How to create a life timeline for your memoir writing project
A life timeline can be a handy tool for memoirists and memory-keepers of all kinds. It will help orient you in time when writing or sharing stories orally, and it will provide essential prompts for stirring your memories and allowing you to delve into your past.
Why are we creating this life timeline?
A life timeline can be a helpful tool when embarking on a memoir or life story project. Not only will the timeline help you orient yourself in time over the course of your life while you are writing, it will highlight key moments in your life that are likely worth exploring.
What is worth noting on a timeline? Well, transitions are key—moments when your life took a different turn, for better or for worse. Moments of revelation should be included. And moments of change—firsts, departures, milestones. What we’re looking for, really, are autobiographical occasions.
“An autobiographical occasion is any moment when we are encouraged or obliged to reimagine who we are,” Bruce Feiler writes in Life Is in the Transitions. “It’s a narrative event, when our existing life story is altered or redirected in some way, forcing us to revisit our preexisting identity and modify it for our life going forward.”
How to begin crafting a life timeline for your memoir or personal history book
1: Brainstorm a list of important moments and events in your life.
According to neuroscientist Lisa Genova, our brains are designed to recall what is surprising and new; what is emotional; and what is meaningful—so let’s begin with those! Here is an effective approach for determining the major life events that may lend themselves well to helping you find meaning and write about your journey:
Start with major life events.
Consider:
your birth
spiritual milestones such as bar/bat mitzvah, Confirmation, or religious conversion
graduating (high school, college, graduate school)
moving to a new city or country
marriage
divorce
becoming a parent
becoming a grandparent
becoming a citizen
losing a parent
becoming a caregiver for a family member or loved one
Make a list of important “firsts.”
Include “firsts” that had some impact on your life, whether they changed your world view, fulfilled a dream, or became the first of many (the first article you wrote may be relevant if you became a journalist, for example).
first job
first love
first home you owned
first time you traveled outside the country
first time you failed
first time you voted
first time you lost someone you loved
Make a list of times you felt most emotional in your life.
What made you feel alone—or less alone?
What made you feel confident, empowered?
What made you feel sad? Despondent?
Consider times that your emotions dominated your days—excitement over your engagement, perhaps, or persistent grief after a parent passed.
Know that some (even all) of these entries on your list may be duplicates. That’s okay—you are reiterating for yourself that these life events are in fact fodder for your personal history.
Include addresses for all your homes.
(Nothing to explain here—just having those addresses is both a memory marker for you and will one day supply important family history information for your descendants.)
2. highlight all the items on your list that seem worthy of inclusion on a timeline of your life.
Don’t do this step the same day you have been brainstorming your list—you need a little mental distance from it to assess what makes the most sense to keep. I suggest waiting a couple of days or more, then grabbing a highlighter and marking the things you’ve written that feel most germane. You’re looking for plot twists in your life, for decisions or moments of change (again, for “autobiographical occasions”).
Don’t discount seemingly minor things if they make you feel something upon reflection; maybe buying your first car seems trivial, for instance, but if it gave you a sense of freedom at a time when you were feeling caged in or alone, then, well…do you see how this isn’t “little” to you?
And remember: You’re going to hold onto this list, so you can always come back later to some of the things you aren’t highlighting now. Your purpose here is to set priorities: Those milestones you highlight now should be among the first you write about (or talk about, if you are capturing your stories via an audio recorder). And maybe they are the ones you include on a graphic timeline of your life, should you want to include such a helpful visual key in your book (yes, one day all of this may end up in a book!).
3. Add dates wherever possible.
Particularly for the highlighted items on your list, go back and add dates. This may take some research, so start with the low-hanging fruit—your birthday, your kids’ birthdays, a wedding date. Then start digging: Pull out an old resume for work-related milestones; find prayer cards from funerals for the dates you lost loved ones. Give a sibling or parent a call to see if they can help fill in any blanks.
If you have an actual date, use it, otherwise years—or even a span of years—will suffice to place the milestones of your life on a continuum.
I recommend creating a “final” list by putting all the highlighted items from your original list in chronological order. This will become a working cheat sheet for you for the remainder of your life story project!
Congratulations! You’ve got a timeline of the most meaningful moments in your life. I hope you will use it to guide you on your journey of remembering, and of capturing your life stories for yourself and for the generations to come.