Autobiography Questions to Ask Yourself
These autobiography questions to ask yourself are for anyone writing their own life story, from a student whose assignment is due on Friday to a grandparent filling a notebook for the family. The prompts run in the order a life does: early years, school and friends, work, love and turning points, losses and regrets, then what lasts. Answer with a particular day in a particular room wherever you can, and decide as you go what is yours to tell and what stays out.
Want questions from the whole vault instead? Try the random question generator.
The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Early years
What is the first thing I remember that nobody could have told me about?
Why ask it
A memory that also exists as a photograph or a story told at dinner may be borrowed. Look for one with a detail no adult would have bothered to mention, such as the pattern on a floor or how high a door handle was, and open with that detail before you say how old you were.
Where was I born, and what was going on in the family the year I arrived?
Why ask it
The date and the town take one sentence. What you arrived into is the better material: a move, a new job, a third child in a two-bedroom apartment. This is the one chapter you cannot write from memory, so ask an older relative soon and say in the text who told you.
Who chose my name, and what was I called at home?
Why ask it
Ask whoever is left who would know, because the reason is often a person: a grandmother, a saint, a singer who was on the radio that year. The nickname deserves as much room as the name. Say who used it and whether you answered to it gladly, and you have introduced two relatives in one paragraph.
Who raised me, and what did each of them do with an ordinary evening?
Why ask it
Calling a parent strict or kind gives a reader nothing to look at. The hours between supper and bed do: the chair, the radio, the mending, the second job. Writing what they did also lets you put off a verdict you may not be ready to give.
Which room of my childhood home can I still walk through with my eyes closed?
Why ask it
Sketch the floor plan on scrap paper before you write, because what happened in each corner tends to come back as you draw it. Then give the page to the one room where something happened and let the rest of the house have a line.
Where did I come in the family, and what job did that hand me?
Why ask it
Being the oldest may have meant minding the others, being the youngest may have meant being let off, and an only child often sat at a table of adults. Name your job in a sentence, then show a day you did it or refused to. A brother or sister will remember it another way, and you can say so without settling it.
Which grandparent or older relative did I know best, and what was their house like?
Why ask it
Their kitchen may be the oldest place in your whole book, so put in what it smelled of and what you were not allowed to touch. Add where that side of the family came from as far as you were told, and mark the parts you could never confirm as hearsay.
What did my family have plenty of, and what did we go without?
Why ask it
Money is the obvious reading, but the honest answer may be books, noise, time, privacy or praise. One object carries either side better than an explanation does: the car that had to be push-started, the shelf of encyclopedias no one was allowed to mark.
What was the rule in our house that I assumed every family had?
Why ask it
You probably found out at someone else's house, so write that visit: the kitchen where people interrupted each other, or where shoes stayed on. The contrast explains your family, and nobody has to be accused of anything.
What family story was I told so often that it feels like my own memory?
Why ask it
Set it down the way it was told, with the teller's name and the occasion it came out on. If two relatives tell it differently, print both versions side by side. For a family reader the disagreement is part of the record.
Which holiday or birthday from childhood can I replay from start to finish?
Why ask it
Take one year, not the tradition in general: who cooked, where the children were put, what went wrong every time. If the custom has died out in your family, describe it fully enough that someone reading could bring it back.
What was I afraid of as a child that I never told anyone?
Why ask it
A fear puts the reader inside your head at that age faster than a description of what you looked like. Keep it the size it was then, and hold back what you understand about it now until the following paragraph.
What did I want to be at eight, and which adult laughed or took it seriously?
Why ask it
The ambition is a light line and the adult's reaction is the story. Note it in the margin too, since it pays off if you return to it when you reach the chapters on work.
School and friends
What is the earliest school day I can actually picture?
Why ask it
Hardly anyone holds on to day one, so take the first you can see: the coat peg, the smell of the lunchroom, who sat beside you. For a class assignment this is often where sensory detail is being looked for, so read the rubric before you cut it short.
Which teacher changed how I thought about myself, for better or worse?
Why ask it
Give the one sentence they said and where you were standing when you heard it. If the memory is an unkind one and the teacher could be identified, 'my fourth-grade teacher' keeps the scene and spares the person.
Who was my first real friend, and what did the two of us do all day?
Why ask it
Friendship at that age is mostly activity, so list what you built, traded and got in trouble for. If the two of you lost touch, say when you last saw them. A reader will wonder, and one line answers it.
What was I good at that school noticed, and what was I good at that it never saw?
Why ask it
Spend longer on what school missed, whether that was fixing bicycles, minding younger children or drawing in the margins. It often points ahead to what you did for a living, which gives you a thread to pick up later.
When did I first get into real trouble, and what happened when I got home?
Why ask it
This is where a life story is allowed to be funny, and it shows how your house dealt with wrongdoing. Start at the walk home, since the dread on the way is the scene. The moral can go unsaid.
Where did I fit at fifteen, and where was I only pretending to?
Why ask it
Teenage chapters sag when they turn into a list of clubs and teams. Choose the lunch table or the group you walked home with, and one afternoon when the pretending slipped.
What song, book, film or game did I wear out as a teenager?
Why ask it
A title dates the chapter without a history lesson and tells the reader your age in passing. Say where you played it and who complained about it. A review of it is not needed.
What did I do with the first freedom I was handed: a bicycle, a bus pass, a car, a key?
Why ask it
The farthest place you went with it is a scene that arrives with its own beginning and end. In a memoir meant for family, it is also a page that shows you before you were anyone's parent or grandparent.
What was the day I left home, or the day I knew childhood was over?
Why ask it
Put in what was packed, who stood at the door and what nobody managed to say. If you never left in one go, use the first night you paid for your own supper. Either makes a natural last page for the first part of the book.
Work
What was the first money I earned, and what did I spend it on?
Why ask it
Write the wage as a figure and the price of what you bought with it, because later readers enjoy the numbers more than you would expect. After that, the boss, the uniform or the mistake you made in the first week.
How did I end up in the work I did longest, by plan or by accident?
Why ask it
There is nearly always a hinge: a want ad, an uncle's phone call, a failed exam. Find it and write that day. A student can answer for whatever takes up most of their hours now and where they think it leads.
What tools, words or routines from my working life would a grandchild need explained?
Why ask it
Trade words and vanished equipment are what make a work chapter yours and no one else's: the carbon paper, the time clock, the slang of the ward. Explain each in half a sentence inside a scene, where a glossary would stop the story.
Who did I work beside that I still think about?
Why ask it
One colleague shown through a habit, how they answered the phone or what they kept in the top drawer, does more than a roll call of names. If the pages will travel beyond the family and you are unsure they would welcome it, change the name.
What was the worst day I had at work, and what did I do the next morning?
Why ask it
Whether it was a firing, an accident or a day you were plainly in the wrong, the next morning is where the reader learns about you. Write it as flatly as the bad day itself. Where patients, clients or an employer's private business come into it, find out what you are free to repeat.
What piece of work would I point to and say, I made that?
Why ask it
Choose something a reader could go and see, hold or count: a bridge, a class of thirty who learned to read, a ledger that finally balanced. Describe it as it stood on the day it was finished and leave the praise it got to a single line.
What did I give up for work, and what did I refuse to give up?
Why ask it
Begin with what you refused, the promotion turned down or the transfer you would not take, because a no shows more of you than a list of sacrifices. What you did give up, evenings or a hometown or a first ambition, needs a sentence apiece. If your family paid part of the price, say so, and do not speak for how they felt about it.
What work did I do that nobody paid me for?
Why ask it
A life told only through paid jobs loses whole decades, above all for whoever raised the children, nursed a parent or ran the church kitchen. Give this work what you would give a job: the hours, the tools, the day it went wrong.
Love and turning points
Who was the first person I loved outside my family, and how did it end or carry on?
Why ask it
Write the meeting and one ordinary afternoon, and be kind about it. If it ended, a sentence covers that. When the person is still living and is not who you married, a first name or no name at all is the courteous choice.
How did I meet the person I shared my life with, and what did I think of them that first day?
Why ask it
Couples polish this story for years until it is a routine with set lines. Go back to what you would have said that same evening, even if you were unimpressed. If there was no such partner, write about the person or the household that was home.
When did someone start depending on me, and how did I find out I could manage?
Why ask it
It might have been a birth, an adoption, a younger brother left in your care or a parent who could no longer be alone. Whichever it was, write the first night. Children who will read this look for their own arrival, so give each of them about the same space, because they will count the lines.
Which decision split my life into a before and an after?
Why ask it
Spend the scene on the last hour before you decided: where you sat, who you asked, what nearly tipped it the other way. Skip the claim that it was the right choice and show what the after looked like a year on.
Where have I lived, and which move changed me most?
Why ask it
List every address with its years first. It is the quickest skeleton of a timeline you can build, and the gaps in it show at once. Then take one move and write arrival day: the first thing unpacked, the first neighbor to speak.
Which piece of news do I remember by where I was standing when I heard it?
Why ask it
The reader can look up the war, the election or the storm, so give them the room, who else was in it and what changed in your own week. Check the date before it goes into print, since this kind of memory drifts.
When did luck, good or bad, decide something for me?
Why ask it
The missed train, a stranger's recommendation, the illness that kept you home that term. People telling their own lives tend to credit themselves with every outcome. One honest page about chance makes the pages about effort easier to believe.
What have I done that my younger self would not have believed?
Why ask it
It works at fourteen as well as at eighty: a stage, another country, a finish line, the day you spoke up. Put both selves in one paragraph, first the child who never would, then the day you did.
Who has been my friend the longest, and what has kept us at it?
Why ask it
Count the years, then show what the two of you still do the same way: the same joke, the same booth, the same argument about whose turn it is to call. Ask them how you met before you write it down. Their account will differ from yours somewhere, and the difference is worth a line.
Who helped me at the moment it counted, and did I ever thank them?
Why ask it
Naming them here is thanks in print, so say exactly what they did: the loan, the spare room, the single sentence. If they are alive, consider sending them the passage before anyone else sees it. They may hand back a detail you had lost.
Losses and regrets
Whose death changed the shape of my days, and what did the first ordinary week afterward look like?
Why ask it
The funeral is seldom the scene. The empty chair is, or the telephone number dialed out of habit, or the first holiday. Write as much as you can manage in one sitting and no more, and feel free to leave this chapter until the others are done.
What was the hardest stretch I lived through, and what got me from one day to the next?
Why ask it
Practical details carry a chapter about illness, money trouble or a divorce: who brought food, what the children were told, the routine you held to. How deep to go is your call, and a paragraph saying it happened and you would sooner not say more is honest.
What do I regret doing, and what do I regret leaving undone?
Why ask it
Things done make scenes, and things left undone make endings to chapters. Describe what happened without pleading your case. If a living person was wronged, ask yourself whether they would want the apology made on a page other people read, or made to them first.
Who did I fall out with, and how would they tell it?
Why ask it
Give their version a fair paragraph before you give your own. If you cannot write it yet, the chapter may need to wait. An unflattering account of a living, named person can bring family and legal trouble once it circulates, so before it goes past a family copy find out how that works where you live.
What did I keep to myself for years that I am now willing to set down?
Why ask it
The test is whether it is yours to tell. A secret you share with a sister or a former partner needs their agreement or needs trimming to your own part. Nothing in a school assignment obliges you to hand in something private, so pick a memory you could stand to hear read aloud.
What did I get wrong about someone, and when did I find out?
Why ask it
The parent you only understood once you had children yourself, the rival who turned out to be decent. It takes two scenes, the judgment and the correction, with the years between them stated. Hindsight, which usually weakens a scene, is the whole point of this one.
What has my draft been steering around, and who is that protecting?
Why ask it
Keep a private list of what you have avoided. Some of it shields other people and should stay out. Some of it shields only your pride, and putting one of those items back in is often what makes the pages sound like you.
What lasts
If someone followed me through an ordinary Tuesday now, what would they see?
Why ask it
It feels too plain to record, yet the price of a loaf, the route of your walk and what you carry in your pockets are exactly what will have vanished when a grandchild opens this. For a school autobiography this is the present-day section, so describe this week as it really went, not a typical one.
What do I believe now that I did not believe at twenty, and what happened to change it?
Why ask it
Stated flat, a belief reads as a sermon. Tie it to the event that taught it and give the event most of the space. A student can swap in something they were sure of in elementary school and when it stopped being true.
What part has faith, doubt or a philosophy of my own played in how I lived?
Why ask it
Describe the practice more than the doctrine: the pew, the prayer over a sick child, the Sunday you stopped going, the walk that took its place. Relatives who believe otherwise will read this, so tell your own road and leave theirs alone.
What am I proudest of that would never appear on a certificate?
Why ask it
The answer might be staying, patience with a difficult parent, or a debt paid off a little at a time, and all of them are hard to write without boasting. One way through is to tell what it cost you and let someone else in the scene be the one who says well done.
What have I kept doing for years simply because I love it?
Why ask it
Start with how you came to it, since there is usually someone who put the fishing rod, the knitting needles or the season ticket in your hand. Then write the most recent time you did it. A student can use this for the interests part of an assignment, told as one afternoon in place of a list of hobbies.
Which habits, sayings and recipes of mine would the family know anywhere?
Why ask it
They seem too small to include, and they are what a family asks about once it is too late to ask. Write the recipe with real quantities and the saying with the occasion you bring it out on. A few of these can stand as a short chapter of their own.
What have I kept through every move, and where did each thing come from?
Why ask it
Fetch the object and put it on the table while you write. Say who had it before you and where it sits now. If you want it to go to someone in particular, do not count on a line in a memoir to arrange that: ask how such wishes are properly recorded where you live.
What would I say to myself at eighteen, and would I have listened?
Why ask it
The second half keeps the first from turning into a greeting card. Five or six sentences in the form of a letter is plenty. Someone who is not eighteen yet can write forward to themselves in ten years and name what they hope will be true by then.
What do I still want to do, and what is stopping me?
Why ask it
An autobiography ends in the present, at fifteen or at seventy-five, with something unfinished. Name one thing concrete enough to be checked later: a place, a qualification, a reconciliation. School assignments often ask for a section on goals, so see whether yours does.
What do I want the people who come after me to know about how I lived?
Why ask it
Address it to one named reader: a grandchild, a class, yourself a decade on. A list of your own virtues will not survive that reader's eye. One hope for them, or one thing you would ask of them, will.
If my life story had a title, what would it be, and which memory earns it?
Why ask it
Leave this until the draft is done. A phrase you actually say, or the name of a place, beats an abstract noun like 'Journey'. Whichever memory matches the title is a strong candidate for page one, ahead of the day you were born.
Getting from a page of answers to a life story
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Groundwork: a reader, a page of dates, a box of papers
Settle who the reader is
A teacher with a rubric and a granddaughter thirty years from now want different books. For school, find out the length and whether the assignment expects past, present and future sections before you choose which prompts to answer. For family, pick one person by name and write to them, which fixes how much needs explaining.
Pick the groups that fit the job
A school autobiography of a few pages does not need all six groups. Early years and School and friends give you the past, and the last group, What lasts, holds the present day and what you still want to do. A memoir for the family has room for Work and the two middle groups as well, and nobody is waiting for it by Friday, so take one group a month if that is the pace that suits you.
One page of dates
Rule a sheet with years down the side and fill in addresses, schools, jobs, births, deaths and moves. It takes an hour and it shows which stretches you remember in detail and which are blank. The blank stretches are your list of things to ask a relative.
Get the box down
Report cards, letters, a passport, the backs of photographs, a parent's handwriting on a recipe card. An object on the desk prompts more than a question does, and it corrects dates your memory has moved. If someone older than you can still be asked, ask this month and write down their exact words.
Answer out of order
The list follows a life from the beginning, but you do not have to write that way. Begin with whichever prompt already has a picture attached to it. A finished scene from the middle of your life does more for your nerve than a stalled paragraph about the hospital you were born in.
Speak it if writing stalls
Some people tell a story well at the kitchen table and freeze at a keyboard. Record yourself answering a prompt aloud, or have a grandchild ask it, then type up what you said. The spoken version usually keeps your turns of phrase, which is what the family wants on the page.
Making a scene out of an answer
Trade the summary for one day
'We did not have much money' is a summary. 'The winter my mother cut cardboard to fit inside my shoes' is a day, and it says the same thing without asking the reader to take your word. For each answer, ask which single occasion would prove it and write that occasion.
Two senses are enough
A scene does not need all five. The smell of the lunchroom and the scrape of chairs will build the room, and the reader supplies the rest. Choose the details only you would know, since floor wax and chalk dust belong to everyone's school.
Rebuilt talk, admitted once
Nobody remembers a conversation from 1974 word for word, and readers know it. Write the lines as closely as you can recall them, keep them short, and say once near the front that conversations are given as you remember them. Do not invent a speech for someone who can no longer object to it.
The child sees, the adult adds a line
Tell the scene at the height and understanding you had then: you did not know why the adults went quiet, only that they did. Afterward the older you may add one sentence of what you learned later. More than that and the child disappears from the page.
Stop before the lesson
End on the last thing that happened, the door closing or the bus pulling out, and resist the sentence that begins 'That day taught me'. If the scene worked, the reader already has it. If a school rubric asks for reflection, give it a short paragraph of its own after the scene.
Deciding what to leave out
A whole life does not fit
Every school, every job and every vacation makes a record, and a record is not a story anyone finishes. Once you have a dozen scenes, look for what they share: leaving, making do, starting again. Keep the prompts that feed that thread and let the others stay in your notes.
Stories that are partly someone else's
Your sister's divorce and your son's bad year happened in your life, but they are theirs first. Write your own part, show them the passage and take out what they ask you to. If the book will be sold or posted where strangers can read it, the rules about writing on living people differ from place to place, so find out what applies to you first.
Scores to settle
A chapter written to win an old argument reads that way, and the family members who were there will stop trusting the others. Describe what was done and said, leave out the names you called them in your head, and let a month pass before deciding whether it stays.
What you are not ready to write
You can skip a prompt, come back in a year, or write the passage and keep it in a drawer. A life story with one closed door in it is still true. For a class, choose memories you would be comfortable having a teacher read, and say plainly to the teacher if a required topic is one you would rather not write about.
Putting the pieces in order and finishing
Birth does not have to be page one
Life order is the easiest structure and a perfectly good one. Another is to open on your strongest scene, wherever it falls, and then go back to the beginning. Lay the scenes out as slips of paper on a table and try both before you commit.
Check what can be checked
Spellings of names, the year of the move, which hospital, which ship. A brother, a cousin or a document can confirm most of it in an afternoon. Where two of you remember it differently and nothing settles it, write 'as I remember it' and move on.
Read it out loud
Anything you would never say will catch in your mouth, and those are the sentences to change. A life story should sound like the person who lived it, so plain words and your own expressions are worth more here than polish.
Date it and say where it stops
Put your name, the place and the date at the end, and a line on what was still ahead of you on the day you finished. Caption every photograph with full names, left to right. Print more than one copy and tell someone where they are kept.