What to Write in a Life Story Book
If you’re wondering what to write in a life story book, you’re not alone. It’s the most common worry I hear.
You’ve got the book. You’ve opened it. You’re looking at the first question. And you’re thinking: I don’t know where to start. My life isn’t interesting enough for this.
I read a lot of these books. I run YourStory with my Brother David, and before a book goes to print, the storyteller can ask me to look through it for them. So I’ve read hundreds of finished books over the years.
And I can tell you this with absolute certainty: the people who think they have nothing to say always have the most to say.
You don’t need an extraordinary life
This is the biggest misconception about life story books. People think you need to have climbed Everest or survived a shipwreck or met the King or Queen.
You don’t.
The best life story books are full of ordinary things described in a specific, personal way. The childhood bedroom with the damp patch on the ceiling. The teacher who made you feel clever for the first time. The Saturday morning routine of going to the market with your Dad. The recipe your Mum never wrote down.
These are the details that make a life feel real. They’re the things your grandchildren will read one day and think: so that’s who she was.
Start with what you remember, not what you think you should say
The temptation is to try to be comprehensive. To start at the beginning and work through chronologically, covering everything important.
Don’t do that. It’s exhausting and it kills the joy.
Instead, start with whatever comes to mind. If a question about your childhood makes you think of the smell of your Nan’s house, write about that. If a question about school makes you think of the time you got sent to the headmaster for something you didn’t do, write about that.
The best answers are the ones that come naturally. The ones where you start writing and suddenly you’re back there, remembering details you didn’t even know you’d kept.
What to write in a life story book: some ideas to get you going
If you’re stuck, here are some of the questions that tend to unlock the best stories:
What was your childhood bedroom like? This grounds you in a time and place. You’ll be surprised what you remember. Our Mum has a particularly memorable detail of her teddies getting stuck to the wall with ice each winter!
What’s the first meal you cooked by yourself? The answer is almost always a disaster, and the story of why is usually brilliant.
Who had the biggest impact on you as a child? This might be a parent, a teacher, a neighbour. You’ll end up telling a story about someone your family has probably never heard of.
What advice would you give your 20-year-old self? This one is sometimes short, other times long, specific, and surprisingly emotional.
What are you most proud of? It might be their career. It might be their children. It might be something nobody else knows about.
You don’t have to answer all 232 questions. Nobody does. Pick the ones that spark something. Skip the ones that don’t. The book is built from whatever you choose to share, and a book with 40 heartfelt answers is far better than one with 200 half-hearted ones.
Let it be messy
Your life story book doesn’t need to be polished. It doesn’t need to read like a novel. It needs to sound like you.
If you ramble, let yourself ramble. If you go off on a tangent about the dog, keep the tangent. If your grammar isn’t perfect, it doesn’t matter. The people reading this book in twenty years won’t care about your semicolons. They’ll care about your voice.
We don’t use AI to rewrite anything. The words in your book are your words, exactly as you wrote them. Because that’s the whole point.
The Perfect Path
If all of this still feels like a lot, we offer what we call the Perfect Path. It’s a starter set of our 10 most popular questions. Gentle, specific, easy to answer. Most people find their rhythm within the first few and then naturally start exploring the rest.
Think of it as a warm-up. You don’t need to see the whole route. You just need to take the first step.
Everything’s at yourstory.co.uk. And if you get stuck at any point, email me at hello@yourstory.co.uk. I’m always happy to help.
Alyson