All posts by Theo Brainin

How much do you really know about your parents’ lives? So many stories took place before you were born, or were old enough to understand. Your parents know your whole history – but chances are you only know a fraction of theirs. As our parents get older, these stories start to become more important to us. A lot of us turn our minds to making a record – we don’t want these irreplaceable memories to be lost. A Story Terrace biography is a great way to ensure your parents stories will last the generations. However you want to record your parents’ life stories, the first step is to start Read more

H ave you ever tried to keep a diary? It can be challenging to keep up the discipline - but fascinating to look back in later years at how you felt. But what if you don't have a record? Or you want to turn your experiences into something you can share with your family and friends? Today we are looking at three women - Sue Hodges, Ichko Gomobodorj, and Teresa Samuels - who have tried a new approach. Working with a professional writer & interviewer from private biographers Story Terrace, they created their very own memoirs. These women are part of an emerging trend - ordinary people creating Read more

Turning the meaningless into the meaningful We record memories and keep mementos, often unconsciously, on a daily basis. We know the stories behind the photos and trinkets we keep, but to a stranger, our collection is meaningless.  For example, you may pick up a photo of yourself with friends, sitting around a table. You look fondly at the picture, chuckling to yourself, remembering all the events that occurred that night. But, let’s say your great-granddaughter picks up this same photo 40 years from now.What would she see? Now imagine this same photo, but with the caption: ‘The gang, aged Read more

The second instalment of The Life of a Backstory. By fleshing out the backstory and asking some key questions, writers can easily determine whether their idea has the potential to be more than just an idea, or whether it could be a bestseller. She doesn’t need to see to hear them fighting. She doesn’t need to see to know what expressions they wear. She doesn’t need to see to feel the house shudder as the front door slams. He’s gone. She never breaths during these exchanges, she’s tried to, tried to relax, but she can’t. Now she sucks air in so deep her shoulders and abdomen Read more

A great way to learn about someone’s past is to start by asking them questions about their early life. It’s not always easy to know where to start, so here’s a few ideas of questions you could lead with to inspire rich memories and life stories. Storytelling: For most people, preserving both their own stories and those of friends and family is very important, after all, that’s how we remember people after they’ve gone. Storytelling has forever been the most effective way of sharing knowledge, and as soon as we, as humans, began to record these stories, civilisation was effectively Read more

I once came across a quote by the author Kate Rockland, which read: “Relationships consist of telling your same life stories to different people until someone finally appreciates them.” Although, a little on the soppy side, this idea about the power of the life story and the realisation that our stories literally make us did really hit home. Now, most people wouldn’t consider themselves storytellers and definitely wouldn’t consider themselves authors. In actual fact, that is exactly what we all are; storytellers. By going about our day-to-day lives we are unwittingly writing our own Read more

Ghostwriting can be loosely defined as the process of writing a book on someone else’s behalf. The contribution of a ghostwriter varies from book to book and from writer to writer. A ghostwriter’s task can range from predominantly editing to writing a complete novel or biography based on someone else's story or idea. Outside of the publishing world, the ghostwriters existence appears to be just as elusive as their name suggests, with many people being blissfully unaware of the ghostwriters contribution to the trade fiction sector. It seems to be widely accepted that biographies and cookbooks Read more

First-things-first, let’s establish precisely what a memoir actually is. It is not an autobiography. An autobiography is an account of someones life written by that person. So what exactly is a memoir? Well, memoirs are personal accounts of specific memories or stories from your life; it is not a record of your entire existence. One: that would be pretty much impossible to write down, and two: that would probably be a rather boring read. Learn more about the difference between a memoir and an autobiography (What's the Difference Between a Memoir and an Autobiography?)  Memoirs, like autobiographies Read more

I’m a starer. My husband is always picking me out about it because it’s so obvious, so blatant, so (God forbid) rude. I can’t help it though; some faces just keep drawing my eyes back to them. It could just be the face, but sometimes it’s the whole package: the way the lips move in conversation, or eyes stare unblinking at seemingly nothing or move constantly, a subtle mannerism or prodigious gesticulation. Sometimes it’s as simple as a pair of shoes. I can’t help it because I’m thinking: I wonder what his / her story is. I stare as I try to put together the pieces of a total stranger’s Read more

Last year I was attending a short story course, and on the reading list was a little book by Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist. I'm a sucker for getting most of the books on any reading list I'm given, and this proved no different. It's useful and inspirational, but it's central tennant is that really, there's nothing new, we are all inspired and motivated by work that has gone before. Picasso said, 'art is theft' and David Bowie echoed, 'The only art I'll ever study is stuff that I can steal from.' Call it standing on the shoulders of giants if you will. This applies to the writer of memoir Read more

How do you define life writing? Life Writing is the blanket term used to describe all written non-fiction recordings of memories. This includes biographies, autobiographies, memoirs, diaries and blogs, personal essays and collections of letters or emails. It does what is says on the tin, life writing is writing about life. As you can see, that is a lot of formats under one term. And if they’re all technically life writing- what makes them different? If you’re writing about life, which format is best suited for your content? We’ve already covered what the difference between an Read more

Whether your project is a short story, a biography, a series of novels or anything in between, creative writing can be hard. The road to greatness is often encumbered by speed bumps. Maybe you have an entire story plotted out in your mind, but you can’t find the right way to fit that cinematic adventure into words. Perhaps you can’t wait to fashion beautiful sentences, but you’ve got no clue what to write them about. Or maybe you’ve written the whole thing, but re-reading it disappoints you because it’s not what you imagined. Overcoming these issues and more is all part of the creative Read more

“For many years I have had a big social presence and even though I love using Facebook and Instagram and Twitter, sometimes it is hard to share your experiences on such limited spaces. I love writing and I love making pictures,” writes Ella Dvornik on her ‘I Am Ella’ life story blog. “I am not a professional writer, I am not very literate and English is not my first language so I tend to make mistakes, but I love what I do and I love doing it.” Stories are uploaded everyday. Pictures are uploaded everyday. We write, craft and shape our biographies online without even thinking about Read more

'Tell me about when you were a little girl.' Coaxing stories and memories out of parents and grandparents was at one time my favourite way of putting off bedtime. Nowadays – and once the stories are written down – it fulfils deeper purposes with broader benefits. Parting the curtains For a child, listening to stories is like visiting the old days hand in hand with the parent or aunt or grandparent who used to live there. It’s a comforting way to open up the past: their past, your past, the stories that shape family life. It’s like peeping behind the curtains that part the generations. Read more

Last April, Row and Tom Smith were celebrating a successful climb to Tsergo Ri peak in Langtang, Nepal when they were caught in the aftermath of an avalanche – at least, that’s what they originally thought. Later on, they, along with the rest of the world, realised that they were almost at the origin point of the 8.9 Richter Scale quake that devastated the mountainous country which is now known as the "Nepal Earthquake". Exposed to the disastrous power of nature, their hiking group was escorted back down the mountains to the valleys where they saw the true extent of the damage. Buildings Read more

The best biographies are written for novel reasons. A biography aims to inform, captivate, enrage, inspire, or all of the above. They offer us an extensive insight into the life of a remarkable person. They are the lifeblood of any section marked ‘Non-Fiction’. The worst biographies are written for no reason at all. Or no real reason, anyway. They fail to capture the imagination and, as such, are often abandoned mid-way through, left unread on the dusty shelf of an obscure bookshop or marked as spam in a potential publisher’s inbox. And trust us, it happens all the time. But it doesn’t Read more

Memoir vs autobiography. Autobiography vs memoir. What's the difference? The words autobiography and memoir exist as distinctly separate, albeit similar, words that describe the first-person, written depiction of the author's life. For hundreds of years, as the popularity of sharing life stories has grown, the two forms have co-existed in playful harmony. Chances are you're confused about the similarity between these two terms - don't worry, you're not alone! It seems that people these days use the two words interchangeably – a common mistake! Well, fear not, gentle reader! Let's set the Read more

Recently, the Story Terrace U.K. team flew to Amsterdam to visit our Dutch counterparts and boy are our arms tired! In between many important meetings, PowerPoint presentations and frenzied tram rides, we took some time to appreciate the finer things that this historic city had to offer. Hanging out with the Story Terrace NL team - We love seeing the Dutch team on Skype during our weekly meetings and they proved to be great hosts as well! The gals were able to quit plugging their government-appointed dikes long enough to give us an amazing tour around this colourful, historic city and the Read more

In her biography, Into the Light, Teresa Samuels recalls her hometown of Wau in the south of Sudan, shaded by mahogany and mango trees. Despite memories of hunger and hardship, her family were happy and lived in the rich grassland of the savannah, just above the equator, where the air was sweet and fragrant with the scent of wildflowers. When Teresa was just 11, all of this changed with the onset of the Sudanese civil war. South Sudanese defence forces clashed with Arab officers from the north just miles from Teresa's school, and fifty years of fighting began. “Making this book has given me Read more

Sue’s story in a nutshell… Every month we like to bring you some insight on a completed Story Terrace book. Providing you with an overview of the varying biographies created with us. This month our focus is on a lady named Sue Hodges, her life story is being featured in line with our genealogy themed month. Enjoy..... Though Sue Hodges now lives a quiet life on a Gloucestershire farm, she has had more than her fair share of adventures. Full of mischief as a child, Sue grew up to be a fearless woman. In the sixties she was propped up at the bar – vodka tonic in hand, Marvin Gaye in the Read more

Is it time to research your family history? Has something come into the fore in recent times that’s made you decide the moment has come to embark on one of life's biggest projects that will mean so much - are you about to tackle researching your family history? If so, we have gathered 7 tips to help you on your researching way - it’s certainly going to be a journey of highs and lows, breakthroughs and lulls, but this is a commitment that will enable you to understand who you and your family really are. 1. Write it all down and begin to build your family tree  Start by writing information Read more

Your own Story Book – How does it work? In six simple steps, you can take part in creating your life story to save and share for generations to come. In this article learn more about Step 5. So the main body of work has been compiled and the content of your book is starting to resemble the finished piece. This is your chance to read the story thoroughly and comment on any aspects you may feel it need's be it a tweak or even a change of stance. The ‘comment on the draft’ stage allows you to, for the first time, read your ghostwriter’s work on your project. It’s going to be quite Read more