Writing Your Life 2025
This six-module course via Zoom and email is for those who have an interest in writing about personal history for publication, for their own satisfaction or to leave for family. Students work at their own pace to explore the art and craft of memoir and are given guidance in the process of imposing a narrative framework on experiences, memories and emotions. Students who wish to write a more generalized nonfiction manuscript such as self-help, family history, philosophy which will appeal to a general audience will also find it relevant. Topics covered are, adapting fictional techniques, structure, real people, truth and memory, places and research. By the end of this course, students will have greater clarity on how to create a compelling life sotry. Comprehensive workbooks and exercises are emailed fortnightly, and tutor feedback is given on 18 writing exercises.
This course is delivered online to a mutually agreed and flexible schedule. Broadly, the usual arrangement will be to deliver a workbook and feedback fortnightly. Students can choose to have a 20-minute fortnightly Zoom consultation or to receive all feedback via email.
Fees $550 payable to DE Brown 11 5234 0078778 37 before the course starts.
Writing Your Life Programme 2024
Topic One: Broad Approaches to Memoir and Autobiography
In this topic we take a broad look at different genres of Writing Your Life. Not everyone will wish to write about themselves, they may prefer to explore their families. That said the emphasis is on writing about your life. Even if you wish to explore the lives of others, the exercises in this course will help you know yourself. In my opinion, to write well it helps to know yourself first.
We also look at some fictional techniques and the classic instruction most creative writing teachers will tell you, show don’t tell which can be useful for writing memoir.
Topic Two: Structure
In this topic we will explore how you might go about imposing a structure on your writing project. If you set off on your writing journey with some sort of plan you will save yourself a lot of time. going down unnecessary pathways. That said I make no excuses for setting exercises that may cause you to deviate from your chosen path. This is necessary when you first begin to write, even for experienced writers beginning a new project. First you discover what you can and want to write and then you set about organising the material into some readable whole. The aim is to create the same sense of story and tension that you encounter in a novel. This is what will make your writing compelling.
Topic Three: Truth and Memory
This topic explores some of the tricky nature of remembering the past, and trying to be faithful to your memory of the past. You all would have had experiences in your family when your memory differs completely from someone else’s. There is no definitive answer to whose memory is the most accurate. All you can do is try to write about the past as honestly as you can. That means being prepared to look at your own behaviour as well as that of others. Writing your life can be a form of therapy but we aim to get beyond the ego and write in a way that others can relate to.
Topic Four: The Real People in Your Life
Writing about real people is akin to negotiating a potential minefield. It’s possible you may stand on a mine even if you stick to telling the truth. The problem is that you don’t see yourself as others see you and your relationship with the observed one will influence the way you write about a person. In this course I encourage you to look at people in your life with clarity, understanding and as much objectivity as you can muster.
Topic Five: Writing the Physical World
Writing about the real places you and the real people you are writing about love in or visit is an opportunity to explore more than just the physical facts of place but also the social and cultural environment. Obviously if you grow up on a rubbish dump in the Philippines, your attitude to life will be quite different to someone born to a wealthy family in New York. Even relocations in the same country can have a profound effect upon your life. And how do you describe what you see?
Topic Six: Research
In this topic we take a look at research into family history and where you might start. We also consider some possibilities of how you might approach family history. In this course we have explored different aspects of Memoir Writing. Now is the time to start think about how you might approach Writing About Your Life to make a coherent whole.