People use the words memoir and life story or life review and do not understand that there is a difference. It is not small.

By admin, on August 11th, 2010

: Image by Matthew Stewart | Photographer via Flickr

For a five minute memoir you need to spend five minutes discussing an event in your life. You want the characters to jump off the page. You want the story to have some larger reason for being- universal meaning. You are going to have to think this out before you write and not all events were create equally. Impact and topic are really important.

When you write a five minute life story or life review need to answer each question below with one sentence in each catagory but if you write longer than that people will not get your point of you and why you became the you that you want your family to remember.It can be done but you need to think about long before you put pen to paper or fingers on a keyboard.

My family History
My parents lives as much as I know
What was it like to grow up in my family
My sibling
My Neighborhood
High School
College and/ military Service
Career and working
Raising my family
Family traditions growing up
Family traditions in my current home
Empty nesting
Retirement
Values I want to share

You know that once I review this list there is no way that you can do it five minutes for even one sentence under each topic. This might even be a half hour with one sentence to capture the flavor of you as a person.

I guess if you can only write for five minutes a memoir is the best way to but if you have more time a life story is going to take a bit longer. If you are leaving it for your family I think they might be happy if you invest the time. This list was taken from Remembering…life story triggers and memory essays which helps you put your thoughts together to write and complete your live story. Everyone is writing one when you look at the list below so you might as well start your own now too.