1. Writing
Autobiography

2. Writing Autobiography Contents 3 What is Autobiography?
4-12 First Person Narratives
13-19 Getting Started
20-22 Structure
23 Writing Autobiography

3. What is Autobiography?
In its simplest form, autobiography is telling your own story.
“auto” from the Greek auto meaning “self”;
“bio” from the Greek bio meaning “life”;
“-graphy” from the Greek grafw meaning “I write”.
Therefore an autobiography is the story of the author’s life.

4. First Person Narratives
Contents
4-12 First Person Narratives
5 What are they?
6 Fiction and reality
7-12 Analysis of Jane Eyre

5. First Person Narratives
Autobiography is written in the first person, meaning that the narrator always tells the story from his/her own perspective: “I saw…” or “I went…”.
However, not every book which is written in the first person is an autobiography. For example, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield in the first person, yet the novel is fiction not autobiography. In another novel, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, the author can be seen using some incidents from her own life as the inspiration for parts of the plot, but the large majority of the book is fiction.
Compare the outlines on the next slide and see how Charlotte Brontë blended fact with fiction.

6. First Person Narratives
Jane Eyre During marriage ceremony discover
Heroine = orphan he is married
Brought up by cruel aunt Mad wife kept in attic
Persecuted by cousins Jane runs away
Sent to harsh school Nearly dies
Pupils half-starved and cold Rescued by curate & sisters: revealed Typhoid sweeps through school as Jane’s cousins
Best friend dies of T.B. Reunited with employer: wife now
Jane becomes governess dead, he is crippled
Falls in love with employer They marry
Charlotte Brontë Comes home because two sisters ill Eldest of six children Charlotte, sisters & brother all write
Father = rector of Haworth Two sisters die of T.B. in same year
Sent to harsh school Brother dies of T.B. & alcohol & opium
Two youngest sisters die there of T.B. Charlotte marries father’s curate
Charlotte teaches at school in Brussels Dies in child birth

7. First Person Narratives
Your comparison of the lives of the fictional Jane Eyre and the real Charlotte Brontë should have shown you how authors use their own experiences to inspire their imaginations when writing fiction. In autobiography, of course, the events are limited by what actually happened. However, fictional first person narratives can give us useful ideas for writing our own autobiographies.
On the next two slides is an extract from the opening of Jane Eyre. How does Charlotte Brontë create a sense of atmosphere and character for the reader?

8. First Person Narratives
There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of the question.
I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.
gloomy adjectives
How does Charlotte Brontë establish the atmosphere here?

9. First Person Narratives
There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of the question.
I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.
gloomy adjectives
Dismal weather echoes how Jane is feeling
Winter seems less positive than Spring
The mood throughout this extract is miserable
How does Charlotte Brontë establish the atmosphere here?

10. First Person Narratives
How is character established in this paragraph?
The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered round their mama in the drawing-room: she lay reclined on a sofa by the fireside, and with her darlings about her (for the time neither quarrelling nor crying) looked perfectly happy. Me, she had dispensed from joining the group; saying, “She regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me at a distance; but until she heard from Bessie, and could discover by her own observation that I was endeavouring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable and childlike disposition,a more attractive and sprightly manner, - something lighter, franker, more natural as it were - she really must exclude me from privileges intended only for contented, happy, little children.”
Shows what the children are usually like

11. First Person Narratives
How is character established in this paragraph?
The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered round their mama in the drawing-room: she lay reclined on a sofa by the fireside, and with her darlings about her (for the time neither quarrelling nor crying) looked perfectly happy. Me, she had dispensed from joining the group; saying, “She regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me at a distance; but until she heard from Bessie, and could discover by her own observation that I was endeavouring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable and childlike disposition,a more attractive and sprightly manner, - something lighter, franker, more natural as it were - she really must exclude me from privileges intended only for contented, happy, little children.”
Shows what the children are usually like
Mrs Reed’s unkindness to Jane

12. First Person Narratives
How is character established in this paragraph?
The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered round their mama in the drawing-room: she lay reclined on a sofa by the fireside, and with her darlings about her (for the time neither quarrelling nor crying) looked perfectly happy. Me, she had dispensed from joining the group; saying, “She regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me at a distance; but until she heard from Bessie, and could discover by her own observation that I was endeavouring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable and childlike disposition,a more attractive and sprightly manner, - something lighter, franker, more natural as it were - she really must exclude me from privileges intended only for contented, happy, little children.”
Shows what the children are usually like
Mrs Reed’s unkindness to Jane
Establishes Jane as an outsider

13. Getting Started Contents 13-19 Getting Started
Activity: first day at school
Activity: memories
Activity: details

14. Getting Started
We have seen in Jane Eyre that the atmosphere which you give a story is just as important as the plot. This is true when you are writing autobiographically as well as when you are writing fiction. However, without an event to form the plot, your autobiography is going nowhere!
Activity
You may finally choose to write about any one of a wide range of things, but first we shall look back just a short way and think about your first day at this school. As a class, collect as many memories of that day as possible. Make a note of them on the next slide under the appropriate headings.

15. Colours Smells Feelings Thoughts Sights Sounds
First day at school
Thoughts
Sights
Sounds

16. Getting Started
With the material from the previous slide, you could write an autobiographical account of a first day at your school. Now it is time to go further back into your memories, looking for things which stand out as special or important moments: they may be good or bad, that is up to you.
Activity
Think back through your childhood and make a note of any incidents or moments which stand out in your memory. Try to go back more than just a few months.
You might wish to think about holidays, major family events, moving house or starting a new school (other than your current one).
You may use the plan on the next slide to organise your ideas if you wish.

17. Getting Started
Childhood Memories

18. Getting Started Activity
Choose one of your memories as the focus for your piece of writing.
You are looking for a memory which will make an effective piece of writing, therefore you should think about how each of the memories you have identified makes you feel. The memory which brings back the strongest emotions will probably make the best story. Remember that you can use memories which make you feel happy or sad.
Explore as many details of this memory as possible, using the chart on the next slide as a guide. Add branches to it as necessary.

19. Getting Started feelings colours sounds sights places Memory textures
smells
tastes
people

20. Structure Contents 20-22 Structure 21 Why is it necessary?
22 Creating a structure

21. Structure
You now have many details which you can use in your writing. Before you launch into telling the story of your chosen memory, you need to devise a structure for your story, exactly as you would for a piece of fiction.
Bear in mind that a “blow by blow” account is often not the best way to tell a good story. Why not?
If you work your way through every single tiny detail of a day, from the moment you open your eyes to the moment you go to sleep again at night, a great many trivial things happen which slow down the pace of your story. If you were to use all of these in your account, you would very quickly lose your reader’s attention.

22. Structure
You need to create a structure for yourself which gives you a clear beginning, middle and end: without that you are lost, since you will tend to “waffle” when you write.
Choose the three most important moments of your memory and put them onto the time-line below.
Add any other important moments in the appropriate places.

23. Writing Autobiography
You now have a structure from which you can write an autobiographical account. Remember that to keep your reader’s attention, you need to give vivid description of the people, places and emotions involved; not a “then I cleaned my teeth” version of events!
Autobiography may take many forms. Some people write about very serious things that have affected them deeply, while others write funny accounts. For some ideas of how the genre has been used by other people, look at:
My Family and Other Animals - G. Durrell
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit - J. Kerr