Are you hungry for story writing ideas and resources for your memoir, personal history, or other true life story? Think, family history or biography. This is our favorite topic! Truly, this is our life’s work and mission. We hope you enjoy these story writing ideas and resources to help you write a family history or your own memoir. This page is an index page of all the resources we have compiled on our website, with many practical tools to help you in writing your book or short story to engage readers and share values. What you have to say is important, and you deserve to say it as beautifully as possible so loved ones and future generations feel inspired. We hope these story writing ideas help you get started today!
(Disclaimer: This page contains affiliate links to our own books on Amazon which means if you purchase, we make a small commission. We really appreciate it! This is a tiny part of our income, but every bit helps.)
Classes and story writing ideas to finish your personal history, biography, or family history
We regularly teach story writing both in-person and virtually. We also have a lineup of richly informative online writing courses.
- Click here for a complete listing of all current courses to tell your story
- Click here for our online storyboarding and story structure class, especially geared toward writers or family history, memoir, and biography. This class will immediately help you be a better writer.
- Click here for our flagship online course: “How to write a memoir, life story of family history.” You will love this self-paced course with many video lessons on making time for writing, storytelling arcs, and story writing ideas themselves. It is fun and easy to get through in a few days, patterned after about ten hours of live instruction with exercises to complete on your own. It will walk you through the whole process of writing your book so you feel confident and inspired. You can do this!
- Professional oral history interviewing
- Resources on remembering ancestors or your own life
How to Storyboard – Finding the Beats to a Story
Whether you write fiction or narrative nonfiction, these practical story writing ideas will spark your creativity.
- Check out our storyboard method as we go through the plot of Toy Story. View it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rGmQCGb8XY
- Also, take a class to tell your story – click here
Our favorite story writing ideas and articles at your fingertips:
- Story endings: the transformative power of storytelling
- How to storyboard
- Story structure – strengthen any story with these tips and examples
- What is the theme of your story?
- What is your purpose and how does it tie to the theme of your story?
- Is your story stuck? Why writing a memoir is possible.
- Hard to write about the hard stuff? How to overcome and then write about it
- The one writing tip we never miss (Why you should read your story aloud)
- Don’t practice in front of the mirror – 8 tips to prepare for a story slam
- Journal writing: types of journaling, how to start a journaling practice and tips for keeping it going
- Write a personal history – journal ideas and why it’s important
- In writing your own life story, ask “what are my talents?” Identifying talents and gifts will help you zero in on the theme
- Is yours a redemption story? (Why it should be)
- Top 11 favorite books on writing, storytelling and memoir
- Procrastination busters for writers (and everyone)
- Oral history interviewing questions, tools and resources
Free Printables and Downloads for simplified story writing
Each of these links will take you to a page where you can download free printable with even more engaging story writing ideas. We hope you enjoy them!
- Our all-time favorite questions everyone should ask (single page printable)
- Interviewing Mini Course: This free tutorial covers the ins-and-outs of interviewing, recording equipment, transcribing audio, and even shares some of our favorite questions. It is a printable PDF.
Articles on Storytelling using video and audio
- Storytelling resources – using video to tell your story
- Audio inspiration – a detailed article about how to record, save and edit audio files
- Transcription resources – a detailed article with various methods to transcribe life story interviews or your voice memo notes
Take a writing class or join a writing group:
Click here to see all the classes we teach: https://learning.evalogue.life
Life story interviews
We conduct professional life story interviews, which are often given as gifts to parents or grandparents. This can be a real breakthrough for anyone writing a memoir, biography, or family history story because this is often the easiest way to get it done. Each interview takes several hours of our time and includes the initial consultation, a list of life story questions, approximately 50 minutes of audio recording, audio files on a flash drive, and the interviewer notes.
Available in any amount, life story interview gift certificates are a meaningful alternative to buying “stuff.” We have many families give their parents, grandparents or partner a life story interview for special occasions. Use the contact form below to reach out and get more information about scheduling an interview.
(Disclaimer: This page contains affiliate links to our own books on Amazon which means if you purchase, we make a small commission. We really appreciate it! This is a tiny part of our income, but every bit helps.)