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Bedtime Stories

Write a story about your childhood to read to you grandchildren or nieces and nephews. Share an experience from your childhood. Retell a story your parents shared with you. It’s a chance to share some family history with the next generation.

  • What do you remember about your first day in school?
  • How did your family come to live in this state/city/house?
  • What was your first plane fight like?
  • What experiences did you have at summer camps?
  • Describe your favorite toy or game growing up?

Sports I like

Participate in sports? Sports fan?  Here are a couple ways to start your next life story. Tell us why you like the sport and some of your favorite memories.

  • The sports I really like to play include . . .
  • The sports I really like to watch are . . .
  • The sport I wish I’d learn to play . . .
  • Sports my kids play . . .
  • Sports I’ve taught my kids or grandkids . . .

Cast Iron Frying Pan

Look around your house and choose an item that has been with you for a long time. Write a story from the object’s perspective.

The Washington Post published some examples of writing stories based on a cast iron frying pan that had been part of the family.

Protests & Public Service

Think back over your life and the things that mattered to you enough that you supported the cause.

  • Have you ever joined a protest march? Did you protest the Vietnam war? Against police violence such as the March on Washington, Rodney King protests or Black Lives Matter?
  • Have you participated in events to raise funds for causes, for example, the Ice Bucket Challenge, March of Dimes, Race for the Cure, Big Brothers?
  • Did you ever volunteer for the Peace Core, American Red Cross, a local food pantry or a volunteer fire department? Lead a Girl or Boy Scout Troop or Camp Fire USA group?
  • What rewards did you find in the work? Would you do it again? Recommend serving as a volunteer to others?
  • Have you been active in political party activities? Have you gone door to door for a candidate or collected signatures for a recall election? Attended a convention?
  • Did you ever serve in an elected office? A city counsel or assembly, a school or hospital board? Was it rewarding or frustrating? What is something you accomplished or failed to accomplish when in an elected position.?

Let Down

Remember a time when someone you trusted let you down.

It could be a minor occasion such as forgetting to pick you up at the airport or an emotionally damaging event when someone you counted on did not stand up for you.

How did you process and recover from the event?

Did your relationship survive? If so, how did you both repair it?

Technology Changes

Pick a technology that’s changed in your lifetime:

  • Telephone service and devices
  • Texting
  • Email
  • Internet
  • Electronics
  • Digital Cameras
  • Transportation

Did you see the change coming?

What difference has the change made for you?

Do you miss the old technology?

School Year Memories

Think back to your school years. Remember your teachers and coaches. What organizations and school activities were you involved with. Here are some questions that may suggest story ideas.

  • Who was your favorite teacher in grade school, high school or college? Why? What did you learn from them, just the subject at hand or another life lesson?
  • Did you ever get sent to the principal? Remember any of the other school staff: the lunchroom lady? the janitor?
  • Do you remember grade school or high school graduations?
  • Were you in band or in a singing group?
  • Do you still have your school yearbooks? Take a look though them for reminders of old friends. Sometimes reading the notes with signatures at the back will spark a long lost memory.
  • What sports did you participate in? Who was coaching: a teacher or another kid’s dad? Did you just learn the rules of the game or did they encourage you to learn sportsmanship and team participation as well?
  • Did you join an after-school group, a sorority or fraternity? What were some of the group activities? Have you kept in touch with the friends you made in those groups?

First Job

Think back to your first “real” job.

  • What was your first real job?
  • What do you remember about it?
  • What were you paid?
  • Did it seem like a lot of money at the time?
  • Did you save your earnings? were you saving for a special thing you wanted to buy? What was it?
  • Or id you spend your earnings right away? What did you purchase?
  • What was the best and worst thing you remember about working when you were young?

Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus

Did you ever hide your baby teeth under the pillow for the Tooth Fairy or write to Santa Claus at the North Pole?

Do you remember when you learned that Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy were not real people? Or learned that they were really your parents or caregiver? How did you feel when you learned this?

Did you keep the secret from the younger kids in the family?

What were some of the presents that Santa Claus brought you? What was your favorite present of all?

Weather or Acts of God

There are times when something unexpected happens and changes our plans. Think of times in your life when you had all your plans made for a trip or activity and something out of your control occurred that changed everything.

  • Do you remember a time with a weather event changed your plans? A sudden wind storm, heavy rains, hurricane, tornado, flooding. What was the event and how did you contend with it? Did you reschedule? What did you do instead?
  • Was your flight cancelled or did you miss a connection? Where were you going? What did you experience while you were missing out on the planned event.
  • Were you involved in a car accident? Fall and break a leg?

How to get ideas?

“I can’t think what to write about.” “Where do ideas for stories come from?” These are statements you hear often in writing class.

The Twilight Zone is one of my favorite shows. Rod Sterling’s comments about each show always added to my enjoyment of them. Here is a YouTube video of an interview with Sterling discussing writing with college students. He answers the question “Where do ideas come from?

Obits & More

  • Write your ethical will. What life learnings, personal philosophies, mottos, and core values do you want to leave as legacy to your descendants? How did you learn these lessons or acquire these philosophies? Read about the history of ethical wills on Wikipedia.
  • How exactly do you want to be remembered by friends and family? What have you accomplished that you’re most proud of, and how does it affect your legacy? What do wish you had done differently and does thinking of that bring thoughts of advice for others?
  • Write your own obituary. Obituaries usually follow standard formats. An online search for “how to write an obituary” will bring up hundreds of tips and samples.

Small Things Matter

Many times we write about the big things that happened in our lives. The small things we do everyday are part of who we are. Think about some of the things that you did during the pandemic year. With the lock-down orders and limited or no travel, you may be thinking that nothing “big” happened. What were some of the small things that made up the year?

  • Tell us about something that you accomplished in 2020-2021. How did you do it/ Did you plan to do it or was it spontaneous?
  • Did you form a new habit? Take up a new hobby?
  • Many stories have been in the newspapers about folks who started feeding and watching birds. Were you a bird watcher before the pandemic or did you start during the last year? What drew you to it?
  • Did you take up a handcraft hobby like sewing, kitting or crochet? Was it new to you or something you did years ago and you took it up again. What are some of the things you made?
  • Have you been reading more? What books? Which are your favorites you’ve read recently?
  • Did you walk or bike more? Or some other outdoor activity?
  • Did you adopt a cat, dog or other pet?

Winning or Losing

Sports, games, contests: these are all opportunities for winning and losing. We can learn lesson from both as we grow up and attend school and other activities. What are your memories that involve winning or losing?

  • Ever won a contest, drawing or a prize. Share your story of wining.
  • Write about how you overcame your disappointment at losing a game or contest.
  • Do you remember being coached not to be a “poor” or “sore” loser?
  • What advice that you received meant the most to you?
  • How would you advise a young person to overcome losing an important event?

Your Words Are Worthy

Here’s some good advice from Robin Finn. an author, essayist, and coach. Her debut novel, “Restless in L.A.” (February 2017, Inkspell) was named a Best New Novel of 2017 by Babble.com.

“As a Mom and a Writer, I’m Here to Tell You that Your Words Are Worthy. You are not too small or too busy or too late or too old or too overwhelmed to write. Your words are worthy. Anything else is a lie.” ~ Robin Finn in Feb. 23, 2021 Thrive Global.

Read the entire article here for writing and story sharing tips.

Traveling Stories

Travel can always be a source for stories about your life. We tend to remember trips more distinctly that everyday life. Here’s some prompts for writing about trips.

  • Do you remember the first time you took a long trip with your parents? What are your memories of traveling away from home when you were young?
  • Did you visit zoos or museums on school trips?
  • What was it like the first time you traveled away from home for the first time?
  • Have you traveled to foreign countries? What were some of your experiences along the way? Problems communicating? What were some of the sights you visited? What was most interesting to you about how people in other countries live.
  • Write about a visit to an amusement park, Disneyland, Six Flags Parks. Was there a carousel in a park near you that you enjoyed as a child? Or took your children to visit?

 

Creative Expression

Write about creative activities you enjoy such as instruments you learned to play. Did you sing in choir or chorus? What about craft activities such as woodworking, sewing, cooking, hand crafts. Or perhaps drawing or photography.

Tell about:

  • Who taught you the skills?
  • Have you passed these skills on to your children, nieces and nephews or others in the younger generation?
  • Share some photos of your crafts.
  • Are you using some of the crafts you learned now. Perhaps sewing your own clothes, building bird houses?
  • Did something you learned when you were young lead to your life’s work?

Parents and Family Elders

Here’s a prompt for writing about your parents, aunts and uncles, or other family elders.

This prompt is an opportunity to provide advice to the next generation in the form of a story. Writing about life and family situations that you experienced  is a way you can weave advice into a story so it is not consciously recognized as advice.

  • Think of something your mother or father said regularly. Did one or both of them have short sayings or proverbs you heard them repeat? “Pick ’em up and put ’em down” was my father’s way of saying “Keep going and finish the project.”
  • Tell us some of the sayings in your family and what the sayings meant to you.
  • Does the saying come to your mind occasionally?
  • Have you said it yourself?
  • Have others around you started saying it?