In Your Life As Story, autobiography expert Tristine Rainer explains how we can all find the important messages in our lives. Like Mary Karr or Frank McCourt, we can shape those stories into dramatic narratives that are compelling to others. Blending literary scholarship with practical coaching, Rainer shares her remarkable techniques for finding the essentials of story structure within your life's scattered experiences. Most important, she explains how to treasure the struggles in your past and discover the meaning within those experiences to capture the unique myth at work in your life.

1. The Story Only You Can Tell2. The Evolution of a New Autobiography3. What Is a Story?4. A Story Depends on How You Slice It5. The Nine Essential Elements of Story Structure6. Genres of the Self7. Tricks Memory Plays on You and Tricks You Can Play on It8. Finding Your Voice9. Portraying Yourself: You Are Your Hero10. Portraying Others: Casting Your Story from Life11. Truth in Autobiographic Writing12. How to Write What You Dare Not Say13. Dealing with Your Dark Side14. Writing the Body15. Theme: String for Your Pearls16. Scenepearls17. Anatomy of a Scene: Description, Inner Responses, Dialog, and Structure18. Jumping and Leaping through Time19. Humor20. Dressing Up before Going Out21. Emotional, Legal, and Ethical Concerns22. Finishing the Unfinished StoryAppendices:1. Forming or Finding a Memoir Group2. Selling Your Story for Fame and Fortune and Other Good AlternativesBibliography of Autobiographic Works and Critical Works on Memoir Cited in the TextIndex