to withhold family stories. A recording principles with a good-quality microphone and a quiet spot free from interruptions are all that is as a matter of fact needed to capture an oral history. It helps to have questions ready in progress of the interview.
Oral histories are ordinarily recorded using analog tape or digital recording equipment, but it is also potential to article directly into a personal computer. Oral histories are often transcribed (typed or word processed) into a document format. The conversational style is enthralling for its easygoing informality.
Caveats: Recording formats and standards are permanently evolving and could come to be difficult or impossible to play back if the equipment becomes obsolete. Taped recordings decay over time.
Video History Recordings
Do-it-Yourself: At the basic level, it's easy and fun to originate a basic video history. Camcorders are relatively inexpensive, and many computers today come with basic editing software. Capturing a good video history shares all of the same prerequisites as an audio recording: a quiet spot, with questions ready in advance. Plus, you will want an uncluttered background, flattering lighting, and right clothing to improve the quality of the end product. White shirts, pants or dresses, for example don't show up well on video. Likewise, busy patterns can be distracting. Solid light-colored neutrals or pastels are ordinarily safe.
Professional videographers: A large estimate of professional video associates specialize in the creation of life story productions. Productions may range from a 10 or 15 small short to an hour or longer mini-movie, complete with titles, music, and other Hollywood-style effects. Naturally, you'll pay more for a professional output than a homegrown effort.
When choosing a professional use all the usual smart-consumer tips. Ask for references. Ask to see samples of prior work. Get all costs, output timetables and commitments in writing. It's delightful to have movies of an private or family. When well-executed they often have entertainment value and are great for special occasions.
Caveat: As with audio recordings, formats change over time, and media can degrade, even with proper warehouse methods
The Integration of Art and Technology: Web-Based Personal Life Histories
Just in the last few years, the Web has emerged as a grand new medium for creating and sharing life stories. On the web it is not only possible, it is enjoyable and easy to originate a rich multimedia story with text, photos, audio and video. This is the new format of the personal life history.
Web-based personal life histories enjoy several advantages over paper-based publishing, audio, video, or even Cd life stories. Specifically, Web-based publication is updateable-one can add new data at any time. It is as a matter of fact shareable among friends or family. The most industrialized sites offer choices of privacy and protection protection. The web is also multimedia, meaning you can add text, photos, audio, and video. Photos, audio, video are never lost, damaged destroyed. An finally, many sites offer print-on-demand, allowing you to originate instant books. The books may be printed on your home printer, or sent out to small-run publishers. If you select the small-run option, be sure to specify archival quality paper.
One of the biggest advantages of web publishing is the quality to build society around similar interests, occupations, backgrounds or life events. For example, a Wwii veteran pilot who posts his story to the Web and makes it available to the social may be contacted by long-lost friends, other veterans, students, historians, museum personnel, or others interested in this pivotal part in American history.
Why originate Your Personal Life History?
Mark Twain once said: "There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is impossibility. Inside everyone, there is a drama, a comedy, a tragedy."
A personal life history can be as short as a few pages, or several volumes in length. anyone the length or medium, it requires thoughtfulness and sometimes quite a bit of work to accomplish. But the work is worthwhile because it has the quality to affect generations ahead. Your personal life history may leave a legacy for your children and grandchildren. As with memoir, writing a personal history allows you to study and reflect on your life up to the present day. It lets you add your story to the larger historical article of your family, city, and country. And lastly, if you don't do it, who will?
Start with a Timeline of Life Chapters
How does one start to tell the story of a life that may cover 60, 70, 80 years or more? Often it's helpful to originate a chronological timeline of major events in your life. It helps to jot down a few notes around key phases in your life. In fact, you may already be mental of your life as a book, with separate, inescapable chapters built around important life episodes.
Of course, not everyone's life follows an identical chronological sequence, but here are a few ideas for part headings for your book or story. GreatLifeStories.com uses the following "chapters" to compose life stories:
o Your Beginnings
o In Your Neighborhood
o School Days
o Off to Work
o Romance and Marriage
o War and Peace
o Triumphs and Tragedies
o Words of Wisdom
o Humor
o Words of Gratitude
The part principles is very flexible. For example, you don't have to start your life story with the days of your birth and youth. Maybe you had a enthralling experience during the war. As with a movie, you might open your life story with that "scene," then tell the story how you got there.
Once you've got an idea for the "flow," of your story, here are some more definite guidelines to help add color, texture, and authenticity:
Just start writing! Do a mind dump. Get it out of your head and down on paper, the computer, the tape recorder, wherever. Don't worry about how it sounds. Just write. Resist the temptation to edit yourself; there will be time for editing later. Be yourself. Don't worry if your grammar or spelling isn't perfect. Write it as you would say it.Honesty is everything. The best writing tells it like it happened. Include humor. Popular jokes, stories, anecdotesDetail, detail, detail. What kind of floor did the kitchen have? What color was the scarf she wore when you first met? Go at a comfortable pace. Don't try to capture an entire lifetime in a singular session of furious writing. Write, allow time to reflect, and return again to writing. Consult others. family members and friends can be invaluable sources of facts and interpretation.Use photos to jog your memory. Tip: Set out photos in a timeline of your life, beginning from your very youngest days, and enthralling through current times. Write or article to your optic storyboardLook for themes in your life. Themes are broad ideas that are central to your life. Did you always want to be a pilot? A preacher? Own a restaurant? Be a farmer? Tell the story of how you met your goal, or how the goal changed to something else totally unexpected.
Here are just a few other thematic life story possibilities: a. The Spiritual quest b. The Confession c. The Travelogue d. The Portrait e. The Complaint f. Humor g. The family history h. The Road to rescue i. War Story j. Romance
Another Option: Hire a Professional
Most of this article has been focused on creating the do-it-yourself personal life history. There is, of course, the choice of working with a professional. The right professional writer or videographer is a extremely skilled interviewer and has the proper tools and equipment. And, believe it or not, it is sometimes easier for person to open up in front of a stranger rather than in front of a family member.
There are many approaches to working with writers or videographers. However, there are a estimate of similarities in common. The writer/videographer often:
1) Meets with you to rule the scope and cost of the project.
2) ordinarily sets up taped interview sessions. Depending on your objectives, these may be an hour or two, or 10, 20 hours or more.
3) The recording is transcribed and edited with your input and guidance
4) Once a final manuscript/movie is agreed upon, it may be sent out for printing or duplication.
5) For books, personal history professionals propose archival bindings and acid-free paper for longevity
6) You receive the estimate of books/movies agreed upon in your contract.
7) Be sure to discuss services, fees and end products in advance, and get all agreements in writing.
Thanks to high technology, the art of capturing and preserving the stories from one's own life is now open to more people and easier than ever before. A new genre of personal storytelling is emerging that draws on the literary traditions of the autobiography and memoir, while adding audio, video, and web technology to originate personal life histories. On the Web, these personal stories personal life histories are multimedia, collaborative, shareable, and promptly updateable.
Enjoy capturing your life story!
References and supplementary Reading
Web Sites:
http://www.greatlifestories.com
Associations:
The association of Personal Historians is a 600+ member society of professional personal historians who originate life stories in all formats: text, audio, video. Http://www.personalhistorians.org
How-to Books:
There are many good books filled with distinct approaches and tips for writing a personal life history. Here are just a few:
Daniel, Lios, How to Write Your Own Life Story
Rainer, Tristine, Your Life as Story Books
Roorbach, Bill, Writing Life Stories
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