Course description

If you've ever wanted to write down the stories of your life, for your family, for yourself or for a wider readership, this course takes you from your first scribbled memories to a finished, polished piece and a plan for a whole book.

You start with the forms of life writing, your purpose and readers, a memory notebook and a small writing habit. Then you unlock memories with prompts, photographs, objects, music, places, a life timeline and interviews with relatives. You learn to find your themes, choose a structure, build scenes, use summary, write openings and endings, and bring real people, places and periods to life. You find your own voice, handle memory openly and learn where memoir ends and fiction begins. You also learn to approach difficult memories safely, write fairly about living people and understand the basics of privacy, defamation and copyright, before revising, getting feedback and choosing how to share your work.

There are 10 sections and 50 written lessons, each with a worked example, common slips, questions people often ask and a short exercise to try, and each section ends with a short quiz. You follow Avice, a retired school cook in Louth, from the Christmas her granddaughter asks what life was like when she was young, to the finished piece she reads to her writing group, with Abner, a retired lorry driver, alongside. Every section has a practice pack with a worksheet, an answer key and a cheat sheet, plus memory prompt cards, a life timeline template, interview question sheets and a consent note, scene and structure planning sheets, a revision checklist, a fairness and permissions checklist, a writing habit planner and simple line drawings.

What you'll learn

• Getting started with life writing: the forms of life writing, from memoir and autobiography to letters and personal essays, choosing your purpose and readers, a memory notebook and a writing habit you can keep.
• Unlocking memories: prompts and "I remember" lists, photographs and objects, music, smells and places, a life timeline, and interviewing relatives and friends with their consent.
• Shaping a life into stories: finding your themes, choosing what to leave out, chronological, thematic, braided and framed structures, and a first outline for a book or collection.
• Scene, summary and detail: building scenes, using summary, openings, the five senses and the telling detail, and endings with a little reflection.
• Bringing people to life: character sketches, showing people through what they did and said, dialogue from memory, writing about family, and yourself as the main character.
• Setting and period detail: place, everyday period detail, research in libraries and record offices, checking facts, and weaving history into a personal story.
• Voice, point of view and truth: finding your own voice, point of view, the younger self and the older narrator, how memory works, and where memoir ends and fiction begins.
• Difficult memories and real people: writing about hard times safely, pacing and support, writing fairly about living people, and the basics of privacy, defamation and copyright.
• Revising, feedback and sharing: revising in layers, editing and proofreading, feedback and writing groups, keepsake books, print on demand, blogs, competitions, ISBNs and legal deposit.
• Your final project: planning, drafting and revising a finished memoir piece with the checklists, outlining a book or collection, and a writing plan for the months ahead.

Who it's for

Adults who would like to write their memories down as true stories, whether you've never written before or you've filled notebooks for years. It suits people with plenty of years to look back on. Fiction and poetry, and researching family records, have their own Rootlet courses.

What this course is, and isn't

This is a life writing course. The lines on privacy, defamation, copyright, legal deposit and getting support are based on official UK sources, including GOV.UK, legislation.gov.uk, the national libraries and the NHS website, but the course isn't legal advice or a substitute for professional support. Avice, Abner and every other person in the course are fictional, and every example passage is original to the course.

What will I learn?

• Understand the main forms of life writing and decide on your own purpose and readers
• Set up a memory notebook and a small, regular writing habit you can keep
• Unlock memories with prompts, photographs, objects, music, places, a life timeline and interviews
• Find your themes, choose what to leave out and pick a structure for a piece or a book
• Write vivid scenes, use summary well, and craft openings, concrete details and endings
• Bring real people, places and periods to life, with dialogue you can stand behind
• Find your own voice, handle point of view and write openly about the limits of memory
• Approach difficult memories safely and write fairly about living people, with the basics of privacy, defamation and copyright
• Revise and proofread your work, give and receive feedback, and choose how to share it
• Plan, draft and revise a finished memoir piece and outline a book or collection of your life stories

Frequently asked questions