Community Service Project Plan —
Write Someone's Biography
Writing a person's memoir is both an honor and a responsibility. You are giving them an extraordinary gift, a written record of their life which will be preserved and available for generations to come. You are ensuring that regardless of what happens, they will always be remembered.
So, if you've selected the person you are writing about, let's get started!
Step 1: The Interview
The best place to interview someone is wherever they are most comfortable. It might be their home, a park, or a library. Sometimes, of course, that just isn't possible and so you might need to visit them in the hospital, at a facility, or even conduct a phone or email interview. If the person you are writing about has already passed away then gather information by interviewing family, friends, co-workers, etc and by reading any letters or journals.
Some people can talk for hours, naturally, as they have an entire life history they are excited to share. However, we encourage you to control the interview by using the Memoirs Interview Questions provided below and try to keep the time to under 2 hours.
Interview Questions — for our standard, suggested interview questions... click here for .pdf version. Note that we say "suggested", you can use these as they are, you can skip questions, and of course you can add questions which are specific to the person you are working with. Regardless of your approach, we strongly encourage you to start by getting their biographical facts (birthdate and place, height, ethnicity, schools attended, memberships, etc).
Alternative Approach: Interview the person and write one paragraph about each year they have been alive.
Tip: Use the person's photos, letters, and scrapbook mementos in the interview process as they will act as powerful memory triggers.
Step 2: Scan Images
If the photos, letters, diplomas, documents and scrapbook items you want to add to accompany the stories are physical (and not already in electronic .jpg or .gif formats), then you will need to scan them.
Step 3: Organize your Thoughts
While looking over your interview notes, and the images that may accompany them, consider the best way to write about them. What chapters do they belong in? What sub-chapters? This should be a very short exercise, but it is important to pause and think before jumping into the next step.
Step 4: Create Account, Add Biographic Facts
Go to the homepage, click "Register Now" and create a community service account for the person. If they don't have an email address, then simply use your own since you are the one writing and managing the memoir for them.
After the "Congratulations" page, the system will automatically take you to the "Bio Summary" chapter, so you can add their biographical facts. These include their birth date and place, their ethnicity, the schools they went to, the organizations they belong to, etc, etc. Now click the Update button and you're ready for the next step.
Tip: Don't have all the facts yet? No problem, you can change or add details anytime you want by logging onto the profile and clicking the Bio Summary chapter tab at the top of the page.
Step 5: Write
With your interview notes in hand, begin writing the person's life story. Simply click on the appropriate chapter for the story you are about to write, then click the "Write a New Entry" link at the top of the page.
Add Photos — Once you've clicked "Publish", you can then add the photos and other images to enhance the story. At the bottom of the entry is a link to "Add Photo/Video", click that to upload the images to the specific journal entry.
Tip: Chapter names aren't exactly perfect? It's easy to fix. Click on the "Account Settings" link in the left-hand nav under "Tools", then click on "Rename Chapter Titles". You can change the name, and even the language, to anything you want as long as it fits within the character limits.
Tip: Sub-chapters help organize the main chapters. You can create as many sub-chapters as you want. Note that when you are writing a journal entry there is a box at the top entitled "Sub-Chapter"; write anything you want and it will appear as a separate chapter underneath the primary chapter (e.g. a sub-chapter under the main Family chapter might be "My Children". And, of course, sub-chapters can themselves have sub-chapters... whatever it takes to organize the stories for the person you are writing about!
Tip: It doesn't have to be in English — if the person and the majority of their family and friends, speak French, Spanish, Italian, Romanian, Swedish or any other language... well, then write their memoirs in that language! Web Biographies' systems are constructed to accept any alphabet-based language, including special characters.
Step 6: Send Email Invites to Family and Friends
Click on "Invitations" in the left-hand column under "Tools" and send invitations to their family and friends.
Step 7: Print It
Click on "Request a Book" in the left-hand column under "Tools". This will download a Microsoft Word (.doc) document of the biography (all the journal entries, as well as thumbnails of images) right to your computer. You can then organize it a bit, add some finishing touches, perhaps some page number and then print it on your home or office printer. This makes a wonderful gift for the person and helps bring closure to the process.
Step 8: Let us know about it! Optional
Not all good deeds need to be noticed, which is why this is optional. But it's nice to be thanked, and it's great for us to know about the good things people are doing. So please take a moment to send us a note!
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